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Amy Jacques Garvey: A Black Woman Who Stood By Her Man

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Honor and Respect for a Beautiful Couple.

Amy Jacques Garvey, a strong and independent woman, stood by her husband through thick and thin; and was a key figure in the Universal Negro Improvement Association who helped to spread Garvey’s message of Pan-Africanism and black pride.

In one of the last interviews before her death, Amy Jacques Garvey provides a powerful riposte to those contemporary revisionists that would seek to dismiss the power of the UNIA and Garvey movement — all the while remaining true to the cause of African redemption and Black liberation. — Black Agenda Report, Editors, Black Agenda Review, May 24, 2023

From that report I offer the following narrative for your assessment of Amy Jacques Garvey, a truly remarkable woman who made a lasting impact on the world. She was a role model for women, a champion for justice, and a true pioneer.

Mrs. Garvey herself played no small role in the reassessment and reclamation of Garvey and Garveyism. Indeed, during the years of Garvey’s imprisonment in Atlanta, and following his death in London in 1940, she steadfastly wrote in an attempt to keep the movement alive and to vindicate Garvey’s name. Mrs. Garvey edited the two-volume compendium Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (1923). She wrote the historical biography, Garvey and Garveyism (1963), and the volume Black Power in American: Marcus Garvey’s impact on Jamaica and Africa. (1968). Mrs. Garvey also assisted John Henrik Clarke in editing the anthology Marcus Garvey and the Vision of African (1974).

Her loyalty, dedication, and commitment to her husband is beyond reproach, as exemplified in her flag.

Our good sister defended Marcus against his critics, both inside and outside the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association); and when he was arrested, Amy helped raise money for his legal defense, and continued to publish his newspaper, The Negro World, while he was in prison. Even after Marcus Garvey’s death, she continued to promote his work, utilizing her last words to sing his praise.

“He saw that the whole economy of the race had to [be] self-supporting before we could think of the political theater. And so the idea of trade [occurred]. As anybody knows, the ships which trade on the seas is a lifeline to any nation and to any people. You must have an outlet at all times for what you produce.”

Since economics is the driving force in humanity, Amy was right on time with her assessment of Marcus’s strategy and philosophy. Who is this sister who studied law, understood economics, and became an accomplished writer and publisher?

Amy Euphemia Jacques Garvey (31 December 1895–25 July 1973) was a Jamaican-born journalist and activist. She was the second wife of Marcus Garvey. She was one of the pioneering female Black journalists and publishers of the 20th century.

…Amy attended a conference being held by Marcus Garvey and was moved by his words, soon afterwards assuming the role of his private secretary and working alongside him and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). She also became involved with the publishing of the Negro World newspaper in Harlem from its inception in August 1918.

On July 27, 1922, several months after his previous marriage was severed, Marcus and Amy were married in Baltimore [MD]. Garvey had two children in her marriage, Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. and Julius Winston Garvey born in 1930 and 1933 respectively. Garvey was said to have been an excellent speaker, having toured the country with and without her husband.

…While supporting her husband’s ambitions and the UNIA, Garvey began to focus on her own writings which made her known within the black community.

In UNIA’s official newspaper, The Negro World, she’d have her own segment, “Our Women and What They Think”, where she touched on the struggles that Black Women in America face. As a Black feminist, she emphasized the importance of Black Women being educated in different aspects of life in order to have a brighter future for the next generation to live in a society where Black women aren’t seen as less than others.

In addition to speaking all over the country to raise money for Garvey’s defense fund, she edited and published volume 2 of the Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, two volumes of his poetry, The Tragedy of White Injustice and Selections from the Poetic Meditations of Marcus Garvey. — Wikipedia

Mrs. Garvey reminds us that Garvey was among the first Africans to push for African independence and self-government while most Negroes were calling for colonial reform.

She points out that the UNIA was, in fact, a decentralized and democratic organization, and she attributes the “failure” of the UNIA to the collusion of white governments and their liberal Black lackeys. Moreover, the interview is a reminder that even at the age of seventy-seven, Mrs. Garvey had lost nothing of her vim and vigor. Especially when it comes to the cause of African redemption and Black liberation. . — Black Agenda Report, Editors, Black Agenda Review, May 24, 2023

In her own words, here are 3 excerpts from her interview with Emory J. Tolbert in 1973, weeks before her death.

“So it shows the machinations and strategies of the whole white structure. Always remember that white superiority is not just in America crushing the Black minority; it is an International, closely-knot system born, I think, of the fear of the white people that if they give the Black people all over the world a chance to develop by themselves and for themselves, they would be in jeopardy.”

“…eight supposedly prominently Uncle Tom Negroes wrote the federal Attorney General in Washington a long letter attributing to Garvey the fact that he was actually spreading hate between Black and white. Now, at no point in American history do I think that any one man could go out and teach Black people to hate white people.

I think that all the white have ever done and are still doing towards Black people couldn’t constitute love. They stated also that they asked the Attorney General to rush the case against Garvey and have him deported out of the country, because he was a menace, and, further, that he should shut down the UNIA because of his hate-preaching proclivities. “Exterminate,” that was the word they used. “Our own Black people [were] doing that.”

“I may point out that in the Black revolution for change we have cadres of all different groups who operate in a different way. Some work in culture or art, but it is in keeping with the revolution for change in the status of the Black man all over the world.”

Amy Jacques Garvey stood by her man.

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Our Mind Is Powerful: Prayer Is A Source!

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Yesterday, I was commenting to my youngest daughter, Akima, that I would pray for a friend of mine. He was hospitalized and not doing very well. His wife had asked me to say a prayer for his successful recovery. Inquisitively, she asked, “dad, if you are an atheist, how can you say a prayer for your friend?”

Here is my response to her, and you.

I pray, but not to a spook ‘God.’ I believe prayer is a conversation with self. It is a request to self, and a reminder to self, of what I want to occur. For me, there is no ‘spook god’ involved in the process.

Prayer is self-programming the human computer (our mind) to provide for our individual, as well as collective human need. And just like the computer, you can only get out of it what you put into it, something the ruling elite fully understand, and implement via religion.

“Religion keeps the poor from killing the rich.  Napoleon Bonaparte

“Religion is an opiate for the masses.” — Karl Marx

“We have used the Bible as if it were a mere special constable’s handbook, an opium dose for keeping the beasts of burden patient while they were being overloaded, a mere book to keep the poor in order.”  Charles Kingsley, Canon of the Church of England

“When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said: ‘Let us pray. ‘ We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.” — Jomo Kenyatta, Independence Leader of Kenya

And one more, from an Amer-African centered perspective.

It’s not what you know that hurts you. It’s what you know, that just ain’t so. — Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige

There are many who discuss the origins and history of religion, but no one does it better than Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy and The Lessons of History . Here are three examples from Durant, and though they refer directly to Christianity, the same could be said about the other major religions as well.

“Religion does not seem at first to have had any connection with morals. Apparently (for we are merely guessing, or echoing Petromius, who echoed Lucretius) ‘it was fear that first made the gods — fear of hidden forces in the earth, rivers, oceans, trees, wind and sky’. Religion became the propitiatory of worship of these forces through offerings, sacrifices, incantation, and prayer. Only when priest used these fears and rituals to support morality and law did religion become a vital force and rival the state. It told the people that the local code of morals and laws had been dictated by the gods. It pictured the god Thoth giving laws to Memes for Egypt, the god Shamash giving Hammurabi a code for Babylonia, Yahveh giving the Ten Commandments and 613 Precepts to Moses for the Jews, and the divine nymph Egeria giving Numa Pompilius laws for Rome. Pagan cults and Christian creeds proclaimed that earthly rulers were appointed and protected by the gods. Gratefully, nearly every state shared its lands and revenues with the priests.

…The Church was manned with men, who often proved biased, venal, and extortionate. France grew in wealth and power and made the papacy her political tool. Kings became strong enough to compel a pope to dissolve that Jesuit Order which had so devotedly supported the popes. The Church stooped to fraud, as with pious legends, bogus relics, and dubious miracles; for centuries it was from a mythical Donation of Constantine: that had allegedly bequeathed Western Europe to Pope Sylvester I (r. 314–35), and from the “False Decretals”(c. 842) that forged a series of documents to give a sacred antiquity to papal omnipotence.

…History has justified the Church in the belief that the masses of mankind desire a religion rich in miracle, mystery, and myth. Some minor modifications have been allowed in ritual, in ecclesiastical costume, and in Episcopal authority; but the Church dares not alter the doctrines that reason smiles at, for such changes would offend and disillusion the millions whose hopes have been tied to inspiring and consolatory imaginations. Catholicism survives because it appeals to the imagination, hope and the senses; because its mythology consoles and brightens the lives of the poor.”

A very wise man told me that “work is better than prayer.”

I believe that work is the actualization of what is programmed in our mind. Work is the physical activity that one carries out as a result of the data that the brain has processed to determine what must be done to sustain life.

If your brain tells you that you must serve the European in order to sustain life, then that’s what you will do. Religion is the great programmer of the mind to ensure that behavior. Presently, humanity serves the ruling elite.

And speaking of the ‘mind’, Carter G. Woodson, in his book The Miseducation of the Negro, 1932, had this to say regarding the mind of the Negro.

“No systematic effort towards change has been possible, for taught the same economics, history, philosophy, literature, and religion which have established the present code of morals, the Negro’s mind has been brought under the control of his oppressor, the problem of holding the Negro down, therefore, is easily solved. When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.

The same educational process which inspires and stimulates the oppressor with the thought that he is everything and has accomplished everything worthwhile, depresses and crushes at the same time the spark of genius in the Negro by making him feel that his race does not amount to much and never will measure up to the standards of other peoples. The Negro thus educated is a hopeless liability of the race”.

Sound familiar? That was over 100 years ago, and the same conditions exist today.

Power is required to be a free people. Caucasian/European power comes from the barrel of a gun.

Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered an automatic weapon.” — General Douglas MacArthur

MacArthur said it facetiously, mocking General Bonaparte’s famous “The pen is mightier than the sword” speech.

“There are only two powers in the world, saber and mind; at the end, saber is always defeated by the mind.” — Napoleon Bonaparte

Our power comes from our mind.

“Our life is shaped by our mind. We become what we think.” — Buddha

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The Mysterious ‘Invisible Hand’ Is White, Not Black!

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It seems as if we are always dealing with something mystical or transcendental when it comes to an explanation of phenomena that humans can’t see, hear, feel, smell, or touch, whether it be ‘God’, the ‘Devil’, or an ‘Invisible Hand.’ In the West, Spookism must prevail.

In religion folk are taught to walk by faith, not by sight. Don’t believe what you see with your own two eyes; believe what you are told by “God’s” vicegerent on Earth.

In economics, Adam Smith, working for his European masters — the banking cartels — developed an incredibly useful tool for them. Smith convinced people that an ‘invisible hand,’ controlling economic activity, was good for society and would produce a fair and equitable distribution of humanity’s need for food, clothing, shelter. In today’s world, that list must also include the health care, education, communication, and transportation needs of society.

Needless to say, that hasn’t happened. And it won’t happen. Because it can’t happen.

“Interest Is The Invention of Satin!” Are Bankers The Devil?

Since usury (charging interest on a loan) is forbidden in both Christianity and Islam, why is it a practice throughout…

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The ‘hand’ controlling global economic activity is not ‘invisible’, though it is definitely hidden from most folk; but it is hiding in ‘plain sight’ if one has eyes to see.

Here is one example, regarding the issue of the cost of goods and services, which many people are not able to pay, as a result of the never-ending cycle of inflation. Cost/price is of utmost importance today, particularly among the poor and impoverished.

The prices of goods and services on this planet are controlled by a number of factors.

1. Supply and Demand

2. Government Intervention, or lack thereof

3. Cost of Production (materials and labor)

4. Inflation, which is a general increase in prices over time (Capitalism requires an ever-expanding market)

5. Exchange Rates between two currencies also affect the prices of imported and exported goods and services

All of the above are controlled by the European banking cartels.

Twin Elephants in the Room: The Rothschilds and Antisemitism/Anti-Semitism

Let me briefly deal with each one, starting with antisemitism, which was birthed first. On October 27, 2022, the…

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Capitalism, their Western economic ideology, strengthens, fortifies, and governs European hegemony and their global domination; at a severe cost to CHOSSA (Children of Stolen and Sold Africans) and other Indigenous peoples in the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the South Pacific.

To further elucidate, I must return to the guru of modern economic theory, Campbell R. McConnell, author of Economics, 1987 McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, now in its 21st edition.

Professor McConnell detonates a very powerful atomic bomb, the sound of which will soon be heard around the world. His nuclear truth completely shatters the myth of capitalism as a fair, just, and equitable economic system.

He states that“we should emphasize that there is nothing particularly ethical about the price system for distributing output”. There is nothing ethical about the price system as a mechanism for distributing output fairly.

The price system, a Western invention, developed during the evolution of capitalism, via the Monetary Economy (1694), gives the European complete control over the marketplace, as well as the control and use of our Earth’s natural and human resources. The Caucasian gives value to everything by controlling both the supply and demand of all resources, thereby allowing him to assign a “price” or cost to each of them. Men are making those decisions, not an ‘invisible hand.’

To increase the devastation of his detonation, McConnell further blasts, “Those households which manage to accumulate large amounts of property resources by inheritance…or by crook will receive large incomes and thus command large shares of the economy’s output”which in turn only produces more property resources, commanding a still greater share of the society’s output. [“by crook”, the European rich get richer, and the poor people of color get poorer].

The Europeans have made it their business to steal all of the world’s natural resources and they gained tremendous wealth with those resources acquired; and they now determine the price of our labor, as well as the price for the goods produced by our labor.

With this present structure, what would make you think that you can ever achieve financial independence in America, Europe, or any part of the planet ruled by a white supremacist economic ideology that is structured solely to maintain European hegemony over the world and its natural resources, and the people and their human resources?

As long as:

1. Banks are privately owned, and issue a sovereign Nation’s currency

2. Interest is charged, and Debt is an acceptable business practice

3. There is private ownership of Power Generation (nuclear, electric, fossil)

4. Health Care is privately owned, and a cost to citizens

5. Foreign ownership of Sovereign lands is permitted

6. There is cost for Education

7. Media is operated, controlled, and owned by Oligarchs and their families

8. The Utilities (electricity, water, gas, internet) of a nation are privately owned

9. There is no efficient, cost-effective Public Transportation System

10. War is the only means to conflict resolution

11. The development of Artificial Intelligence is privately owned and financed

12. Aeronautical operations and Space exploration is privately owned

13. Privately owned businesses exploit sovereign land (metals and minerals)

14. The business of Insurance is privately owned

15. White supremacy/racism is alive

16. Federal Judges are appointed, and not elected; democracy doesn’t exist

17. A nation’s food production is controlled by cartels and conglomerates

18. Nationalism, Imperialism, and Militarism are endemic to Western Culture.

There will be:

1. Slavery

2. Poverty

3. Famine, Sickness and Disease

4. War, and its Devastation

5. Man-made Climate Change

6. Inflation and Deflation

7. Unemployment

8. Crime

9. No civil, or human rights

Yesterday I received some feedback from my recent essay, Capitalism Is Good For White People: Why Is It Bad For Black Folk? It was suggested that I provide a list of why Capitalism is bad for black folk because the headline begged the question, without any specific reasons being enumerated. I believed the narrative sufficiently explained that an economic ideology based on lies, while simultaneously empowering white folk, cannot, nor will not, ever be good for black folk. I hope the above list helps to better understand why Capitalism is bad for black folk.

Capitalism Is Good For White Folk: Why Is It Bad For Black Folk?

The guru of modern economic theory, Campbell R. McConnell, author of Economics, 1987 McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, now in…

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If my writing interests you, here are two other examples that I hope you will find informative.

Africans On The Continent, And In The Diaspora: Please Know That Economics Is the Driving Force in…

“Why does economics matter? Because everything that one does each day, hour, minute, and second, is precisely…

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A Major Display of ‘Whiteness’ By Richard Dreyfuss Sparked A Major Display of ‘Africanity’ In Me

I try to stay away from writing about Hollywood and the Motion Picture Industry so I don’t have to spend time dealing…

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Capitalism Is Good For White Folk: Why Is It Bad For Black Folk?

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The guru of modern economic theory, Campbell R. McConnell, author of Economics, 1987 McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, now in its 21st edition, in his opening remarks tells us:

Two fundamental facts provide a foundation for the field of economics [capitalism]. It is imperative that we carefully state and fully understand these two facts, since everything that follows in our study of economics depends directly or indirectly upon them.

a. Society’s material wants, that is, the material wants of its citizens and institutions, are virtually unlimited and insatiable.

b. Economic resources — the means of producing goods and services, are limited or scarce.

These are lies that underpin and provide the foundation for the European economic ideology and philosophy called Capitalism. Their foundation was weak and defective from its inception.

It is absurd to say that the “material wants of its citizens and institutions are virtually unlimited or insatiable.” Human wants are tied to human needs. Humans, and their needs are not unlimited or insatiable. In fact, physical human needs are quite quantifiable, and can be satisfied.

Within range, humans can only consume a quantifiable amount of food before their bodies reject it (through regurgitation). We can easily determine the amount of food (for nutritional purposes) that humans need on a daily basis. With regard to clothing, it is also a simple task of quantifying the clothing needs of humans.

Depending on geography and ecology, reasonably, one can only wear one pair of shoes at a time. One can only wear one pair of pants or a skirt at a time. One can only wear one shirt or blouse at a time. The same for a hat, or coat, or underwear. From the standpoint of shelter, it is the same thing. A human can only live in one house at a time, sleep in one bed at a time, and only use one toilet at a time.

Yes, you could postulate that one could want more than three meals a day, want more than a closet or dresser full of clothes, and/or want two or three residences scattered throughout the country. But let’s be certain that those wants are based on greed, not need. It really goes to a value system based on individualism, not one based on a communal spirit of collective cooperation.

In the second fundamental assertion providing the foundation for capitalism McConnell states, “Economic resources — the means for producing the goods and services are limited.” It is an equally absurd lie used to justify their control of the natural and human resources that provide the means for producing the goods and services necessary for human growth and development.

Economic resources are in such significant supply that they can be said to be unlimited. One kernel of corn, planted in the ground, will yield a stalk with seven ears of corn containing 100 kernels on each ear. This represents a return of 700 to 1. Nature is plentiful, bountiful, and beautiful.

“Surplus, not shortage, has been the driving force in the building of markets, creating supply, and determining prices. Indeed, it can be argued that a central concern of the modern world economic system [capitalism] during this century has been to organize and promote markets so that they are protected from ruinous surplus.

Two important cases illustrate the point.

…with the Nixon administration the government formally encouraged the concept of the agribusiness — that is, supported management of the surplus by the private sector, not by the government. As a practical matter, that meant disposal of the surplus was increasingly the job of the major grain companies, not the government.

Ironic as it may seem, the recent humanitarian concerns for making the food surplus available to millions of poor, undernourished people must be viewed as almost incidental to the overall march of U.S, agricultural policy, which has sought the winning of a profitable and stable market for the surplus over the last century.

…Surplus, not shortage, has governed the oil industry since its inception. Through the Standard Oil Trust, John D. Rockefeller, sought to organize the industry so that is would not be overwhelmed by unbridled competition fed by surplus.

…One reason the oil companies moved into the coal industry was because they feared that this abundant resource might be turned into a devasting, and uncontrollable river of synthetic oil.” — Wealth by Stealth, Rolf Hackman, 2013

There were many goals and objectives to be achieved from the holocaust called World War II, including the birth of the State of Israel; but we must not forget that both Japanese and German scientists had simultaneously developed synthetic oil that threatened the world-wide supply. The Germans produced synthetic oil from coal, while the Japanese produced synthetic oil from plants, both abundant resources on our planet.

Another reason for the war was to control the rich minerals found in Africa.

Mineral exploration and exploitation of Africa by European and American interests served a major purpose. Africa supplied their need for gold, diamonds, and other ‘precious’ gemstones and metals; as well as iron, chrome, titanium, platinum, and uranium, just to name a few of the minerals used in the production of weapons, including most importantly, nuclear weapons, in order to maintain their hegemony of the world and its peoples.

“Historically, the extraction of raw materials was the business of large international corporations, some of them founded in the colonial period, which obtained rights to the minerals for relatively insignificant sums. Little processing of the raw material was carried out in the poor countries.

Many of the international corporations that operate in raw materials are vertically integrated — that is, they control each stage of the production-to-consumer process. Very little of raw or processed materials are traded on the open market through such exchanges as the London Metals Exchange.

In other words, as long as the poor countries are dependent on transnational corporations to reach markets abroad, there is little real meaning to their sovereignty over natural resources. [The history of the Ghana Cocoa Industry is a great example] It is a legal, not a commercial, distinction.

Much of the industry in raw materials today remains based on the mine, as it has been for centuries. And it is the mine which sums up the meaning of the business, or bitter relationships between first and third worlds, of the debasement of humankind. Since the fourteenth century when modern warfare was first invented, the output of the mine has been closely dependent on military industry, for it yields up the stuff with which we make cannon and shells and warships and planes.

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