Caribbean people are well aware of the contributions of Jamaica’s national hero, Marcus Garvey, for his advocacy of Pan-Africanism and black pride. Most of the stories of Garvey’s life highlight his charismatic personality and inspiring ideas. His tireless campaigning attracted a large following who also faced prejudice and brutal opposition.
However, this overwhelming focus on the leader has meant that much less is known about the sacrifices made by the ranks of the movement – the foot soldiers who carried Garvey’s message into the villages and fields of the colonies and raised contributions from across the region. to send to the headquarters of the movement in New York.
Now, Kathy Casimir MacLean, a granddaughter of one of Marcus Garvey’s agents in the Caribbean, JR Ralph Casimir (1898–1996), has written an account of her grandfather’s role in the war during the first decades of the 20th century in the island of Dominica. It makes a major contribution to the study of Garveyism in the region approximately 100 years after her grandfather engaged in the matter.
Like Casimir, most of Garvey’s followers identified with his background among working-class laborers and peasant farmers on the outskirts of cities and colonial plantations.
Garvey was born in 1887 in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. His father was a stonemason and since his family was poor, his education was very sketchy. He left for Kingston at the age of 15 and eventually rose to become a foreman in a printing company. Here he became involved in radical journalism and wrote articles calling on blacks to take pride in themselves and look to Africa as a source of inspiration.
Garvey developed this movement by founding the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). At first it was a kind of fraternal organization, but later he remodeled it to become the main council for Black awakening.
He immigrated to New York in 1916 and the following year founded a branch of the UNIA in Harlem. Here he set up headquarters and opened a newspaper, black world, which took as its motto the rallying cry of UNIA – “one goal, one God, one destiny”.
orLike many other islands at the time, there was a vibrant core of Garvey activists in Dominica as his message spread. Led by Casimir, who was a deeply committed and passionate agent of the movement, they struggled against great personal odds to fight for change and respect for black people in this small colonial outpost.
In her book Black Man Listen, published by Papillote Press, his granddaughter paints a loving and well-researched portrait of the challenges he faced. It also gives an insight into the dedication of others like him across the Caribbean at the time who took up the challenge.
The title of the book comes from one of Casimir’s poems of the same name, in which he emphasizes the urgency of the cause, one line of which reads:
BLACK MAN LISTEN UP!
You often quote Marcus Garvey, but
Garvey’s philosophy was to educate
Build, merge, freeze –
Nothing destructive and reckless.
How do you study History? …
The black man has been and is doing for centuries
Do the same:
Learn to aspire, merge, create, build.
JR Ralph Casimir was born in the west coast village of Saint Joseph in Dominica. He was educated in the village school and moved to Roseau, the capital, where he took various jobs such as bookbinder. He became a clerk to the leading lawyer on the island, Cecil EA Rawle – a leading advocate of Caribbean unity who also campaigned for self-government by increasing suffrage through constitutional reforms towards universal suffrage.
As Rawle’s clerk, with a keen interest in current affairs and involvement in the island’s newspapers, Casimir became part of an influential group of citizens who were eager to see changes in colonial rule. But even in Dominica there were class divisions and shades of color to deal with.
At one point, Rawle threatened to terminate Casimir’s employment because of his involvement with the UNIA. According to Rawle, Casimir’s ties to Garveyism were giving his rooms a bad name among upper-class patrons. Calling himself a “New Negro”, for more than half a century Casimir faced not only the colonial rule, but also the elites of his island.
These were turbulent times in the Caribbean immediately after the First World War, for many young men had volunteered to fight in this imperial conflict. They had been inspired by propaganda that convinced them that, as members of an “imperial family”, it was too much Theirs war.
And so, they went. Mainly in Egypt, Palestine, Greece and the Western Front. Race and ethnicity, as always, in no small part determined their respective placements: the darker ones in the labor battalions and the lighter Creoles in officer positions and at the Front.
Of those who survived, many returned disillusioned after seeing the underbelly of the Empire for themselves. Many others heard the disturbing stories of the returnees and started a self-determination movement that laid the foundations throughout the 1920s and 1930s for a new spirit of Caribbean nationalism.
TheKasimir plunged into this state of collective consciousness. In addition to his work for the UNIA, he served as secretary for the first West Indies Conference – held in Dominica in 1932 – to plan a union of the Eastern Caribbean.
In addition to concerns about regional progress, Casimir continued to argue for the broader ideals of Garvey’s Back to Africa movement. Branches of the UNIA were established wherever people of African descent congregated in the region—including places such as Panama and Costa Rica, where the islanders had immigrated to find work.
“Halls of Freedom” were opened as meeting places. The men and women who led the movement had to keep up the momentum, keep spirits up, and encourage membership. Sometimes they had to explain to impatient followers why idealistic programs for black shipping, trade, and independent governments were not unfolding as quickly as they had been led to believe.
It was these UNIA field team leaders, like Casimiri, who had to shoulder the burden of donor suspicion when the movement faced its most difficult challenges. They were the ones who had to face the constant question of why the benefits of the subscriptions and shares they had been persuaded to pay in UNIA were not bearing fruit.
Casimir called on Garvey to visit the islands to rally his followers and give them confidence in the cause – as well as to relieve the pressure on agents like himself. Kathy MacLean has used her grandfather’s surviving letters, notebooks and membership lists, along with their financial contributions, to illustrate all of this.
But Casimir soldiered on, upholding Garvey’s ideals to the end of his life as he witnessed a new generation of Caribbean youth inspired by the cause. IN Black Man ListenKathy MacLean has not only made her grandfather proud, but she has offered the people of the Caribbean a new window into Marcus Garvey’s work in the region and among the African diaspora around the world.
