Marcus Garvey and Faith

Afrikan people throughout the ages have as a natural norm been a people of faith. Faith in the Creator Supreme and faith in themselves – past, present and future. Throughout the various indigenous Afrikan languages the presence of an identifier for the Creator Supreme is an age old feature. From Amen-Ra to Faro to Nkulunkulu to Mungu to Oludumare and so on throughout the great continent Afrikan souls held living knowingness of the Ultimate Divine prior to any imposition of any alien forces. The self-determined spiritual and cultural fabric of Afrikan souls is at the foundational core of the greatest and most enduring civilisations that this primary and spirit people of creation brought to be. Hence, the popularised conclusion that Afrikan souls are ‘notoriously religious’ carries weight. Naturally, faith for the Afrikan is a continual, upright and necessary vehicle of empowerment.  

With the interruption and disruption of the Maafa of recent centuries, others that mean the Afrikan ill have sought to derail the Afrikan from their own self-determined spiritual and cultural fabric of life. Here, a number of foreign religions have been pushed and peddled amongst Afrikan souls to skew the natural order of Afrikan faith and misdirect Afrikan faithfulness towards alien forces of anti-Afrikan agency. Illustratively and according to a popular mainstream platform the word religion is defined as:

“a particular system of faith and worship”.

In the upper part of the so-called 20th century, the supreme visionary Marcus Garvey creates and leads the powerful Garvey Movement with its superlative thrust for global Afrikan ascension. The motto of the Movement is One God, One Aim, One Destiny. The Movement’s core holds the fabric of Garveyism which can be mission-compellingly summarised as consisting of the elements of: Race First, Self-Reliance and Nationhood. The Garvey Movement not only represented unmatched victorious organisational prowess, it became a magnificent mission for the restoration of Afrikan faith. According to a noted clergyman writings published in Garvey’s International newspaper in 1930:

“I do not know whether or not Marcus Garvey is aware of the fact that he has given the world a new religion, nevertheless he has. To me Garveyism is a religion which is sane, practical, inspiring and satisfying, it is of God, hence the devout Garveyite cannot deny the existence of God, but sees God in you, I and the world”.

The greatness, inspiration and empowerment that can be gleaned from Marcus Garvey forever echoes in his powerful wisdom guiding utterances:

“God and nature first made us what we are and then out of our own creative genius we make ourselves what we want to be”.

Of course, by the time the so-called 1960s come along the thrust of Garvey is magnificently reignited through the works of the great hero Omowale Malcolm X.  The inspiration of Garveyism continually flows on through observances such as that of Kwanzaa and its Nguzo Saba.  In fact, one of the principles of the Nguzo Saba explicitly details faith:

Imani (Faith) – To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers and the righteousness and victory of our [ascension].

Naturally, hand-in-hand with self-determined cultural restoration ought to come self-determined spiritual restoration. Faith for Afrikan souls is a wholistic core. Here then, spiritual-cultural oneness is key. Thus, the culturally harmonising spiritual formulation of ASBWOK (Afrikan Spirituality By Way Of Kwanzaa) has been brought to the fore from this arena. In this, the powerful thrust of Garveyism continues its ever-onward, ever-upward march for victorious global Afrikan ascension.   As such, Garveysim is energised in and lives on in: