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GARVEY LIVES! MOSIAH LIVES!
One of the key triumphs of the Garvey Movement was its capacity to mobilise Afrikan people around an economic vision in ways that have not been achieved since. A mere five years after the UNIA-ACL was founded in Jamaica in July 1914, the organisation was able to capitalise the Black Star Line at a maximum of $500,000. (1) Three months later in September 1919, the company bought its first ship, the SS Yarmouth (to be renamed the SS Frederick Douglas) for $165,000. If we use the economic power measurement as a means of determining todays equivalent it would amount to $37,400,000. (2)
Similarly, by mid-1921 the company raised another $250,000 (equivalent to $60,400,000 today) to secure a ship to take workmen and materials to Liberia. (3) in addition to this fundraising $200,000 ($40,200,000) was raised for extra Black Star Line vessels (4) as well as $50,000 ($10,200,000) for industrial equipment for Liberia. (5)
This modern day equivalent of $148,00,000 doesn’t take into account the income generated by the UNIA’s Negro Factories Corporation that employed hundreds in Harlem alone, or numerous other enterprises. (6)
No organization since has come close to amassing the economic leverage of the UNIA-ACL in spite of a plethora of well thought out proposals, programmes and plans and in spite of Afrikans generating multi-trillion dollar and multi-billion pound economies in the USA and UK respectively. Clearly, no organization has accrued the mass membership of the Garvey Movement, which was its foundation. Key to this was manner in the organization was structured. Mama Ruth Smith, former assistant to UNIA-ACL International Madame DeMena, speaking to author Jeannette Smith-Irvin in 1987, recalled:
“All my social activities were in the UNIA – my life my ideas revolved around the organization. I still feel strongly about it and even today my social life still revolves around the UNIA.” (7)
This suggests that basis for economic power could lie not in finance but in the interpersonal relationships that underpin this. Looking at the etymological root of the word economics Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka highlights that eco means house, while nomo means management. Thus economics is:
“Household management, household organization, household control. How a people control, manage the resources for the security and development of their own family or their own household or their own community… No Afrikan economy without Afrikan peoplehood, no Afrikan economy without Afrikan culture… it’s an organized system. For you to have that system, the organized people have to be in place.” (8)
One attempt to put these elements in place is the USA based Us Lifting Us Economic Development Cooperative (ULU), whose primary objective is to:
“Put in place successful business models that give us the capacity to gain significant control of the economics of our communities and nations, and to help free us from the current state of economic domination and exploitation by multiple forces in the world.” (9)
ULU have advanced a 10 Point Appeal and Plan For The New Black Economy (http://media.wix.com/ugd/abf0d9_a7326989f2f844c1bce8e48070b09a95.pdf) as a means to meetings its objectives.
ULU also “takes the strong position that significant economic advancement is impossible with traditional entrepreneurship and business ownership alone. Radically different approaches are required. The ULU Cooperative Economic Empowerment Plan adds the otherwise missing and vitally necessary element.” (10)
ULU plans to generate a $50 billion economy and asserts that the time to collectivize our resources is now: The ULU strategy includes a Credit Union, an initiative also in the programme of the interim National Afrikan People’s Parliament (iNAPP):
“Millions of our people sincerely desire a stronger and more vibrant economic foundation for our communities. And there is widespread frustration with our failure to make better use of the large sums of economic resources that flow through our collective fingers. If you count yourself among these numbers, join with ULU and help to build the machinery of real and lasting economic power for our people. We need you.” (11)
(1) (2000) People & Events: The Black Star Line. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/garvey/peopleevents/e_blackstar.html(2) “Economic Power measures an amount of income or wealth relative to the total output of the economy. When compared to other incomes or wealth, it shows the relative “influence” of the owner of this income or wealth has in controlling the composition or total-amount of production in the economy. This measure uses the share of GDP.” MeasuringWorth.com (2016) Glossary of Terms. https://www.measuringworth.com/glossary/index.php(3) Morgan, Anthony (2012) Marcus Garvey’s U.N.I.A. in Liberia. http://hpsol-liberia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/marcus-garveys-unia-in-liberia.html#!/2012/12/marcus-garveys-unia-in-liberia.html(4) (2000) People & Events. Op.cit.(5) Martin, Tony (1976) Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. The Majority Press. p. 24(6) Robertson, Stephen (26/04/2011) The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Harlem. https://digitalharlemblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/unia-harlem/(7) Smith-Irvin, Jeannette (1989) Marcus Garvey’s Foot Soldiers of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Africa World Press. p. 59-60.(8) Mbandaka, Bro. Ldr. (1995) Black Economics. Family Forum Message, Soul Force Promotions.(9) http://www.usliftingus.com/#!ulu-homepage/mainPage(10) Ibid.(11) Ibid.
So tonight we ask the question:
What do we need to do to attain economic power?
1. How was the UNIA-ACL able to generate such massive amounts of money?
2. Do we need a mass organization to have any chance of attaining economic power?
3. Are peoplehood and culture really central to economic empowerment?
4. Why can’t “traditional entrepreneurship and business ownership alone” deliver economic power?
5. How are iNAPP’s credit union plans progressing?
Our very special guests:
Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and UNIA-ACL Ambassador for the UK and national co-Chair of the interim National Afrikan People’s Parliament. Bro. Ldr is a veteran activist of over 30 years standing, a featured columnist in The Whirlwind newspaper and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An Africentric Guide To Excellence.
Us Lifting Us (ULU): is an Economic Development Cooperative based in Atlanta, USA. ULU represents the leading edge of a new and exciting movement to integrate large-scale cooperatively owned business enterprises into the economic landscape of Black communities. This strategic innovation is vitally necessary and has proven to be effective in other communities globally.
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