[Suzanne Francis-Brown and Jean-Jacques Vayssières, Marcus Garvey, Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 2007. 64p]
“Marcus Garvey is arguably the most influential black figure of the twentieth century. That influence is still powerful today”. That is how Ian Randle Publishers describe Garvey (1887-1940) who was declared Jamaica’s first National Hero in 1962. Indeed, that influence has been internationally felt and its impact was strongest in the USA, the Caribbean and Africa, as well as in England and Canada.
In one of the latest biographies of The Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey, the introductory description goes on to underline what is already well known. “His name is a legend from the Americas to Zanzibar. Garvey’s powerful message of Black pride remains as relevant today as it was almost 100 years ago. Across generations and continents, leaders like Malcolm X; Kwame Nkrumah; Jomo Kenyatta and musical icon Bob Marley readily acknowledge the influence of Garvey’s philosophy on their lives, thoughts and actions”.
This great visionary is celebrated for his founding and determined propagation of the UNIA (United Negro Improvement Associa-tion) across the USA, UK, Canada, Jamaica and a number of other Caribbean territories that he visited. The accounts of these visits, including his grand arrival in British Guiana, where he was accorded royal welcome and ceremony befitting a head of state, have passed into heroic legend. Local branches of the UNIA were established in these countries following those in Jamaica, North America and England. Garvey started his career as a teenager with the advantage of wide reading and a love of books. He started out as a printer by trade, which brought him into contact with publications and deepened his interest in both reading and the plight of the working class. His concern for the latter grew stronger after his experiences working and travelling in Costa Rica, Panama and other parts of Latin America. These led to his commitment to the power of the printed word and the liberation of the Black workers through his fledgling ventures into publishing newspapers and magazines and into trade unionism. The results included the widely acknowledged contribution of Garveyism to Black liberation and the eventual post-war civil rights in the USA, to cultural consciousness in the Caribbean and the Independence movement in Africa.
Scholarly interest in Garvey and Garveyism has been well served by publications including books by world leading authorities on the subject, Tony Martin and Rupert Lewis. Martin established The Marcus Garvey Library at The Majority Press and published Race First, which is known as the classic study of the Garvey movement, as well as Garvey: Black Arts and the Harlem Renaissance and Literary Garveyism among others. Lewis’ publications include Marcus Garvey: Anti-Colonial Champion and Garvey: His Work and Impact, edited with Patrick Bryan.
Among the best known of the other publications is the first to appear, the Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey published in 1923 by his second wife Amy Jacques Garvey. More recently there have been those books that target younger readers in an effort to produce educational texts providing information for children. Marcus Garvey by Sandra Donovan, published by Raintree Press in 2003 is one of these.
However, the most recent contribution in this category is Marcus Garvey by Suzanne Francis-Brown and Jean-Jacques Vayssières published by Ian Randle in Jamaica in 2007 with text by Suzanne Brown and illustrations by Jean-Jacques Vassières. Brown is a writer and broadcaster, known for children’s books, living in Jamaica, while Vassierès is a writer and artist living in France. The text they have produced in clear, easy to read narrative embellished by dozens of drawings and prints in colour and in black and white is available in separate editions in three languages, English, Spanish and French.
It is announced as having captured “the story of Garvey’s colourful life, his exploits and his compelling message for young readers”. And obviously, it is written in a style and structure designed to create “a fun and interesting way for young people and adults alike to learn about history”. No doubt with this in mind, the Garvey story is told by a persona — a narrator who is an old man at the time when the account is written, but who was there as a little boy when Garvey began his work in Kingston, Jamaica.
This book, therefore, aimed at a fairly general audience, but with children in mind, is not the conventional history text. It is slightly fictionalised. There is a fictitious character who remembers and relates his first meeting with Garvey. This narrator was then a little boy selling newspapers on the waterfront when the hero, then a stranger to him, was very kind to him, took an interest in his welfare, gave him a book and encouraged him to read.
The historical account has a frame within which the narrator is telling the story, perhaps in the 1960s after Garvey has been honoured as a National Hero of Jamaica and his remains brought back from England for a grand ceremonial reburial in his homeland.
It is of pertinent interest then, that the story begins by establishing two important characteristics of Garvey. Firstly, he had a care for the working class and the unprivileged, in the way he was kind and helpful to a barefoot newspaper boy. Secondly, his interest in reading and the importance he placed in education were highlighted in his gift of a book and advice to the boy. In this way, in a dramatized fictional frame, Garvey is introduced as a character with qualities that are to be expanded upon during the course of the history. At the end of the account, there is then a closing prologue, most likely set in contemporary times, in which the narrator, now old, wraps up and comments on the story.
In spite of this, however, there are really few strategies employed to sustain this overture at a dramatization. After that prologue, the hero’s life story is told in a straight conventional account with no other clearly recognisable devices aimed at holding the interest of very young readers. Unless, of course, these are to be found in the clear, unencumbered way in which the events and developments are told, and in the selection of facts to be included or left out.
It is not always clear why some things are omitted, just barely mentioned, or are underplayed. Particularly given the way Garvey’s interest in books and literature is highlighted, it is of note that no mention is made of the UNIA leader’s great contribution to the Harlem Renaissance and the important development in American literature that took place there. The great Africanist recognised the value of literature and the arts which he pushed in Harlem as well as at other times in Jamaica. Major accounts of American literature, and in particular, Black American literature acknowledges the place of Garvey in the national literary landscape and the way it was influenced by Garveyism.
In addition, as a way of reinforcing Garvey’s impact on the wider world, it might have been worth mentioning that such was the respect and adoration afforded him by African leaders that Kwame Nkrumah incorporated the colours and symbol (the black star) of the UNIA’s Black Star Line in the national flag of Independent Ghana in 1957. In the same vein, it would have been of interest to note that Garvey wielded such influence in that part of the world in spite of the ironic fact that, despite all his travels and ideological emphasis, he never set foot on the continent of Africa.
Similarly, mention of Eldeweiss Park in Suzanne Francis-Brown’s history omits the equally significant role played by Garvey’s cultural activities in the march of the popular theatre in Jamaica. Drama and theatre, including vaudeville and variety shows were parts of his vision for Black cultural development in Kingston and he was a pioneer in the writing and production of epic plays dignifying and glorifying the image of people of African descent.
There are also no details provided of what might be of curious interest, notably his strained relations with W E B Du Bois, leader of the NAACP and hailed as an American Black hero in his own right. It might have been of interest to explain Du Bois’ negative attitudes towards Garvey, who worked assiduously to liberate and empower Black Americans. Similarly, there is no mention of the same kind of intense hostility Garvey had to encounter in the political arena at home from the time unfriendly editorials greeted him on his return to Jamaica in 1927 right through his candidacy for elected office.
Yet there is a wealth of information and illustrations in Francis-Brown and Vayssiès’ historical document. Apart from the drawings, which are very careful in their period details, there are several crucial archival prints from papers, documents, leaflets and fliers. Some advertise cultural events, others are taken from Garvey’s many newspapers and magazines, including his most successful in the USA, the Negro World (1918-1933), as well as The Watchman (1910) and The Black Man (1933-1939) in Kingston and London.
This publication is a departure from the normal academic type publications on Garvey, who was, after all, a proletarian figure and very much a popular leader. It will therefore appeal to a more general audience. There is no monotony of printed text within its pages made forever bright by the colourful and dramatic illustrations, which will particularly appeal to children.
Marcus Garvey, whose publication is also attributed to The Commission for Pan African Affairs and David Philip Publishers, South Africa, has a place among the very wide readership with an interest in this subject. It is thus another important contribution to knowledge.
