Garveyism

Yep.

So for me, having that understanding of Malcolm's journey, his father being a Garveyite and a follower of Marcus Garvey, him growing, developing, um, joining the Nation of Islam, but constantly seeking truth in how he advances Black people, how he addresses systemic issues, and having pride in that, being bold in that.

That took me down a path that led me to discover Fanon, um, starting to dive in and research Huey and the Panthers.

It took me down Baldwin.

Swiftly, he emerged as Black Newark's leading faith healer amidst the crowded and competitive religious market of seers, mystics, psalmists, professors, and princes who taught mystical sciences at the turn of the twentieth century.

Structurally, Drew was inspired by Garvey's Uni- Universal Negro Improvement Association, and hence he modeled the MSTA, that is again, the Moorish Science Temple of America, along Garveyite lines of ancillary units like the Moorish Manufacturing Corporation, which they made a lot of the clothing, The Moorish Guide, and the Sisters National Auxiliary.

These were like informational organizations.

And Drew linked, uh, the incipient organizations to Garvey's embedding of the popular UNIA leader with the John the Baptist trope.

But also this is all happening while New York is in the midst of things like the Harlem Renaissance, right? When the UNIA is becoming huge within the U.S.

and Garveyism is really taking over as a political movement, as you alluded to in your own family's history, great migration, all of these things, right? And so Could you sort of underscore for us the impact? Because I think one thing about this story is that you could have also done this like for a UK, like this could have been a London project, right? But sort of, but also would have worked differently, which is what I'm sort of trying to get at here, right? That like, what is the sort of particular nuance around doing a project like this in New York where these communities are forming, they're uplifting one another, but also there's so much going on in New York from like a Black liberation standpoint.

How does that sort of unfold and also like sort of help Caribbean immigrants understand themselves as Black people within the U.S. context?

So I think that's a great question.

Yeah.

And I'm a Garveyite, and-

Mm-hmm

... you know, I'm Jamaican, Marcus Garvey, and that's his whole philosophy, you know, that we have to be, um, economically independent, and a part of CIRCLE is about that economic independence, right? 'Cause we're not gonna be putting fish on people's plate, we're going to give them the tools and the skills that they need-

I think the history is interesting, but I think it has a lot of relevance today because, you know, th- Randolph kind of represents this social democratic tendency that was already vibrant, and I hope this book helps to show, like, you know, a vibrant tendency of pro-trade unionism and democratic socialist politics was already present in Black politics, and really hegemonic, I would argue, in the '30s and '40s at least.

Um, and so, you know, he kind of represented that alternative to Garvey and Garveyism.

And today, again, while we don't really have Garveyism, I think we do have this tension between, you know, democratic socialism, is it relevant to Black people, will it actually address racial inequality? And, you know, this myriad of ways of...

that identity politics shows up.

So I think, and again, ironically, I think that's more the proxy war than maybe the literal nationalists like Umar, more so because I just don't think they have as much currency in our society right now.

I, I can understand why maybe you wouldn't want to give them any light, but, um, something Pascal mentioned before that you also mention in the book, when there seems to be progress on the horizon, people abandon those kind of old ideas.

Mm-hmm.

Just like they abandoned Garveyism.

He did from the beginning to the end.

Grew up in Brooklyn in that Garveyite house.

And it sounds like what Cassandra Wilson said.

Let me pause here and say on this Labor Day weekend that TK Blue, that Chief Baba Neal Clark, that Randy Weston's band, the band that he led, and a lot of us saw him in person.

How was that? You know what, you know what? Lynn's not going to like this, but me and Lynn got on a lot.

Lynn's like a Garveyite who pretends when the cameras come on that she's not black.

Like it's funny.

It's like really hilarious.

chills and to put in perspective how important this guy was listening to his speech now and having done research on him do you think you still get guys like malcolm x and martin luther king if you take him out of the equation

no because to be real with you if you look at mark malcolm x's background like his parents were not only garveyites but proud Garveyites like his father was a proud Garveyite preacher followed that whole brain path you know so yeah like obviously Garvey was a guy who Malcolm X grew up hearing about like as far as the same thing that I'm sure Elijah Muhammad was in the Nation of Islam basically and it's just the whole thing of you know what Garvey teaches and Garvey says this and that I'm sure he was a a really mentor type figure to Malcolm X growing up.

So yeah, for a fact, I'm sure that Malcolm is familiar.

Like, obviously we know about the whirlwind speech, you know, Malcolm is familiar with it.