CCPTV.ORG: Dr. Umar Johnson on the Legacy of Hon. Marcus Garvey and significance of Delaware 2021

[Music] greetings my name is luis dente and i welcome you to yet another edition of cultural caravan on this edition we're on location in wilmington delaware at the frederick douglass marcus garvey academy and we're joined by the president and ceo dr umar johnson who um welcome to cultural caravan thank you queen mother louise i'm glad to be back on cultural garavan for another great conversation thanks for having me and i know when we were here last year we also talked about the history people may ask why delaware what is significant about delaware well firstly i would say that i didn't choose delaware delaware chose me and it was the ancestors who chose us to come together dr umar in delaware because as you know the search for an fdmg campus was a national search oh yeah and i actually thought i would be in detroit chicago ohio florida carolina texas uh the search took us everywhere and brought me right back home to my backyard of course i'm a philadelphia native delaware is only 30 minutes away uh so when i say backyard i say it respectfully but delaware is in philadelphia's metaphorical backyard so it was meant for me to be here and believe it or not there is some strong pan-africanist history out of delaware for example samuel cornish who co-edited the very first black newspaper in american history with john brown russ worm who was one of the earliest pan-africanist and one of the first black men to get a college degree from a white university in this country he co-edited with delaware's samuel cornish the uh freedom's journal out of new york 1827 i think was the publication year so you have samuel cornish coming out of delaware co-editing the first paper with one of our greatest pan-africanist and then you have queen mother harriet tubman who was from maryland a state away but who spent a lot of time in delaware for two reasons number one the underground railroad came through delaware this was the last slave state and escaping african would need to survive before they could get to freedom in pennsylvania so harriet tubman spent a lot of time bringing enslaved africans through the underground railroad by way of delaware and also to that point queen mother harriet tubman's number one financial supporter was a white man by the name of thomas garrett who's buried about five minutes away from where we're sitting and he actually shares the same birthday with me august the 21st he is the one who provided harriet tubman with a great deal for financial security and you might even be aware queen mother louise of a very famous painting of queen mother harriet tubman on the back of a wagon going to get her parents she had just learned that her mother and father were supposed to be tried for helping their children run away or something to that effect so she learned about it went to thomas garrett he gave her the wagon that she used to go and rescue her parents before it was too late she got that right here in wilmington still further one of the great grandfathers of pan-africanism is a gentleman by the name of henry heiling garnett he's the first black pastor to address the us congress he was also a recruiter for africans in the civil war and he's considered marcus garvey before marcus garvey thomas garrett helped his family escape from slavery in maryland kent county through wilmington delaware bob marley who was probably considered the greatest musical prophet of garveyism used to spend his summers right here in wilmington delaware with his mother working and i actually met a brother who whose father i believe worked with bob marley um on one of the construction yards here and last but not least marcus garvey himself often came to delaware and the black star line the infamous black star line steamship corporation that marcus garvey founded with the other members of the unia acl was incorporated right here in the state of delaware and the garveyites who took that paperwork to the state on behalf of the honorable marcus garvey lived right here in the city of delaware and i actually spoke with a grandchild of those garveyites who delivered the black star line steamship paperwork for marcus garvey in 1919. wow there is a lot of black history and pan-africanist history right here in wilmington and the way that i see it quickly queen mother if wilmington was the last stop for our ancestors on their way from slavery to freedom it will once again function in the same thing for us only this time it won't be the last stop in a physical slavery it'll be the last stop on a mental slavery because once they graduate from fdmg they will be psychologically emancipated wow and so i think that it's so important that everyone realizes this and sees a connection and and you mentioned a very powerful name of an ancestor who we are celebrating in the month of august um the great marcus messiah garvey whose birthday is on the 17th of august i know that marcus garvey and his name is very much attached to this institution in terms of what he did can you tell us from the perspective of where garvey where are we in line with the mission of garveyism um what should we be doing to further the goal of garveyism i could summarize the mission of the frederick douglass and marcus garvey academy as being the continuation and completion of the work of the honorable marcus messiah god when you deal with garveyism you're dealing with self-determination financially politically spiritually economically whatever must be done for us must be done by us we teach that here when you deal with garveyism you deal with a love for africa a connection for africa and a respect for africa that is so great that you admit that the government for african people the central government for african people which we do not yet have should be headquartered on the soil of africa that is one of the principles of garveyism that sets his pan-africanism apart from the pan-africanism of many of our ancestors also when you deal with garveyism you're dealing with the image of your creator being a reflection of yourself when i was in newark the other day there was a brother from cameroon and he explained to us that the the word for god in his culture is the exact same word for melanin let me say that again the word for god in his ancient culture is the exact same name for melanin that means that melanin is god in that it is the color and it is the chemical of the divine carbon the element that makes things black is indistinguishable from the creator who made it so when we say god is black it literally means that when we say the black man is god the black woman is god we're saying that we are an extinction an expression and a manifestation of the great divine blackness that the creator gave birth to the universe from so we will teach blackness as pride as self-respect and as a connection to the creator as the late great doctor khalid abdul muhammad said blackness is color consciousness culture and a connection to the divine cosmos talk to us about how garveyism and the extension of garveyism is so critical for us and at this point in our juncture we're in the 21st century and what we are what you're doing is at least building institutions so that we can remember our culture what is some of the things that need to happen across that you know by others meaning you're doing your part with the institution the education what are some of the things that some of our other leaders and teachers should be doing to further the garveyism in terms of what the mission was to liberate us mentally spiritually and physically well based on my thorough understanding of his personality his political personality and work and principles i think he would have issues with three things number one our dependence on the american power structure even more so now than it was a hundred years ago when he walked amongst us in new york city we are so dependent on the american government for the things that we need and it makes no sense because we are a two trillion dollar people the dependence is voluntary it's not prerequisite it's voluntary we don't need the government to build schools we don't need the government to build hospitals we don't need the government to feed us we have the experts the expertise the education and the money what we lack is the garvey mindset we do not have the revolutionary pan-africanist personality that will give birth to the creation of institutions and independent black communities so he would be disgusted with our decision because it is a decision to depend on a government as opposed to doing it for ourself number two garvey would have a strong issue with the fact that even today even amongst a renaissance of pan-africanism so many american africans don't want to be associated with africa failing to recognize that if you don't see a future in africa you have no future because there's no future for you without africa so he would have an issue with the fact that we're trying to drown ourselves in an american identity that doesn't truly exist because everyone in america is an immigrant of some sort because america was a land that was taken by blood it is not the natural ancestral home of almost anyone who's here it is a country of immigrants so there's no such thing as being an american separate from the international homeland from which you come so you're either an italian-american a chinese-american an australian-american an asian-american there's no such thing as just being an american but black people will go out of their way to tell you that they left nothing in africa and that they are american so the hatred of african origin garvey would have a problem with and the last thing that i would say and there's so many and i'm just giving you three the third would be the self-hate the honorable marcus garvey said that we as a people are cursed with petty differences and those petty differences that were used to destroy him and his movement a hundred years ago are still with us now because this is 2021. it was in 1921 when the garvey movement unquestionably and unarguably became the largest black organization ever in modern history but even with that power in that greatness they were other blacks some who even claimed to be pan-africanist like w.e.b dubois who sought marcus garvey's downfall it was w.e.b dubois who america sent to liberia to disrupt gary's plans to build a repatriation community for africans in the diaspora who wanted to go home a philip randolph who also worked to destroy garvey cyril briggs chandler owens w.a domingo who i believe was a a childhood playmate of the honorable marcus garvey back in jamaica he was jealous of garvey's rise and garvey's success so that those petty differences although they are petty they can cause some very colossal problems for us as a people i always say until we hate racism more than we hate each other we'll never be free um in terms of the work that i know that you've been doing and others to kind of take us to another level it doesn't seem like people have changed in terms of we still have that crabs in the barrel thing we have people who um unfortunately when they see someone trying to do the right thing are always thinking oh there's something behind it and i think it's it's it's a mindset and as being a professional who deals with mental uh slavery at this point there are still a lot of people under that um mental slavery uh they feel i always say they feel white man's ice is colder there's no such thing as you know that there's nothing they can't really see outside of this reality what do you say to those people who are doubtful who are skeptical um who don't feel it's possible for us to do anything for ourselves the honorable marcus garvey said that we have to sell the black men and women back to themselves because the european has sold us against ourself that's why we go out of our way to imitate every other people on the earth except ourselves and as long as the oldest people imitate their offspring as long as the people who built the greatest civilizations are now content to imitate other people will never be respected you cannot claim to be the psychological equal of another man and yet you want to imitate that man that's a total contradiction people who love themselves do not imitate they create we are supposed to be creating not imitating but here's what i say we can win a lot of them back by constantly manifesting positive change in transformation it's no different than a kid who joins a losing football team the team ain't won a game in 20 seasons but guess what let them win three in a row they have his attention let them win five in a row he wants to join them let them win the championship he'll proclaim himself a proud member we can get most of our people back i tell people all the time and this is something i learned from my garvey elders back home in philadelphia they always told me up there on cecil b moore avenue that the condition we are in with regard to self-hate and africans not wanting to uh achieve solidarity with one another for the purpose of achieving uh total emancipation is not so much because we're black it's because of the condition we're in garvey says the same thing in other words mother louise once we start building those institutions building those black wall streets once we give black children and black people a reason to be proud again they will automatically start claiming that africanity again they will automatically look to start joining us again uh the problem is they don't have a reason in their minds they don't have a reason to be proud to be an african once we give them a reason to be proud to be an african everybody will come home not just the american africans who say they haven't left nothing in africa the spanish-speaking africans the portuguese speaking africans your brothers and sisters in puerto rico and cuba uh those brothers and sisters who suffer from a light-skinned supremacy complex and would rather identify with the european enslaver as opposed to their african grandmothers they'll come back home once we reclaim the throne everyone will return home and and just going into focusing on the celebration of the legacy of garvey what is some of the things that um in the spirit of marcus garvey do you feel that our people can be doing particularly and i always talk about the parent um what we can be doing to celebrate even within our home structure um to keep garveys the legacy the elec the lessons and the mission strong what should we be doing as parents to keep that um the legacy of garvey structure in our homes with our children how do we build that most african people don't know anything about garvey and so we need to teach it not because we are worshiping a personality but because the program of that ancestor is exactly what is needed today a non-religious non-denomination african-centered political economic spiritual educational and social approach to african emancipation the garvey program is the only program that will liberate african people and i can say that not just because i'm a garveyite but because non-africans have used it to liberate their people ho chi minh copied many of garvey's ideals to build the movement in fact uh ho chi minh even admitted that he used to attend unia meetings in new york and that he was influenced by what he saw and incorporated many of garvey's ideals um into his own liberation struggle so you can look at how non-africans took garveyism to serve their needs and that will show you even more why we as african people need to look back towards the teachings and the message and the philosophy of garvey and not to take it out of context because nothing garvey taught was new and some garveyites get upset when i say this but as a pan-africanist it's important for people to know nothing garvey taught was new garvey's greatness was that he was able to take it and give it a program that worked garvey's greatness as he was able to take these principles of pan-africanism and put wheels on it in in in influence millions of people to get behind a message and a movement that our ancestors have been talking about for more than a hundred years before garvey was born and in line with that um what has been and i just wanted to think about what has been the impact of the message as you've moved to brothers and sisters across the country and outside terms of the work in terms of what we what we're doing now here in delaware and i'm going to have to eventually write a political autobiography i'm probably going to do like my ancestor frederick douglass he wrote three all the narrative of the life of frederick douglass my bondage and my freedom life and time i'm probably going to do three the first one is going to be a political autobiography and the reason i have to write a queen mother just like the honorable marcus garvey learning from him he did not author a autobiography so we only know garvey through the mouths and of of other people amy jakes garvey was the widow she wrote garvey and garveyism the best read but we still only know him through another person i don't want that mistake because there's nobody on this planet brothers and sisters included who knows my story enough to tell it accurately nobody if i left this planet today there's nobody i can tell you who could give my story accurately i could probably piece together a couple of people who could probably collage it all together and maybe get about 50 of it right but i don't want my story told by people who knew me i want my story told by me because i'm too private of an individual for someone to write a biography on dr umar and think they know what they're talking about and so learning from garvey i as i have to write a biography uh with the main purpose being not to give myself flowers but to give our children a story of inspiration because i think in my own personal story from the ghettos of north philly growing up in poverty the single mom the divorce home you know i think that a lot of other young black men and women can read that and get a sense of inspiration from it the same way i read garvey and douglas and martin and malcolm and megan and get inspired as well um in terms of the response even to the concept of building the school what has been the response to that there are people out there who i think were once against me who have come to before me because they can see that i'm one of the only ones building something a school ain't everything but it is a very important something and the fact that i'm doing this and i'm not looking to the government i'm not looking to handouts from non-africans there's a lot of people who can now respect it even though they once opposed it but even in looking at garveys as an example although many people came to garvey once they saw the success there were still many detractors who were emboldened more than ever to try to bring him down because of the animosity in the envy in the jealousy of wanting to have been marcus garvey and so there are brothers and sisters out there who i think will be emboldened even more and even more dedicated to try to stop this movement even though it is for our children after i succeed so they will always be the enemies and i don't pay them any mind because none of us knows the ends of our work you know queen mother harriet tubman had a dangerous job but she lived to be almost a hundred years old malcolm and martin only lived to be 39 frederick douglass a dangerous life and he made it you know uh up to uh i think he was in his late 70s early 80s so you just don't know who's going to live long you don't know who's going to die young all you can do is do your work and leave the rest of god and that's me i'm leaving it all out on the table i'm in my 40s i got to get the work done i got to leave the legacy i know father time is ticking and so i'm trying to give my all for my people before i get put in that box and laid to rest well definitely i could say and as i said um my eyes to that that the work that i saw that you are were out there you were actually working very hard painting these beautiful walls you basically at the paint you're doing the work you're not just talking the talk and that to me is an example um to just let cheap people see children see that wow if you want something you've got to be committed to it and this definitely even the process of fd g coming together children need to see that that they have to work a lot of our children think oh i'm just going to miraculously do it or don't understand that you've got to put the energy into doing it what did this look like i'm sure you have pictures of what this looked like before and after and the work and and and mobile so i think this whole process is really a learning opportunity for our community to see the process of what you can do when you put interest energy determination together and certainly infused with the spirit of the ancestors which is a great absolutely honorable marcus garvey so they show up on september the 11th for the block party i want them to look and say we're not done yet but we're getting there absolutely most importantly we bought this we're fixing this this is ours this is owned by black people nobody helped this nobody gave us this this wasn't a grant it wasn't a loan it wasn't a handout it was our pennies and quarters that bought this school yeah for those who would like to connect and find out more about the mission uh could you please provide us with your website and phone number fdmgfestival.com that's fdmgfestival.com also dr umar johnson.com phone number two one five nine eight nine nine eight eight or 844 for dr umar you can also email fdmgfestival gmail.com and dr umar johnson yahoo.com please support us please continue to donate keep the pressure coming we will be successful well i hope you've enjoyed this broadcast and we continue to encourage you to tune in to tell a friend and please visit our website at www.ccptv.org but until next time luis dente saying thank you [Music] hmm [Music] you

Channel: Louise Dente

Views: 28,202

Keywords: Dr. Umar Johnson, Dr. Umar, Louise Dente, Cultural Caravan TV, Pan Africanism, Marcus Garvey

Id: 4iCeHi_58wo

Length: 28min 29sec (1709 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021