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The Moral Anthropology of Marcus GarveyIn the

Fullness of Ourselves

Article in Journal of Black Studies · November 2008

DOI: 10.1177/0021934708317360

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Maulana Karenga
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 Journal of Black Studies
Volume XX Number X
Month XXXX xx-xx
© 2008 Sage Publications
The Moral Anthropology 10.1177/0021934708317360
http://jbs.sagepub.com
of Marcus Garvey hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com

In the Fullness of Ourselves

Maulana Karenga
California State University, Long Beach

This article retrieves and articulates key elements in Marcus Garvey’s philosophy
that point toward a moral anthropology. The author discusses these in the
context of ancient and modern concerns for issues of human dignity and human
rights and the right and responsibility of the struggle for freedom as a particular
African and universal human project. This article is also part of the author’s
ongoing effort to expand ethical discourse and discussion in Africana studies by
critically engaging new subjects and sources of ethical thought beyond the
Judeo-Christian tradition, especially the classical African ethics of ancient
Egypt (the Maatian tradition) and ancient Yorubaland (the Ifa tradition). Finally,
the article is conceived as a way of putting the author’s Kawaida philosophy in
renewed conversation with Garvey’s philosophy, from which it borrows and on
which it builds, in search of new links and lessons to expand and enrich the
Kawaida philosophical and practical initiative.

Keywords: moral anthropology; redemption; Kawaida; Afrocentric; ethics;

philosophy; liberation

I. Introduction

This is part of an ongoing Kawaida project of recovering and exploring

historical and current African texts as a way of dialoging with African cul-
ture, asking it questions, and seeking answers from it to the fundamental
issues of humankind. Moreover, its thrust is to discover and develop con-
ceptual resources that aid in expanding and deepening the Afrocentric ini-
tiative to understand self, society, and the world, in particular African ways,
and similarly and effectively address modern moral and social issues
(Asante, 1998; Karenga, 1997). My intention is to retrieve and articulate
key elements in the philosophy of Marcus Garvey that point toward a moral
anthropology, that is, concepts of human beings that include assumptions
about their nature, purpose, obligations, and destiny. In the process, I discuss

1
2 Journal of Black Studies

these in the context of ancient and modern concerns for issues of human
dignity and human rights and the right and responsibility of the struggle for
freedom as a particular African and universal human project.
Moreover, this article is also a part of my ongoing effort to expand eth-
ical discourse and discussion in the discipline of Africana Studies by criti-
cally engaging new subjects and sources of ethical thought beyond the
Judeo-Christian tradition, especially the classical African ethics of ancient
Egypt, that is, the Maatian tradition (Karenga, 2006a) and of ancient
Yorubaland, that is, the Ifa tradition (Karenga, 1999). Also in this article, I
continue initiatives to understand and engage varied forms of Black social
thought and various Black social thinkers, such as Marcus Garvey, Fannie
Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, Mary McLeod Bethune, and others, as important
sources of ethical insight and to employ these insights to address moral and
social issues (Karenga, 2008). In addition, this article is conceived as a way
of putting my philosophy Kawaida in a renewed conversation with
Garvey’s philosophy, from which it borrows and on which it builds, in
search of new links and lessons in a continuous effort to expand and enrich
the Kawaida philosophical and practical initiative. Finally, my aim is also
to bring Garvey’s anthropology and ethics in conversation with both classi-
cal and modern African ethical thought, Continental and Diasporan. For
Kawaida, as it defines itself, is “an ongoing synthesis of the best of African
thought and practice in constant exchange with the world” (Karenga, 1997,
p. 21). And it is these ethical texts in which Kawaida is self-consciously
grounded and out of which it grows and continues to develop.
To pursue this project, I focus on Garvey’s (1967) early two-volume
work, Philosophy and Opinions, as edited by his coworker and wife Amy
Jacques Garvey, although I also recognize his subsequently published
works as important resources, most notably his More Philosophy and
Opinions (1977) by Amy Jacques Garvey and E. U. Essien-Udom and the
multivolume work on Garvey and his organization, the Universal Negro
Improvement Association (UNIA), edited by Robert Hill (1983-2006, 7
vols.). Moreover, although these works clearly add to variations and devel-
opment in Garvey’s thinking according to time and context, the core of his
conceptual initiatives is found in this original volume, which is varied and
wide ranging and the foundation on which his philosophy as a whole is
based and developed.
It is important to note here that when we talk of Marcus Garvey’s phi-
losophy, we are not talking about a critically constructed and coherent sys-
tem of thought. Rather, we refer here to his worldview that is not always
critical or coherent or even always African centered but is unapologetically
 Karenga / Moral Anthropology of Marcus Garvey 3

and unalterably African focused and African committed. This is the mean-
ing of his assertion that he cannot be convinced or converted away from his
beliefs that are founded in the racial experience of being criminalized as a
people and that he is unalterably committed to reversing that process and
making being African a virtue or excellence in the world. Thus, he says,

No man can convince me contrary to my belief, because my belief is founded

upon a hard and horrible experience, not a personal experience, but a racial
experience. The world has made being Black a crime, and I have felt it in
common with men who suffer like me and instead of making it a crime, I
hope to make it a virtue. (quoted in Martin, 1976, p. 23)

Again, then, there can be no doubt that he is African focused and African com-
mitted and that his life’s work is, as he defined it, dedicated to the redemption
of Africa and African people in the most expansive sense of the word.
In addition to his clear and high-level commitment to African redemp-
tion, Garvey is the father of modern Black Nationalism, a productive writer,
and a constant lecturer who focuses intensively on the well-being and flour-
ishing of African people and humankind and who led the largest movement
of African peoples in history. Thus, his writings contain a wealth of essays,
observations, remarks, and lectures produced over time that provide a rich
resource of ideas from which to extract and articulate his moral anthropol-
ogy. Given the nature of his work, he of necessity engages in an ongoing
historical conversation as old as philosophy or deep thinking itself, reach-
ing from ancient Egypt to modern times (Asante, 2000; Gordon & Gordon,
2006; Harris, 2000; Karenga, 2006a, 2006b).
Garvey, like the early nationalist activist intellectuals before him, is con-
cerned with issues of human nature, purpose, destiny, obligations, and dig-
nity and the ethical and spiritual measure and meaning of the human person
in the world. And like them, his philosophy and opinions contain important
insights as well as similar contradictory contentions. This situation rises as
a general intellectual vulnerability to error and contradiction in both philo-
sophical and ordinary human reasoning. But it is also derived from the
eclectic nature of unsystematic philosophy that borrows from various
sources without integrating the borrowed concepts into a coherent system
of thought. Garvey’s philosophy, like many other philosophies created in
the midst of activism rather than a focused and sustained philosophical pur-
suit, is highly eclectic and thus runs the constant risk of contradictory
assumptions and assertions. But this does not negate the insightfulness and
enduring relevance of his thought on essential points or as a whole.
4 Journal of Black Studies

Moreover, in spite of the varied and sometimes contradictory sources

and assertions of Garvey’s thought, I try to reread and refigure his con-
tentions, extracting liberational and Afrocentric elements in order to syn-
thesize and bring forth his best thought. And I try to do this without
violating the integrity of his vision or missing or misinterpreting his most
useful and insightful ethical ideas. My intention is to develop a critical con-
versation around his ethical thought on moral anthropology and demon-
strate its continuing relevance in addressing critical enduring and current
issues of our time. In doing this, I extensively quote from his texts, not only
to establish a basis and boundaries for presenting a faithful rendering of his
thought but also to provide others with an opportunity to offer alternative
interpretations of his texts, if they are so inclined.

II. Context

The moral anthropology of Marcus Garvey, a central element in his gen-

eral philosophy, is rooted in and rises out of four main sources. First, it has
roots in the liberational form of Black Christianity reflected in the writings
of 19th century nationalists who advocated a socially conscious religion
and sustained action to uplift, liberate, and “vindicate the race,” that is,
African people. These activist-intellectuals include David Walker (1830),
Maria Stewart (1835), Martin Delaney (1852/1968), Bishop Henry McNeil
Turner (1971) and others (Bracey, Meier, & Rudwick, 1970; Brotz, 1966).
The modalities of struggle for these leaders and thinkers were varied and
wide ranging, but at the heart of their project was the concept of the judi-
cious joining of the concepts and practices of spiritual salvation, moral
grounding, and political liberation. This was expressed as either redemption
in its socioreligious form or vindication in the form of political liberation
and cultural achievement in defense and development of the race. Garvey
enters, then, into a nationalist and race-conscious conversation already
established. He embraces the concept and project of redemption as epito-
mized in the ultimate goal of a free, redeemed, and powerful Africa in its
respected and proper place among the nations of the world. His battle cry
is “wake up Ethiopia. Wake up Africa. Let us work towards one glorious
end of a free and redeemed and mighty nation. Let Africa be a bright star
among the constellations of nations” (Garvey, 1967, Vol. 1, p. 4).
Garvey’s anthropology, then, evolves in a context of his overarching pro-
ject of the redemption of Africa. For him, to redeem Africa is to redeem both
the continent and the world African community. The concept of redemption
here is polysemic, but means essentially to reclaim, recover, set free, restore,
 Karenga / Moral Anthropology of Marcus Garvey 5

and justify. And he places great emphasis on the agency of all Africans and
on their obligation to free themselves, recover and reclaim their Divine iden-
tity and ancient heritage, realize their inherent potential as world makers, and
vindicate and liberate Africa among the nations of the world.
Second, Garvey’s philosophy and anthropology are shaped by the dom-
inant thought in the context in which he asserts himself, that is, a European-
dominated world. His philosophy and anthropology are on the whole in
opposition to European domination, but he is influenced by the power they
wield and the social Darwinist justifications they use to explain and justify
it. Although he does not accept its most racist assertions and argues human
equality, some of his criticism of African people’s status as oppressed
people reflects and uses language and concepts of social Darwinism, that is,
concepts of survival of the fittest and related amoral interpretations of the
roots and reasons of conquest and domination (Garvey, 1967, Vol. 1, pp. 11,
29; Garvey, 1967, Vol. 2, p. 13).
Perhaps the foremost authority on Garvey, Tony Martin (1976), reasons
that it is Garvey’s stress on self-reliance that “led him to occasionally speak
in the language of Social Darwinism” (p. 32). But there is a species of rea-
soning in Garvey’s thought that reflects his integration of some of social
Darwinism’s basic contentions in his philosophy. Although Garvey quali-
fies and gives his own interpretation to each of these, it is clear that he lives
in an age of colonialism and imperialism and he necessarily seeks a place
of power and respect for Africans, Black people, in this process in the inter-
est of defense and development as other peoples of the world. He also ques-
tions the reasons for the Europeans’ hegemony in the world, attributes it to
power, organization, knowledge, and propaganda, and decides Africans
must deal with each of these in turn to liberate and raise themselves up in
the world. And it is in his discussions of the reasons for European domi-
nance that he makes his most problematic and contradictory statements.
Garvey’s anthropology and indeed his entire thought are also shaped by
his own particular experience and reading of the concrete conditions and
pan-African possibilities within the framework of these conditions. He had,
he notes, traveled extensively and found Black people routinely exploited
and oppressed, and yet he had seen in them the possibility of not only lib-
erating themselves but also making a significant contribution to the trans-
formation of the world for human good. Thus, his anthropology informs
and inspires such practice. It is in the context of his critique of the self-
deceptive, self-destructive, hegemonic, and unjust character of European
civilization that he asserts that Africans are called up to pose an alternative
model in the interest of human freedom and flourishing.
6 Journal of Black Studies

In this regard, he says Africans are “called upon to evolve a new national
ideal, based on freedom, human liberty and true democracy” (1967, Vol. 1,
p. 25). This, of course, follows the constant challenge of Black nationalist
thinkers and thought from Stewart and Delaney to Kawaida and Us
(Karenga, 1997) and other Black nationalist thinkers of the 1960s as well
as Frantz Fanon (1968) and Malcolm X (1965a, 1965b), from whom they
borrowed heavily along with Garvey. The essential contention that is con-
sistently within Black progressive thought, nationalist and otherwise, and
which appears even in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s (1958, p. 63) thought is that
given the history of struggle, achievement, suffering, profound spirituality,
and ethical sensitivity of African people, they have a special message and
model for the world, a new paradigm of how humans ought to relate and
assert themselves in the world.
Finally, Garvey’s moral anthropology is informed and shaped by his active
struggle to pursue and realize the possibilities inherent in an awakened, orga-
nized, and self-determining people. His conception of African possibilities is
expansive and rooted in the concept of Divine endowment of humans, human
equality, and the assumption that “there is nothing in the world common to
man that man cannot do” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 1). Thus, in discussing the ques-
tion of the liberation of Africa from White domination, he asks “How dare
anyone tell us Africa cannot be redeemed” when there are so many African
“men and women with blood coursing through their veins?” Furthermore, he
defiantly asserts that no one should view Whites as invincible or deities of
some kind. Indeed, he says, “The power that holds Africa is not Divine. The
power that holds Africa is human and it is recognized that whatsoever man
has done, man can do” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 6). Clearly, his optimistic assessment
is based not only on his theoretical reasoning but also on his initial success
and the world-embracing reach of his message. Indeed, his stress on human
agency, human equality, and the responsibility of all Africans to aid in the lib-
eration and uplift of Africa made for a powerful message to his followers
around the world and found a friendly ear even sometimes among his oppo-
nents (Lewis, 1988; Martin, 1976).

III. The Moral Anthropology

To talk of the moral anthropology of Marcus Garvey, then, is not to raise

the question of what is the human person as an ontological issue in the pro-
fessional philosophical sense, for that would be an abstract and unfruitful
question for him. Garvey’s essential interest in not simply in humans as
 Karenga / Moral Anthropology of Marcus Garvey 7

humans but in humans as beings embedded in the world, especially Africans.

He is interested in the reality and determinants of their existence as world-
embedded beings, oppressed, inadequately aware of their Divine identity
and thus their internal potential and political possibilities and, in a Kawaida
sense, in urgent need of a process and practice to make themselves self-con-
scious and willing agents of their own life and liberation. In a word, Garvey
is interested in their redemption in a holistic sense of human well-being,
wholeness, and flourishing in a context of freedom and self-determination
which grounds, favors, and fosters this. Thus, his anthropological con-
tentions privilege the ethical over the ontological, the concrete over the
abstract, being in action over simply being, and actual life on earth over
focus on the afterlife. And it is this recognition of the embeddedness of
humans in the world that defines and drives his moral anthropology and his
political project of liberation or redemption.
Garveyian moral anthropology takes as its fundamental point of depar-
ture the Christian biblical narrative of creation and the Divine endowment
given humans in this narrative. For Garvey, humans are Divinely endowed
with two basic characteristics that define not only who they are but also
their purpose and possibilities in the world. These two basic endowments
are the creation of humans in the image of God and the appointment of
humans as the lords of creation.

A. Image of the Divine

In Garvey’s ethical understanding, God is the ground of all reality and
thus the transcendent anchorage for his moral anthropology. It is his con-
tention, then, that humans are created in the image of God, that there is no
inferior person or race, and that all humans are equal. Thus, he says, “That
God we love, that God we worship and adore has created man in his own
image, equal in every respect, wheresoever he may be” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 68)
and regardless of whether he is Black, Red, Yellow or White. As a good and
merciful God, Garvey argues, “He would not in his Great love create a
superior race or an inferior one.” This ethical commitment to human equal-
ity is not only racial equality but also intraracial equality and by extension
class equality. Thus, Garvey, speaking to the question of an African aris-
tocracy, says, “Africa shall develop an aristocracy of its own, but it shall be
based on service and loyalty to the race” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 53).
Furthermore, having been created in the image of God, humans are not
only equal but also “have the same common rights.” And with these equal
rights and equal status and potential, Garvey contends, there is an ethical
8 Journal of Black Studies

obligation to defend and exercise these rights and act equally in the world. In
fact, he maintains that there is a Divine expectation that humans of all races
will act equally and “be the equal of other(s).” For Garvey, to act and be equal
is to be free and productive, to be “masters of your own destiny, to function
as man, as He (God) created you” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 69). Garvey contends that
“the highest compliment we can pay to our Creator . . . is that of feeling
that He has created us as His masterpiece; His perfect instruments of His own
existence, because in us is reflected the very being of God.” Indeed, “When
it is said that we are created in His own image we ourselves reflect His great-
ness.” This biblical concept of humans as containing within them a spark or
aspect of the Divine leads to the development of the concepts of dignity,
inherent worthiness, and Christian moral theology and anthropology. And
though Garvey does not use the term dignity, it is clearly conceptualized and
contained in his moral portrait of the human person.
It is important to note here that Garvey’s thick conception of the Divine
likeness and dignity of the human person has its earliest roots in ancient
Egypt. It evolves in the context of the Sebait (moral instructions) of King
Kheti for his son Merikara in the First Intermediate Period of ancient
Egyptian history, c. 2140 B.C.E. In this sacred text found in the Husia, Kheti
says of humans, “Well-cared for is the flock of God, they are in his image
and came from his body,” that is, person (Karenga, 1984, p. 52). This con-
cept is further developed and stressed in the Husia in the narrative of Djedi,
a sage who visits Pharaoh Khufu’s court and puts forth the concept of
human dignity rooted in the divinity of the human person (Karenga, 2006a,
p. 318). In this encounter, Djedi defends the sacredness of life and the
person of a nameless prisoner, identifying him on the level of the pharaoh,
that is, also a member of the “noble flock” of God and thus a human being
bearing both divinity and dignity. The word shepes, which Djedi uses to
describe humans as the “noble” images of God, translates as august, highly,
esteemed, worthy of the highest respect. It is often used to describe the
Divine and is meant to stress the Divine nature and sacredness of all human
life, regardless of social status. Its noun form, shepesu, translates aptly as
dignity as we use the term in modern moral discourse and as the Africans
of Kemet, ancient Egypt, used it also. For it spoke then and speaks now to
an inherent worthiness that is transcendent of any other value placed on
humans, equal in all humans and inalienable, that is, it cannot be taken
away by king, congress, courts, president, prime minister, or anyone.
This historical note reflects an irony of history on which Garvey would
have lectured, that is, that the people who gave the world this concept first
have had to struggle so hard and long to affirm and secure it for themselves.
 Karenga / Moral Anthropology of Marcus Garvey 9

Thus, Garvey upholds a concept with its intellectual origins in Africa, even
though it passes through Judaism and Christianity to reach him. And it
would have been interesting to witness how he would have addressed this
fact, if he had been grounded in ancient classical African culture and knew
this. For Garvey made regular reference to the glories and achievement of
classical civilization, noting that when the “White race had no civilization
of its own, when White men lived in caves and were counted as savages,
this race of ours boasted a wonderful civilization on the banks of the Nile”
(1967, Vol. 1, p. 17).
Closely linked to Garvey’s key anthropological concept of humans as the
image of God is the image of God as a reflection of the people who worship
him. In a word, even as humans are in the image of God, God likewise
expresses himself in the images of the people who worship Him. In his remarks
on “the Image of God,” he (1967, Vol. 1, p. 33-34) notes that each people has
an ideal of God as seen through their own particular perspectives or their “own
spectacles.” Thus, he says Black people have their own ideal. And

whilst our God has no color, yet it is human to see everything through one’s
own spectacles, and since White people have seen their God through their
own spectacles, we have only now started (late though it be) to see our God
through our own spectacles.

Noting the ethnic and racial character given to the universal God by Jews
and Gentiles, that is, White Christians, Garvey states that as for “the God
of Isaac and the God of Jacob let Him exist for the race that believes in
[Him].” But “we [Black people] believe in the God of Ethiopia, the ever-
lasting God—God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, the
one God of all ages.” He concludes stating that “that is the God in whom
we believe but we shall worship Him through the spectacles of Ethiopia.”
There is in Garvey’s moral theology and anthropology a reflection of
Bishop Turner’s (1971) bold assertion that “God is a Negro,” that is, Black,
in a context where God in the form of Jesus of Nazareth was unquestion-
ingly perceived, posed, and painted White. But Turner’s initiative does not
spread or have the impact Garvey’s initiative does. Garvey’s initiates a
rethinking of Christianity and its meaning for Blacks on a different level
and with a wider reach and impact (Burkett, 1978). Garvey insists on not
only a Black God but also a liberation theology and ethics and a politics
of redemption for a whole people. Thus, he anticipates and contributes to
the emergence of the liberation theology and ethics of Messenger Elijah
Muhammad (1965, 1973, 1992) and Min. Malcolm X (1965a, 1965b, 1968).
10 Journal of Black Studies

Also, Garvey’s position and discourse influenced the development of

Black nationalist Christianity from the Shrine of the Black Madonna
(Cleage, 1968, 1972) to the Rastafarians (Barrett, 1988; Morrison, 1992)
and the general stress on the Blackness of Jesus and God in the progressive
Black Christian community. This concept also finds its way in Black liber-
ation theology in the early works of James Cone (1969), who quotes the
Kawaida contention of Blackness as Africans’ ultimate reality and argues,
as in Kawaida, the importance of the color and liberational role of God in
Black people’s lives and history (Karenga, 1967, pp. 10, 34). This general
push toward a God in one’s own image and interests and humans in the
image of God has been a central aspect of progressive Black religious and
ethical thought in various forms and degrees since Africans began to
embrace Christianity. However, Marcus Garvey took it to a new level,
expanded the arc of African theological and ethical concern, and estab-
lished a foundation others after him would follow and build on in their own
particular ways. And it is Muhammad and Malcolm X who built on this
legacy and laid the basis for the evolution and emergence of Black libera-
tion theology, which sought in its early history to be an Afrocentric
approach to Christianity. For, although the Black power movement set the
ultimate social and political context for the evolution of Black liberation
theology and ethics, it was the Nation of Islam, Messenger Muhammad,
and Min. Malcolm X that for the first time problematized Black Christianity
and compelled it to justify not only its particular conception of Christianity
but also the conception and embrace of Christianity as a whole from a
Black perspective (Karenga, 2002, pp. 267-269).

B. Lords of Creation
A second defining characteristic of the human person in Garvey’s moral
anthropology is the God-given status as “lords of creation.” This designa-
tion is, for Garvey, an expanded emphasis on ethical agency, that is, the
will, capacity, and even Divine authority to act and with it the obligation to
act in creative, productive, and redemptive ways in the world. In his essay
“Dissertation on Man,” Garvey defined the human person in terms of his or
her capacity for self-formation and self-determination. He states, “Man is
the individual who is able to shape his own character, master his own will,
direct his own life and shape his own ends” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 20). This
strong sense of agency is reflected in ancient African texts and modern
nationalist thought such as Molefi Asante’s (1998) Afrocentricity, with its
stress on agency, victorious self-assertion, and initiative in the world. In his
 Karenga / Moral Anthropology of Marcus Garvey 11

seminal work introducing his theory of Afrocentricity, Asante (1988) praises

Garvey as an intellectual inspiration for his own work and describes his phi-
losophy as a “brilliant ideology of liberation in the first half of the 20th
century” (p. 12). In fact, he says, “In no nation in the world was there a philo-
sophical treatment of oppressed people any more creative than Garveyism.”
He concludes his analysis of Garvey’s thought by posing it as a contribution
and precursor to his own, saying, “His vision foreshadowed the Afrocentric
road to self-respect and dignity” (p. 12). Thus, Asante recognizes and respects
Garvey as a philosophical forerunner to his Afrocentric initiative.
Again, the metaphysical ground of this agency is in his interpretation of
the Christian creation narrative. “When God breathed into the nostrils of man
the breath of life, made him a soul, and bestowed on him the authority of
‘Lord of Creation,’” he says, “He never intended that the individual should
descend to the level of a peon, a serf, or a slave, but that he should always be
man in the fullest possession of his senses, and with the truest knowledge of
himself” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 20). He argues that humans have wrongfully
evolved into a series of classes of inequality, that is, servant and master, a sit-
uation not of Divine intention. For “God didn’t create classes, He created
MAN,” that is, humans as humans, with equal dignity, rights, and potential.
Following again Christian theology, he offers a standard anthropocentric
conception of human relations with nature, arguing that “after the creation,
and after man was given possession of the world, the Creator relinquished
all authority to his lord except that which was spiritual” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 20).
By “his lord,” Garvey is speaking of humans, as indicated above, as lord of
creation. In his remarks on “The Function of Man” (1967, Vol. 1, pp. 22-23),
Garvey reaffirmed this interpretation of man as the lord of creation, saying,
“God placed man on earth as the lord of creation. The elements—all nature
are at his command—it is for him to harness them, subdue them and use
them” as he sees fit. This, of course, is taken from the Judeo-Christian cre-
ation narrative and is articulated in the Bible, in Genesis 1:26-28, in which
humans are told to “fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the
fish of the water and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing
that moves on earth.” He concludes that the major scientific achievements
of his day, the harnessing of electricity, the steam engine, and “wireless
telegraphy,” all

reveals to us that man is the supreme lord of creation, that in man lies the
power of mastery, a mastery of self, a mastery of all things created, bowing
only to the Almighty Architect in those things that are spiritual, in those
things that are Divine. (1967, Vol. 1, p. 23)
12 Journal of Black Studies

Garvey gives further articulation of this conceptualization in remarks

titled “Divine Appointment of Earth” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 25). He makes three
points here. First, he argues the equality of all humans and the equal poten-
tial of all people to achieve similar goals and that for any race to admit that
it cannot do what others have done “is to hurl an insult at the Almighty who
created all races equal in the beginning.” The second point he makes is that
“no race has an exclusive right to the earth,” that “all of us were created
lords of creation and whether we be white, yellow, brown or black, nature
intended a place for each and everyone.” Finally, in his constant concern
with his central and overarching project of liberation and redemption,
Garvey argues that even as other peoples struggle for the protection and
preservation of their own land, Africans will likewise struggle and “shall
shed, if needs be, the last drop of their blood for the redemption of Africa
and the emancipation of the race everywhere.” For these he sees as a God-
given place and right in the world.
Here, Garvey focuses in on the sacrifice and struggle needed not only to
politically liberate the continent and African peoples but also to free them
from the fear, self-doubt, and distorted images of Black people imposed on
them and the world. It is at this point that Garvey also engages the ethical
portrait of the human person as a self-maker, not in the sense of one having
self-destructive hauteur and hubris but, as argued above, as one having a
rightful sense of status as a reflection of the Creator, capable of working out
our righteous will in the world. It is in this sense that Garvey defines us
humans as “master of our own destiny,” “a masterpiece” of the Divine, and
“perfect instruments of His own existence, because in us is reflected the
very being of God” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 69). And that being is creative, right-
eous, and rightfully reflective of and reverential toward “our Creator who
made us in the fullness of ourselves [italics added].”
As I’ve argued elsewhere, the Judeo-Christian biblical injunction in
Genesis 1:26-28 is an extremely anthropocentric approach to the world and
conflicts with an African-centered approach. In the Kemetic sacred text, the
Husia in the Book of Kheti, “humans are given the bountifulness of earth
and heaven for sustenance [also]. But unlike in the Hebrew text, they are
not told to have dominion [rada—tread on, tramp down] or subdue
[kabas—stomp down] nature” (Karenga, 2006a, p. 392). In Maatian theol-
ogy and ethics, humans are the guardians of the earth as dutiful sons and
daughters. Pharaoh Hatshepsut captures this concept of filial ethical oblig-
ation in caring for the earth and all in it, saying that she is an
 Karenga / Moral Anthropology of Marcus Garvey 13

effective image of the Lord of the Universe . . . whom he chose as guardian

of Egypt, as protector of [both] the nobles and the masses . . . whom Ra
begot so as to have a beneficial offspring on earth for the benefit of
humankind. (quoted in Karenga, 2006a, p. 393)

As I have argued, this beneficialness, effectiveness, and serviceableness

for the Lord of the Universe “is explicitly, defined as insuring the well-
being of humankind, but implicitly, the well-being of Egypt and humankind
involves and requires the well-being of nature, i.e., the whole world.” For
in Maatian and other African ethics and ontology, “humans stand in the
midst of a world in which they are a part of and in which they share an ori-
gin and common substance with all modalities of beings” (Karenga, 2006a,
p. 392). This African concept of the unity and continuity of being finds a
similar understanding in the Confucian conception of nature which con-
tains, according to neo-Confucian philosopher Wei Ming Tu (1985, p. 45),
the fundamental “idea of forming one body with the universe.” In this con-
ception, heaven and earth are mother and father and “the image of the
human that emerges here, far from being the lord of creation, is the filial
son and daughter of the universe.” Thus, Tu suggests the concept of an
“anthropocosmic” human identity in which humans have a special place,
but within a humble understanding and due attention to their interrelated-
ness with and obligations to the world. As I have argued also, this position
does not suggest or support “an animal or nature rights argument which
equates human rights with animal interests or nature’s claim on our respect”
(Karenga, 2006, p. 395; also see Menkiti, 1984). However, it does necessi-
tate “an ethics which sees a vital relationship between nature and humans
that requires the respect for both and rejects thoughtless, uncaring and irre-
sponsible behavior which threatens both life and the environment.”
Still, there is in Garvey’s ethics and anthropology a strong and rightful
attentiveness to acting righteously in the world that, if extended to our
actions toward the environment, would take the rough ideational edges off
his concepts of humans’ relationship to nature. Although the selected con-
tentions that follow are mainly in reference to the morality of persons and
peoples toward each other, they can and should be applied to nature as well.
And if Garvey lived today, it is difficult to believe he would not show ethi-
cal concern about the pollution, plunder, and depletion of the environment
of Africa and the world. In this regard for rightful and righteous assertion
in the world, he establishes the framework by defining life as purpose dri-
ven and a context for satisfaction and pleasure, that is, happiness. But he
sets limits on our action by requiring remembrance of the Divine, spiritual
obedience, and observance of moral law. Therefore, he says,
14 Journal of Black Studies

Life is that existence that is given to man to live for a purpose, to live to his
own satisfaction and pleasure, providing he forgets not the God who created
him, and who expects a spiritual obedience and observation of the moral laws
that He has inspired. (1967, Vol. 1, p. 1)

Moreover, leaving interpretative space for a rich reading of how we “pro-

tect” humanity, Garvey offers us an opportunity to argue that protecting the
environment is a form of protecting humans. For surely the destruction of the
basis of the sustenance and sustainment of humans and human life is destruc-
tive of humans and an offense to the Divine. Thus, we can read into the fol-
lowing statement such a position for our times. Garvey says,

If humanity is regarded as made up of the children of God and God loves all
humanity (we all know that), then God will be more pleased with that race
that protects all humanity than with the race that outrages the children of
God. (1967, Vol. 1, p. 61)

Garvey offers us another interpretive possibility of bringing the best of

his thought forward as a contribution to our expanded self-conception in his
ethical insistence that we stress the spiritual and thus the Divine character
of our being without forgetting our physical nature also. He says to us, “Let
us live that true life, that perfect life in ourselves as spiritual beings, not for-
getting that we are physical also” (1967, Vol. 2, p. 32). Indeed, “Man must
not fail to understand his dual personality.” He calls here for a balanced
understanding and appreciation of who we are and where we are. He puts
stress on our root self-reference as images of the Divine, but he wants us to
be consciously and rightfully appreciative of our physical embeddedness in
the world. And it is in this recognition and respect of the dual aspects of our
human identity as both spiritual and physical, Divine and natural, that lie
our obligations to both as well as to other human beings and ourselves. And
these obligations to each are not separate or isolated but interrelated and
intertwined and posit the way to ground ourselves and grow in the fullness
of ourselves. Indeed, they point us toward self-realization in our quest for
immortality. For as Garvey says, “He who lives not uprightly, dies com-
pletely in the crumbling of the physical body, but he who lives well, trans-
forms himself from that which is mortal, to immortal” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 3).

C. Self-Knowledge
Now Garvey wants to free Africa and Africans not only in the political
sense but also in the mental sense. He wants Africans to think in different,
 Karenga / Moral Anthropology of Marcus Garvey 15

expansive, and dignity-affirming ways about themselves. This, he asserts, is

not only to honor their Divine nature and historical identity of greatness but
also to create a preventive remedy and intellectual antidote against the toxic
content and context of the European-dominated world. As he states, “If the
(Black person) is not careful, he will drink in all the poison of modern civi-
lization and die from the effects of it” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 12). Also, Garvey
speaks to the destructive power of what we term today cultural hegemony
rooted in a relentless, “scientifically arranged” system of propaganda used
to control and undermine the values, will, and efforts of Africans and the
world. He notes that one of the key “methods used to control the world is the
thing known [as] and called propaganda” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 14). Indeed, “pro-
paganda has done more to defeat the good intentions of races and nations
than open warfare.” It is used “to convert others against their will” and “to
destroy our hopes, our ambitions and our confidence in self.” Thus, there is
an urgent and ongoing need to truly know oneself in the most essential and
expansive ways. Again, Garvey’s concept of self-knowledge, like that of
Muhammad and Malcolm after him, is both of a spiritual and historical
nature, and he and they stress both as necessary to deal with our Divine
nature and the history of our own self-formation in work and struggle.
Self-knowledge for Garvey is, first of all, know oneself as Divinely and
naturally free, that is, recognition by humans that they are without an
earthly master or superior, in a word, free and equal. Thus, he says, “For
man to know himself is for him to feel that for him there is no human
master” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 30). In other words, “a man has no master but
God” and “man in his authority is a sovereign lord” on and over the earth.
Garvey also advances here a concept he does not develop fully in which
self-knowledge means recognition of the fact that in addition to human’s
status as spiritually and naturally free and equal, they also have within them
unlimited potential. Thus, he says self-knowledge for Africans requires
them “to know that in them is a sovereign power, is an authority that is
absolute” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 31). Garvey uses power here in the sense of
potential and possibility. And his use of “authority” can be translated as a
God-given right and power of humans to control the earth (1967, Vol. 1,
pp. 22-23). For he says, as noted above, that after creation, God gave humans
lordship over the earth (1967, Vol. 1, p. 20).
Garvey reasons, however, that regardless of the free and equal status, inher-
ent potential and Divine authority humans have, without the will to act, these
Divine endowments are of little or no value. Thus, Garvey argues that self-
knowledge entails grasping that human will determines whether a person will
be slave to others or sovereign of himself. “If he wills to be . . . a serf or a
16 Journal of Black Studies

slave, that he shall be. If he wills to be a real man in possession of things

common to man, then he shall be his own sovereign” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 30).
He contends that if Africans recognized their status and potential and
sought to realize the awesome power within them, then within a brief
period, an African people and nation would come into being “resurrected
not from the will of others to see us rise, but from our own determination
to rise, irrespective of what the world thinks” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 31).
For Garvey, then, self-knowledge, as is argued in Kawaida, must ulti-
mately become active self-knowledge, a self-knowledge that not only
understands self but seeks to realize its inner-directed and socially pur-
poseful goals. For Garvey and Kawaida, our identity and sense of self-
worth are shaped in the process of purposeful action, action that is both
self-liberating and self-formative. To simultaneously free and form oneself
is at the heart of Garvey’s anthropology. Like all nationalist thought, knowl-
edge, especially self-knowledge, is at the center of this process. For, as
Kawaida contends, the process of self-realization is both a cognitive and
practical enterprise, a coming to consciousness and an active initiative that
reflects and advances that consciousness in concrete practice. As I have
maintained elsewhere, “self-realization here has a double meaning, that is,
to know and to produce oneself” (Karenga, 2000, p. 237). Thus, a person or
a people must know themselves to produce themselves, that is, bring them-
selves into being, in this case as a free, proud, and productive people. But
they cannot really know themselves abstracted from the efforts they make
to reclaim themselves, reconstruct themselves, restore themselves, and free
themselves in and through struggle.
This is, of necessity, a holistic project that Kawaida calls a cultural pro-
ject, an all-embracing practice on at least seven levels: religion (spirituality
and ethics), history, social organization, political organization, economic
organization, creative production (art, music, literature), and ethos, the col-
lective psychology of self-conception shaped by activity on the other six
levels. In its comprehensive and holistic character, Garvey’s project is also
a cultural project or, more precisely, a cultural nationalist project dedicated
to liberation. Martin (1976) says, his philosophy “found excellent expres-
sion in his active awareness of culture as a tool of liberation” (p. 24). This
is reflected in his own literary works, his encouragement of the arts and
advocacy of a Black aesthetics, his critique of European propaganda, dom-
ination, and attempts at cultural conversion and degradation of Africans,
and his influence on the Harlem Renaissance in the interest of African and
social consciousness.
 Karenga / Moral Anthropology of Marcus Garvey 17

Garvey also prefigures Diop’s (1991) arguments about the falsification

of African history, especially with regard to the process, as Kawaida
describes it, of removing Africans from Egypt, Egypt from Africa, and
Africa from human history (Karenga, 2002, p. 64). Like Diop, Garvey
wants Africans not only to recover the excellence and achievement in the
fields of human knowledge in their history but also to use these as para-
digms for current and future practice. The thrust, then, is not simply to
recover historical memory but to revive that history of excellence and
achievement to initiate “a return to it in the rebuilding of Africa” (1967, Vol. 1,
p. 19). Indeed, it was his hope and prediction that

a new civilization, a new culture, shall spring up from among our people, and
the Nile shall once more flow through the land of science, art, and of litera-
ture, wherein will live Black men of the highest learning and the highest
accomplishments.

Garvey’s anthropology is attentive to the development of the masses,

reflecting a moral sensitivity to the condition of the masses as a moral and
social measure for a nation or race. “The masses make the nation and the
race” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 5), he says. By this he means not only that are they the
heart and soul of the nation but also that the level of their development will
reflect the level of the nation and either inhibit or enable persons and the
people as a whole from realizing their own God-given potential and higher
aspirations. Here, he stressed education as the path to self and social devel-
opment of inherent possibilities. “Education,” he says, “is the medium by
which a people are prepared for the creation of their own particular civiliza-
tion and the advancement and glory of their own race” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 5)

IV. The Ethical Project of Liberation

Garvey’s project is self-consciously an ethical one, posing human free-

dom, more specifically African freedom, as a rightful and righteous strug-
gle, important not only for African self-formation and redemption but also
to human freedom. Therefore, he says that those of the UNIA “have
decided that we shall go forward, upward and onward toward the great goal
of human liberty” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 54). He is concerned that African self-
affirmation and struggle or freedom not be mistakenly or intentionally con-
strued as an exercise in hatred or oppression of others, but as it is a
liberational project for Africans. Thus, he says, “We are organized not to
hate other men, but to lift ourselves and to demand respect of all humanity.”
18 Journal of Black Studies

Moreover, Garvey further defines the moral character of his project, saying,

We have a program that we believe to be righteous; we believe it to be just,

and we have made up our minds to lay down ourselves on the altar of sacri-
fice for the realization of this great hope of ours based upon the foundation
of righteousness. (1967, Vol. 1, p. 54)

Continuing, Garvey reaffirms the moral necessity of the UNIA project. He

says, “We declare to the world Africa must be free, that the entire [Black]
race must be emancipated from industrial bondage, peonage and serfdom.”
Furthermore, “We make no compromise, we make no apology in this our
declaration.” Likewise, “We do not desire to create offense on the part of
other races, but we are determined that we shall be heard, that we shall be
given the rights to which we are entitled.”
Garvey (1967, Vol. 1, p. 17) sees his project as a radical one, given the
nature of the project as one of moving from oppression and subjugation to
freedom. He notes that “‘radical’ is a label that is always applied to people
who are endeavoring to get freedom.” In fact, he says, “All men who call
themselves reformers are perforce radicals. They cannot be anything else
because they are revolting against the conditions that exist.” Garvey here
loosely uses the word reform as a synonym for radical change, but he
returns to further define the reform he is talking about as “revolt” against
the established order. He continues along this line, arguing that “conditions
as they exist reveal a conservative state, and if you desire to change these
conditions, you must be a radical. I am therefore satisfied to be the same
kind of radical, if through radicalism I can free Africa.”
Garvey reminds us of the urgency and concreteness of his project as dis-
tinct from the religious approach to liberation others might take. “There is
many a leader of our race who tells us that everything is well, and that all
things will work out themselves and that a better day is coming” (1967, Vol. 1,
p. 56), he tells the people. Moreover, he continues saying,

Yes, all of us know that a better day is coming; we all know that one day we
will go home to paradise, but whilst we are hoping by our Christian virtues
to have an entry into Paradise, we also realize that we are living on earth and
that the things that are practiced in Paradise are not practiced here.

On the contrary, “We are living in a temporal material age, an age of activity,
an age of racial, national selfishness.” Thus, Africans must engage the world
as it is rather than as they would hope it to be. And they must engage the
world in its concreteness, in action, and as a self-conscious, self-asserting,
 Karenga / Moral Anthropology of Marcus Garvey 19

self-determining people. Garvey’s project is not offered as one of “national

selfishness.” On the contrary, as suggested by his repeated references to
rightness and justice of his redemptive project, he is conscious of the ethi-
cal need and imperative to avoid such a position. Indeed, he said, “I pray
God that we shall never use our physical prowess to oppress the human
race, but we shall use our strength, physically, morally and otherwise to
preserve humanity and civilization” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 1).
Moreover, Garvey argues that in planning and building the future of
African people, Africans must have as their foundation principles and qual-
ities that are life affirming and life enhancing. Thus, he says,

Let us in shaping our own Destiny set before us the qualities of human JUS-
TICE, LOVE, CHARITY, MERCY AND EQUITY. Upon such foundation
let us build a race and I feel that the God is Divine, the Almighty Creator of
the world, shall forever bless this race of ours. (1967, Vol. 1, p. 13)

If Africans do this, he suggests, they will pose a paradigm of how humans

ought to relate to each other and act in the world. And through this posing
and actual practicing of ethical principles, he asks, “Who to tell that we
shall not teach men the way to life, liberty and true happiness?”
In fact, he reaffirms that “Africa has still its lessons to teach the world. We
will teach man the way to life and peace, not by ignoring the rights of our
brother, but by giving to everyone his due” (1967, Vol. 2, p. 54). Indeed, “The
hand of justice, freedom and liberty shall be extended to all mankind.”
Moreover, he states, “Present day statesmen are making the biggest blunder
of the age, if they believe that there can be any peace without equity and jus-
tice to all mankind” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 26). For Garvey, these goods are essen-
tial to humans not only to exercise their God-given rights and potential but
also to realize themselves in and through their work in the world. Again,
Garvey’s anthropological conception here is similar to the Kawaida and clas-
sical African understanding of ancient Egypt of agency and self-formation in
the process of personal, social, and world-encompassing practice.
Garvey’s stress on the role and reality of race in the world is unavoid-
ably central to his moral anthropology. Race is used as a synonym for
people, nation, and international community. He also sees it as what Amy
Garvey (1967, Vol. 1, p. vii) calls “a grave world problem” and what W. E. B.
Du Bois (1903, p. 1) calls “the problem of the 20th century” (Hayduk,
Nuruddin, & Wallis, 2003; Karenga, 2003). In a word, it is a signifier and
system of domination by Whites over Africans and other peoples of color.
Thus, he sees race consciousness and commitment to African persons and
20 Journal of Black Studies

people and their redemption and liberation as a moral obligation for

Africans everywhere. He argues that “nationhood” or “independence of
nationality” is a “means of protecting not only the individual but [also] the
group” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 5). Moreover, it is both a context for the emanci-
patory project and a condition of gaining respect which proceeds from lib-
eration and the progress that is made as a result and reflection of this
liberation. Therefore, he says, “No [Black person], let him be American,
European, West Indian or [Continental] African shall truly be respected
until the race as a whole has emancipated itself through self achievement
and progress” (1967, Vol. 2, p. 24).
For Garvey, then, the individual person or self is called into being and flour-
ishes only in a definite community, whether national or international. Thus,
self-formation and social construction in the struggle for freedom, indepen-
dence, or self-determination evolve as a rightful self-understanding and self-
assertion in the world. In such a context, Garvey evolves a moral anthropology
that aids in the redemptive or liberational project. It is an anthropology that
has a thick conception of human agency, responsibility, and possibility, and
it speaks to an expansive concept of what it means to be African and human
in the world. In an age of imperialism, colonialism, and conquest, Africans
must prepare themselves to meet the demands of history, defense, and
development. This means, political, cultural, economic, and military prepa-
ration (1967, Vol. 1, p. 7).

A. Power and Justice

Garvey sees the world organizing and reorganizing itself in a kind of
Nietzschean “will to power” in an age of empire, colonialism, and imperial-
ism, and he asks where Africans stand in this and how Africans maintain their
sense of identity and dignity and demand respect for their lives and lands.
And he concludes that only a self-conscious, self-determining, and self-
empowering people can achieve the capacity for ongoing defense and devel-
opment. His thrust was thrust to organize and awaken the people, to empower
African people to end their oppressive circumstances, achieve liberation, and
build a secure base that satisfies their spiritual, cultural, and political mater-
ial needs. Garvey devotes a lot of thought and writing about power as a nec-
essary possession of a people. It is for him tied to an ethical interest in
self-defense and self-development as well as respect. It is a position that “a
race without authority and power is a race without respect” (1967, Vol. 2, p. 2).
Moreover, responding to what he reads as the Darwinist and Hobbesean
racial record of the colonial and imperial powers of his day, Garvey argues
that the powerful and unjust will only react to a counter power. Thus, he says,
 Karenga / Moral Anthropology of Marcus Garvey 21

Don’t be deceived; there is no justice but strength. In other words, might is

right, and if you must be heard and respected you have to accumulate nation-
ally, in Africa, those resources that will compel unjust man to think twice
before he acts. (1967, Vol. 2, p. 13)

Garvey’s assessment that “the unjust man” recognizes might as right and
will not respect or listen to the pleas or petitions or prayers of the weak dri-
ves him to stress emancipatory and defensive power and organization as a
counter to this immoral and amoral use of power. “The only protection
against injustice in man is power—physical, financial and scientific” (1967,
Vol. 1, p. 5), he argues. And justice cannot be achieved in the realpolitik
world of imperialism except through power and liberation struggle. For
Garvey, as I read him from a Kawaida standpoint, moral relations between
persons and especially between people cannot be fully established in a con-
text of inequality, where one person or groups is composed of masters and
the other of serfs or slaves. Likewise, dependency on others tends to
degrade, cultivate contempt, and foster an explicit or hidden disdain. It is
within this framework that power, in the Kawaida sense, as a capacity to
realize one’s will and defend and develop oneself is so crucial to one’s self-
concept and sense of dignity.
In addressing these issues, Garvey (1967, Vol. 1, p. 15) prefigures and
helps lay the foundation for our discussions of armed struggle in the ’60s
(Karenga, 1997, p. 78; Malcolm X, 1965a, 1965b, 1970; Williams, 1962).
But given his status in the country and the tenor of the times, he could not
without grave consequences openly argue for armed struggle. In fact, in
places, he seems to disavow it. But in other statements, he brings it in with
concepts and categories that contain support for armed struggle if the
people wish to pursue it. First, he addresses the issue of armed struggle by
making it an issue of African people’s willingness to give their lives or die
for the liberation of Africa. This position appears on its face to be morally
less problematic than the ethics of armed struggle that involves a willing-
ness to not only give one’s life but also take another life in defense of one’s
own life and the securing of one’s freedom. It is also more comforting and
less threatening to the oppressor. For it allows him to think, as Robert
Williams and Malcolm X argued, that he is immune from a comparable
response and therefore has the advantage. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1958),
however, argued the moral force of nonviolence, which he felt gave the
oppressed a moral advantage if not a physical or military one.
Garvey (1967, Vol. 1, p. 15) also addresses the question of armed struggle
by using the category “force.” He says that “the powers opposed to [Black]
22 Journal of Black Studies

progress will not be influenced in the slightest by mere verbal protests on our
part.” This is so because of two reasons. First, “They realize only too well that
protests of this kind contains nothing but the breath expended in making
them.” Second, he says the anti-Black powers “also realize that their success
in enslaving and dominating the darker portion of humanity was due solely
to the element of FORCE employed [in the majority of cases this was accom-
plished by force of arms].” Garvey allows that “pressure of course may assert
itself in other forms.” However, he continues,

In the last analysis whatever influence is brought to bear against the powers
opposed to [Black] progress must contain the element of FORCE in order to
accomplish its purpose, since it is apparent that this is the only element they
recognize.

B. Social Solidarity
Garvey’s stress on “know thyself” is always a knowing oneself in the
context of community and through community. In a word, self-understanding
requires and reflects an understanding of oneself as a member of a com-
munity. And here it is important to distinguish between simply being with
others in community and being for others. The first is a historical accident
and often a coerced condition for those who wish to escape but cannot. But
being for each other is a self-conscious choice. Garvey’s stress here is on
will and self-conscious choice and action. Thus, he says, “The hour has
now struck for the individual [Black] as well as the entire race to decide the
course that will be pursued in the interest of our own liberty” (1967, Vol. 1,
p. 54). Indeed, he states, “We must realize that upon ourselves depend our
destiny, our future and we must carve out that future, that destiny” (1967,
Vol. 1, p. 55) and that destiny must be conceived of as both personal and
collective, interrelated and interdependent. For Garvey argues that as it is
for persons, so it is with peoples. Thus, he says, “As for the individual man,
so the individual race” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 30).
For Garvey, as Kawaida contends, one’s identity is worked out and
shared with others. It is forged in the struggle for power over one’s destiny
and daily life and due respect from others, both within the community and
without it. Much of Garvey’s thought and that of other nationalists speaks
to the need of due recognition among the other peoples of the world
(Malcolm X, 1965a, 1965b). It is a concern with both nonrecognition and
misrecognition, thus with the absence of due recognition by an oppressor
or society or a false and distorted image of themselves that denies them a
sense of dignity and humanity. Here, human dignity and human rights are
 Karenga / Moral Anthropology of Marcus Garvey 23

intertwined, for the struggle to affirm one’s dignity is at the same time a strug-
gle to secure one’s rights. It involves recognition of both a similar human
status and a cultural difference that defines that particular form of human.
From a Kawaida perspective, Garvey holds that the participation in the
political struggle for African redemption is a moral duty in three senses.
First, it is a contribution to the moral imperative of a fully human person to
choose, pursue, and embrace freedom. Second, the struggle for freedom
becomes a way not only to free and build the nation but also to build one-
self, one’s character, in a word to develop an ethical self-portrait. In addi-
tion, participation in the struggle yields an expanded knowledge of self and
the world and opens the way to self-realization of our inner potential, in a
word, our coming into the fullness of ourselves. Garvey’s conception of the
human person mixes questions of personal identity with moral worthiness
within community. He is concerned with self-constitution as a communal
act, rooted in a thick concept of relations and the will to act of service to
others. He says, “The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no fur-
ther than yourself, but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will
take you even into eternity” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 2).
Garvey’s focus on will is varied, but it is heavily focused on the will to
achieve, to assert oneself in the process. He calls the will to achieve “ambi-
tion” and defines it in the following way:

Ambition is the desire to go forward and improve one’s condition. It is a

burning flame that lights up the life of the individual and makes him see him-
self in another state. To be ambitious is too be great in mind and soul. To want
that which is worthwhile and strive for it. To go on without looking back,
reaching to that which gives satisfaction. To be humanly ambitious is to take
in the world which is the province of man. (1967, Vol. 1, pp. 2-3)

It is important here to note that Garvey’s use of the word ambition carries a
favorable connotation, that is, as the drive to succeed, especially, as he says,
a strong desire for “that which is worthwhile” and the will to strive for it.

V. Conclusion

A. The Morality of Remembrance

In a speech delivered on Emancipation Day 1922 at Liberal Hall in New
York, Garvey (1967, Vol. 1, p. 59-61) articulates clearly and cogently his
sense of an inherited moral obligation to both past and future generations.
24 Journal of Black Studies

Such a dual obligation is rooted in our identity first as descendants of the

enslaved Africans who were “taken from the great continent of Africa” and
endured “under that barbarous, that brutal institution known as slavery.”
Moreover, during that Holocaust of enslavement, he states, “With their suf-
ferings, with their blood, which they shed in their death, they had a hope that
one day their posterity would be free.” And it is in this status as “the children
of their hope” that their descendants have incurred a profound and ongoing
obligation to free themselves as well as the sacred land from which they
came. For “they hoped that we as their children would be free, but they also
hoped that their country from whence they came also would be free to their
children, their grand children and great-grand-children” and future genera-
tions to come.
Moreover, Garvey states that although “this race of ours gave civiliza-
tion, . . . art, . . . science [and] literature to the world,” because of the vicis-
situdes of history, the once “occupied-high position in the world, scientifically,
artistically and commercially” of Africans has passed on to others. The
moral obligation for present-day Africans, then, is to struggle to “give back
to Africa that liberty” and restore her to “that ancient position we once
occupied when Ethiopia was in her glory.” This sense of ethical obligation
and compelling purpose is enshrined in the Fifth Principle of the Nguzo
Saba, the Seven Principles, of Kwanzaa, and of Kawaida philosophy out of
which both the Nguzo Saba and Kwanzaa were created. It is the principle,
Nia (Purpose), that is defined as an active commitment “to make our col-
lective vocation the building and developing of our nation in order to
restore our people to their traditional greatness” (Karenga, 1998, p. 59).
Garvey sums up his commitment, arguing that given the great legacy of
achievement, sacrifice, and liberational struggle of the ancestors, he can
offer no greater gift in honor of them than to continue the struggle for a
redeemed and liberated Africa. Indeed, he states,

No better gift can I give in honor of the memory of the love of my fore-
parents for me, and in gratitude of the suffering they endured that I might be
free; no grander gift can I bear to the sacred memory of the generation past
than a free and redeemed Africa—a monument for all eternity—for all times.
(1967, Vol. 1, p. 60)

Thus, he concludes,

As for me, because of the history that I know, so long as there is within me the
breath of life and the spirit of God, I shall struggle on and urge others of our race
to struggle on to see that justice is done to the Black peoples of the world.
 Karenga / Moral Anthropology of Marcus Garvey 25

And this struggle and project ultimately require a free, redeemed, and pow-
erful Africa that can demand the respect of Africans throughout the world.

B. Steadfastness
In the long, hard, and difficult struggle for African liberation and
redemption, Garvey is concerned with steadfastness or, as he defines it,
“faithfulness” in commitment to the redemption of Africa. Here, he teaches
on the constancy and continuity of morally worthy commitments and
actions that make us who we are and give us our identity, purpose, and
direction, as one says in Kawaida. Thus, he defines this steadfastness or
faithfulness to commitment and cause, saying,

It is a wholeness of belief overshadowing all suspicion, all doubt, admitting

of no question, to serve without regret or disgust, to obligate one’s self to that
which is promised and expected, to keep to our word and do our duty well.
(1967, Vol. 1, p. 3)

It is a basic Kawaida contention that we know ourselves through practice,

not by episodic engagement but by a persistent practice through which we
define ourselves, develop ourselves, and confirm ourselves. This, as Garvey
notes, requires a deep and constant commitment that produces not only a
constancy of practice but also a constancy of identity. In a word, it aids in
answering the existential question “Who am I?”
Now when Garvey talks about a “wholeness of belief without suspi-
cions, doubt or question,” I read it as his calling for a steadfastness that
maintains the integrity of one’s commitment, not as his calling for a closed
mind impervious to reason, without normal apprehensions about outcomes
or willingness to change in the light of new knowledge. What Garvey wants
to avoid here is fickleness that undermines the integrity of the commitment
to practice that provides persons with the ground of their self-identity and
ultimately self-respect. For both self-identity, how we define ourselves, and
self-respect, how we value ourselves, depend, as Garvey says, on consistent
commitment in action to that which is worthwhile and reflective of one who
is “great in mind and soul.” Again, Garvey’s anthropology is concerned
with self-constituting, self-forming activity of moral meaning and weight in
the world. Thus, he links it with being “great in mind and soul.” And finally,
he returns to a central theme cited above concerning the world-historical
role Africans can and should play in the world through their own liberation
struggle and its contribution to the overall struggle for human freedom and
flourishing.
26 Journal of Black Studies

In remarks on the “Present Day Civilization,” Garvey makes several

interrelated observations that help define his conception of the ethical
obligation of African people in the process of their self-understanding and
self-assertion in the world. Anticipating Frantz Fanon’s (1968, p. 311) con-
cept of Europe, a civilization against itself “swaying between atomic and
spiritual disintegration,” Garvey poses a similar critique and possibility of
the critical role of Africa in a massive world transformation in the interest
of humankind. He says,

We are circumvented today by environments more dangerous than those

which circumvented other peoples in any other age. We are face to face with
environments in a civilization that is highly developed, a civilization that is
competing with itself for its own destruction; a civilization that cannot last
because it has no spiritual foundation, a civilization that is vicious, crafty,
dishonest, immoral, irreligious and corrupt. (1967, Vol. 1, p. 25)

In a word, it will fall from its own internal contradictions, the weight of its
own unworthiness, as a model of human society.
In addition, Garvey tells us, “There is a heavy dose of self, . . . illusion
involved here with a sense of self-satisfaction by these global powers” and
“the masses of the human race on the other hand dissatisfied and discon-
tented” with the current “arrangement of human society” and “determined to
destroy the systems that hold up such a society and prop up such a civiliza-
tion” (1967, Vol. 1, p. 25). He predicts such a civilization will indeed fall,
and in that process and the reemerging and reconstruction that follow,
Africans are “called upon to play their part.” Indeed, he says, they are
“called upon to evolve a national ideal, based on freedom, human liberty and
true democracy.” In a word, as Kawaida poses it, it is a call to so construct
the African liberation project that it not only redeems and raises to the high-
est level African life but also contributes to the ongoing historical struggles
to expand the realms of human freedom and human flourishing in the world.
For, as noted above, Garvey’s anthropology is aimed toward an expansive
concept of ourselves as humans, who realize themselves not in the pursuit of
selfish ends that, as he says, take them no further than themselves but in
service to ends toward the common good that aids us in our coming into the
fullness of ourselves in rightful, creative, and expansive ways.

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Maulana Karenga is professor of Black studies at California State University, Long Beach.
An activist-scholar of national and international recognition, he has played a significant role
in Black intellectual and political culture since the ’60s, especially in Black studies and social
movements, and is the chair of Us and NAKO. Also, he is the creator of the pan-African cul-
tural holiday Kwanzaa and author of numerous scholarly articles and books, including
Introduction to Black Studies, Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture,
Odu Ifa: The Ethical Teachings, Maat, The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt: A Study in Classical
African Ethics, and Kawaida and Questions of Life and Struggle.

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