It is generally "You must go out and teach your people to be meek and humble; tell them to be good servants, loyal and obedient to their masters. If you will teach them such a doctrine you can always depend on me to give you $1,000 a year or $5,000 a year for the support of yourself, the newspaper or the institution you represent. I will always recommend you to my friends as a good fellow who is all right," With this advice and prospect of patronage the average Negro leader goes out to lead the unfortunate mass. These leaders tell us how good Mr. So and So is, how many good friends we have in the opposite race, and that if we leave everything to them all will work out well.
This is the kind of leadership we have been having for the last fifty years. It is nothing else but treachery and treason of the worst kind. The man who will compromise the attitude of his country is a traitor, and even so the man who will compromise the rights of his race can be classified in no other way than that of a traitor also.
Not until we settle down as four hundred million people and let the men who have placed themselves in the lead of us realize that we are disgusted and dissatisfied, and that we shall have a leadership of our own and stick by it when we get it, will we be able to lift ourselves from this mire of degradation to the heights of prosperity, human liberty and human appreciation.
Chapter III
Present Day Civilization
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.
We see a small percentage of the world's populace feeling happy and contented with this civilization that man has evolved, and we see the masses of the human race on the other hand dissatisfied and discontented with the civilization of today—the arrangement of human society. Those masses are determined to destroy the systems that hold up such a society and prop such a civilization.
As by indication, the fall will come. A fall that will cause the universal wreck of the civilization that we now see, and in this civilization the Negro is called upon to play his part. He is called upon to evolve a national ideal, based upon freedom, human liberty and true democracy.
22
Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey edited by Amy Jacques-Garvey
The Journal of Pan African Studies 2009 eBook
