Marcus Garvey's Appeal to The Soul of White America
 

Youngstown, Ohio, October 2, I923 An Appeal To The Soul Of White America

Surely the soul of liberal, philanthropic, liberty-loving, white America is not dead. It is true that the glamour of materialism, has, to a great degree, destroyed the innocence and purity of the national conscience, but, still, beyond our politics, beyond our soulless industrialism, there is a deep feeling of human sympathy that touches the soul of white America upon which the unfortunate and sorrowful can always depend for sympathy, help, and action.
It is to that feeling that I appeal at this time for four hundred million Negroes of the world, and fifteen million of America in particular.
There is no real white man in America, who does not desire a solution of the Negro problem. Each thoughtful citizen has probably his own ideas of how the vexed question of races should be settled. To some the Negro could be gotten rid of by wholesale butchery, by lynching, economic starvation, by a return to slavery and legalized oppression; while others would have the problem solved by seeing the race all herded together and kept somewhere among themselves, but a few those in whom they have an interest should be allowed to live around as the wards of a mistaken philanthrophy; yet, none so generous as to desire to see the Negro elevated to a standard of real progress, and prosperity, welded into a homogeneous whole, creating of themselves a mighty nation with proper systems of government, civilization, and culture, to mark them admissable to the fraternities of nations and races without any disadvantage.
I do not desire to offend the finer feelings and sensibilities of those white friends of the race who really believe that they are kind and considerate to us as a people; but I feel it my duty to make a real appeal to conscience and not belief Conscience is solid, convicting and permanently demonstrative; belief, is only a matter of opinion, changeable by superior reasoning. Once the belief was that it was fit and proper to hold the Negro as a slave and in this the Bishop, Priest and layman agreed. Later on they changed their belief or opinion, but at all times the conscience of certain people dictated to them that it was wrong and inhuman to hold human beings as slaves. It is to such a conscience in white America that I am addressing myself.
Negroes are human beings -the peculiar and strange opinions of writers, ethnologists, philosophers, scientists and anthropologists notwithstanding-they have feelings, souls, passions, ambitions, desires, just as other men, hence they should be considered.
Has white America really considered the Negro in the light of permanent human progress? The answer is NO.
Men and women of the white race, do you know what is going to happen if you do not think and act now? One of two things. You are either going to deceive and keep the Negro in your midst until you have perfectly completed your wonderful American civilization with its progress of art, science, industry and politics, and then, jealous of your own success and achievements in those directions, and with the greater jealousy of seeing your race pure and unmixed, cast him off to die in the whirlpool of economic starvation, thus, getting rid of another race that was not intelligent enough to live, or, you simply mean by the largeness of your hearts to assimilate fifteen million Negroes into the social fraternity of an American race that will neither be white nor black. Don't be alarmed! We must prevent both consequences. No real race loving white man wants to destroy the purity of his race, and no real Negro conscious of himself wants to die, hence there is room for an understanding and an adjustment, and that is just "

There's a band called "The Negro Problem."
That part at the end where Garvey is saying that he'd rather not see intermingling is curious. Back then, that was a huge fear. It still is now, but most scientists agree that there will be more racial homogeny in the near future. It doesn't bother me, but it just may be a driving force behind the conservative attempts over the last generation at historic revisionism of important civil rights advances.

wow, 101 views and only one reply....

im sure if this man was alive today he would have a very different view....

my question is, why did you post this white boy?

I'm unsure of why you aver so strongly that you are sure.


SuchFriends, the m^a(t)h man urges you to please "stick with your own kind."

Meanwhile, I'll puff some sticky kind with ya.

He tossed in a comma splice just so you'll know he's serious...dude ain't fuckin' 'round.

I've tried to address various Negro problems on this board, but there's not a heck of a lot of Afro-Americans on here.

hence, "Appeal to the Soul of White america"

(this means me and many of you)

Sinead O Connor has a song called Marcus Garvy, i cringe everytime i hear it on the radio. i didnt even read yr post i'm sorry. i hate that song so much i dont even wanna know.
he sounds like someone that used to be in my class in school or something.

man! wasn't this guy a consummate self-glorifying con-man?



seriously, he talked pretty, but he robbed a lot of hard-working people of their money

how altruistic of you, thanks.

You don't speak for me, I am not white.

really, stop posting this shit. you're not enlightening anyone on anything. no need to show how liberal you are by posting marcus garvey essays on the board, all it's doing is making you seem like a total trustafarian with a serious case of white guilt. it makes me especially angry, as a black man, because it just seems like you're trying to prove how down you are by smoking a lot of pot, wearing silly hats, and speaking patois over the internet, when you're actually probably playing dress up. sorry if i offended your authenticity or anything, but if you went to jamaica talking such jive shit, they 'bumberclark' your ass in a second.

try posting something relevant and then maybe folks will take you seriously.

(ps. marcus garvey was more racist than revolutionary)