https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/3772772-its-time-to-tell-the-story-of-black-success-not-black-victimhood/
EXCERPTS
“Garvey’s vision provided hope for poverty-stricken Black communities all over America — and the world. Hope that they could help themselves, that they could respect themselves. And his hope has been vindicated.It’s time to tell the story of Black victory, not Black victimhood. It’s time to build a future where Black Americans have the independence, optimism and pride Garvey saw for them: A future of thriving Black enterprise.”
….among those who do remember Marcus Garvey, too few know his real legacy. To some, he was a “Black Moses” who tried and ultimately failed to initiate a radical “back-to-Africa” movement that would unite all Black people under one government. To others, he was a prophet who foretold the victory of anti-colonialist movements throughout Africa and the diaspora.
But Garvey’s true significance for America today is as one of the first and most successful champions of Black self-determination, exhorting Black Americans to become agents of their own uplift. He was the first leader to reach and motivate masses of low-income Black men and women with a vision of independence, pride and enterprise.
The story of his rise and ultimate betrayal by the civil rights establishment is one of the greatest and most tragic in our history. Garvey could be biting in his criticism of groups such as the NAACP, which had more political clout but far fewer rank-and-file members than UNIA. In response, leaders including A. Philip Randolph and W.E.B. DuBois denounced Garvey as a demagogue. Their “Garvey Must Go!” movement, along with the efforts of a hostile young Justice Department investigator named J. Edgar Hoover, effectively ended Garvey’s public career. He was convicted on trumped-up mail fraud charges and deported as an undesirable alien.
We’re living with the results of the “white guilt” model. Black America has gone from the self-determination of the Garvey era to self-extermination of the present; our communities are wracked by senseless violence and deprived of real, community-based solutions in favor of federal-level programs. Black schools, which a century ago were capable of outperforming their white counterparts in major cities such as New York and Washington, now struggle to educate at all. Systemic racism is not the cause of this crisis in low-income, predominantly Black neighborhoods, but rather, systemic betrayal by those governing officials who look like, but don’t look out for, those they serve.
