R.I.P. Baba Oduno.
* This week Dr. Hate returned to lead our continuing Black August reflections on the history of the Garvey movement. In the discussion were Dr. Ahmed Assalaam, Potentate and Supreme Commissioner of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA); UNIA member, organizer and scholar Baba Tarik Oduno and UNIA-ACL international organizer Mwariama Kamau. Thanks also to Dj Munch for the exclusive Dj Roddy Rod performance of J Dilla’s FTP!
*August 29, 2014
Thank you all; especially, Almighty God , Parents, community, Brother Walher; all oters.
i am grateful , humbled , thankful,
Minister-Prof. T. A. . ODUNO. Garden motivator, servant, friend, Father, PaPa
Give thanks. : TAO
Great piece BrorherMariama. Keep up the good works and may the Ancestors and Creator guide brother Oduno and yourself to victory. One Africa!
It disappoints me to think about how much work that Africans will have to do just to obtain what we had in the 1950s in terms of business ownership. Black people really and truly took a serious blow with this integration and people like Dubois sabotaging our efforts at self governance.
Could we seriously be successful in this day in age of rebuilding the UNIA or another organization to the level of the UNIA’s heyday? I ask because so much of the UNIA was built on entrepreneurship not only of Garveyites, but of people like Booker T. Washington in Alabama, agricultural HBCUs like FAMU, and many other famous and unknown movers. There was almost a 40 year pre-UNIA build up by Black physical laborers (lets call them what they were –feudal peasant farmers) to learning skilled trades, vocations, and how to work the land efficiently ALONG with creating an intelligentsia who was nationalistic and not just simpleminded stooges for white power. Black institutions like businesses, schools, and civic groups were not a slogan shouting, lock step group of hero worshippers, but entities with real power, charisma, and perseverance within the community.
What can be built within our current situation? Indeed, it is almost impossible for white small business owners to keep their heads above water. The system is making everybody suffer, including those who thought that they were entitled due to their skin color. Business laws are so twisted that the only things that are permitted to survive and thrive are the monstrous and leeching corporations and the corrupt CEOs who serve them. What businesses are still around with any power? Those created before the 1980s and Reaganomics, but particularly those created during the era of the robber barons around the late 1800s. Everybody else can kick rocks in terms of the laxity of law needed to make an effective business empire because those arch-capitalists closed the door behind them when they entered the money pit. And that’s not even getting into the racial issues of what will happen to any uppity African institution that tries to organize the masses of our people, especially in an international sense.
I get a bit pessimistic about the whole thing sometimes, but I do know that Africans have always made a way out of no way and that there is nothing that we cannot do. I just wish that we could have done what was necessary when the iron was hot. We are in an amazingly restrictive age that would give even the genius of Marcus Garvey trouble. It is truly ironic that our ancestors were able to do so much more with only a fraction of our technology, education, and career status. Pan-Africanism is needed more now than ever before.
Peace
Mari-Djata
Mr. Garvey’s timeless wisdom and intergenerational plan for African Redemption is the most comprehensive blueprint for Black Power ever designed and most successful mass movement for improvement ever constructed. Mr. Garvey left a model for us to emulate if we just learn and embrace his simple formula.
Mr. Garvey set the precedent for all who came after him, yet after his demise many left the UNIA and thought they could build a better mouse trap. None have even come remotely close to his level of accomplishment.
It has been said that ‘insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.’ The flip side of that argument would be that ‘sanity is doing the same things and expecting the same results.’ Therefore, I recommend we all reconsider the most tried, tested and true program for racial empowerment. If we really want what we had, we must do what we did. The time for experimentalism and adventurism are gone.
It was Garveyism that sparked the Black Renaissance of the 1910s/ 20s; it was Garveyism that sparked the African Independence movement of the 1950s /60s. It was Garveyism that sparked the Black Power Era and Buy Black campaigns of the 1970s and I assure you it will take Garveyism in the Age of Globalism to defeat the evil designs of modern materialism.
“In a world of wolves, one must go armed. The best defensive weapon within reach of the first race is the practice of race first in all parts of the world.” There is no substitution for genuine self-determination.
May we all embrace pure, unadulturated Garveyism (Universal African Nationalism) and study African Fundamentalism. Instrumental solutions will never solve fundamental problems.
Thank you all for listening to the program during our centennial. Marcus Garvey and the UNIA: Often Imitated, But Never Duplicated.
JOIN THE UNIA TODAY!
http://www.theunia-acl.com/index.php/membership
I have the honor to remain your Obedient Servant, with unmitigated faith in GOD: Garveyism Or Death!
Mwariama Kamau
Beautiful program. Thanks! Better late than never, why hasn’t Baba Oduno been on before? Baba Oduno is a well spring of Afrikan history. Brother Dr Ball, thanks for airing the piece by D Noble. When you bringing in Dr. Horne?