Marcus Garvey: Critical Life Lessons from an African Visionary

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By Jr | August 14th, 2020

The works of Jamaican renaissance man Marcus Garvey have influenced a long list of seminal, revolutionary figures like Malcolm X, Walter Rodney, Frantz Fanon, Bob Marley, Kwame Nkrumah, Min. Louis Farrakhan, Nelson Mandela, Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, Martin Luther King Jr., Ho Min Chin, Fred Hampton, Assata Shakur, Steve Biko, Elijah Muhammad, Mutabaruka, Fela Kuti, Patrice Lumumba, The Rastafari Movement, and many more. Therefore, it is worth exploring what drew so many important individuals to Garvey’s vision and movement.

  • (Top Left) : Kwame Nkrumah, Martin Luther King Jr, Fela Kuti, Dr. Frances Cress, Steve Biko.
  • (Top Left) : Fred Hampton, Malcolm X, Bob Marley, Walter Rodney, and Assata Shakur

A political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, orator, and philosopher, Garvey created his literary masterpiece Message to the People three years before his death in 1937. 

Below are fundamental lessons Marcus Garvey provided in the book about excelling in life and business.

Marcus Garvey’s Lessons

  1. Man should have a purpose, and he should always keep that purpose in view. That is to say, man should maintain the hope of achieving this purpose to the fullest satisfaction of himself. 
  1. Negro parents must teach their children Negro history, Negro pride, and self-respect to counteract the white superiority based education they receive from public schools. 
  1. Great wealth is made out of commerce and industry.
  1. “…. Man  should always be thrifty enough to at least save 15% to 20%, storing it up for making better opportunities when they come and proving for the rainy day.”
  1. “Beauty must be reflected out of your own eyes. A Negro must be beautiful to a Negro, as an Anglo-Saxon is to an Anglo-Saxon. The highest standard of beauty, therefore, for a Negro, is the Negro. Never allow any race to say that your race is not beautiful.”
Listen to reasoning w/Autarchii and Jr discussing 8 lessons from political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, orator, and African Philosopher Marcus Garvey.
  1. Don’t keep old ideas, bury them as new ones come.
  1. As you shouldn’t expect another man to give you the clothing that you need to cover your own body, so you should not expect another race to give you the education to challenge their rights to monopoly and mastery. You must take for yourself that which they also want for themselves.
  1. No one is ever too old to learn.
Picture of Marcus Garvey.

If you are interested in learning more about the life and teachings of Marcus ‘Mosiah’ Garvey, we highly recommend you check out the following literature:

Message To The People | by Marcus Garvey

Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey Vol. 1 and 2 | by Marcus Garvey and Amy Jacques Garvey

Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey | by Colin Grant

Notes For An African World Revolution | by John Henrik Clarke

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