“What can the Caribbean Reparation Campaign learn from the Garvey Movement?” The question will be answered at the next installment of the Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture Series by Dr Rupert Lewis, Professor Emeritus of Political Thought in the Department of Government of the University of the West Indies, Mona.
As Caricom strengthens its argument that Europe should establish compensatory payment to descendants of African families who were enslaved, the debate continues over the worthiness of such a claim. Perhaps viewing the argument from a perspective of identity and self respect, the debate offers a perspective that parallels monetary reimbursement to generating development.
Expanding the discussion further, Marcus Garvey’s philosophy comes to the fore. Garvey wanted Africans, regardless of their location in the world, to recapture a worthiness that can only be attributed to self-determination; to seize all opportunities placed before them; to build a political and economic force. But first, they must understand their past – before the history of enslavement – and the fortitude it possessed.
When Dr Lewis discusses the topic at Nalis, Port of Spain on July 10 and at Pt Fortin East Secondary School on July 12, he will provide more insight. Dr Lewis, who also served as Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences and is Associate Director of the Center for Caribbean Thought, has published widely on Marcus Garvey and the Garvey movement.
Dr Lewis has compiled the CD-ROM – Marcus Garvey’s Jamaica 1929-1932 and is presently editing a collection of Marcus Garvey’s writings on Jamaica. He is also author of the book Walter Rodney’s Intellectual and Political Thought and co-edited with the late Fitz Baptiste, George Padmore – Pan-African Revolutionary. He is editor of Caribbean Political Activism – Essays in Honour of Richard Hart which was recently published.
He is chairman of the Friends of Liberty Hall which spearheaded the restoration of Garvey’s Liberty Hall at 76 King St. in Kingston, Jamaica now known as Liberty Hall – the legacy of Marcus Garvey. He served as chairman of the African-Caribbean Institute of Jamaica and Jamaica Memory Bank from 1997-2011 and is now deputy chairman of the Institute of Jamaica.
Admission to the lecture, which is hosted by the Emancipation Support Committee, is free.