Marcus Garvey - A Progressive Learning Experience

The Wake Up Call was initially launched in 2007 as a hardcopy newspaper publication. Much by way of progressive growth and transformation both on a personal and institutional basis has taken place since that preliminary and embryonic period of time. Bringing the Wake Up Call into fruition was and continues to be inspired by the great hero Marcus Garvey for whom the substance of this account is dedicated to. Â With the advent of 'new media' proliferation, 2018 brings with it the re-emergence of this important publication online. Surely there is no better way to celebrate this expression than to highlight its main source of inspiration. 

The superlatives cannot be too many and cannot be lavish enough to describe the work, impact and legacy of the magnificent Marcus Garvey.

Born in the parish of St Anns on the island of Jamaica in 1887 to Sarah and Marcus Garvey Senior, Marcus Garvey was destined to become a leader of huge proportions. His mother envisaged that her son would “lead his people”. For this reason she wanted to call him Moses. This became Mosiah and with the inheritance of his father's name we get Marcus Mosiah Garvey. In the Afrikan tongue of Kiswahili Moses is Musa (with an etymological root to be found in ancient Nile Valley tradition). Thus, the deeply meaningful Afrikan way of naming an Afrikan child had been preserved in a form by the Garvey family.

Marcus Garvey Senior was an avid reader and had a library of books. As a result his son took a keen interest in reading from a young age. The quest for knowledge remained with Marcus Garvey throughout his life and in the first lesson of a course that he would later teach selected members of his gigantic organisation he emphasises that:

You must never stop learning. The world's greatest men and women were people who educated themselves outside of the university with all the knowledge that the university gives, you have the opportunity of doing the same thing the university student does - read and study. One must never stop reading. Read everything that is of standard knowledge. Don't waste time reading trashy literature. - Message to the People, p1.

Garvey grew in Jamaica where he developed a number of skills that would later serve him well. He worked as a printer where he learned about business, leadership in the workforce and journalism. He engaged in social activity to improve the lives of the local Afrikan populous. He studied elocution and practiced to develop his powerful skills of oratory.

The young Marcus Garvey began to travel. He first visited the regions of South and Central America where he experienced the dire conditions that his people faced there. He worked and produced publications for the upliftment of Afrikan people in those areas.

He later travelled to England where he came into contact with Duse Mohammed Ali, the publisher of what has been described as the foremost Pan Afrikan publication at the time, The Afrikan Times and Orient Review. He worked on the publication, drawing upon his previous experiences and developing himself at the same time.

He travelled throughout Europe and met Afrikans from different countries who were able to share with him accounts of conditions throughout Afrika. During this time Marcus Garvey's quest for knowledge was as strong as ever. As his second wife Amy Jacques Garvey recalled:

Garvey spent much time in libraries reading among other things, of the rise and fall of empires, economies etc. -  Garvey and Garveyism, p9.