Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey Quotes

“great principles, great ideals know no nationality.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“You at this time can only be destroyed by yourselves, from within and not from without. You have reached the point where the victory is to be won from within and can only be lost from within.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“to be once defeated is to find cause for an everlasting struggle to reach the top.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“Having had the wrong education as a start in his racial career, the Negro has become his own greatest enemy. Most of the trouble I have had in advancing the cause of the race has come from Negroes. Booker Washington aptly described the race in one of his lectures by stating that we were like crabs in a barrel, that none would allow the other to climb over, but on any such attempt all would continue to pull back into the barrel the one crab that would make the effort to climb out. Yet, those of us with vision cannot desert the race, leaving it to suffer and die.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“we were like crabs in a barrel, that none would allow the other to climb over, but on any such attempt all would continue to pull back into the barrel the one crab that would make the effort to climb out.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“Men, there is much to live for, and there is much to die for. The man, the race of nation that is not prepared to risk life itself for the possession of an ideal, shall lose that ideal. If you, I repeat, must be free, you yourselves must strike the blow.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“Some of us seem to accept the fatalist position, the fatalist attitude, that God accorded to us a certain position and condition, and therefore there is no need trying to be otherwise. The moment you accept such an attitude, the moment you accept such an opinion, the moment you harbor such an idea, you hurl an insult at the great God who created you, because you question Him for His love, you question Him for His mercy.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“If I die in Atlanta my work shall then only begin, but I shall live, in the physical or spiritual to see the day of Africa’s glory.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“The Negro will have to build his own industry, art, sciences, literature, and culture before the world will stop to consider him.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“To have built up a new organization, which was not purely political, among Negroes in America was a wonderful feat, for the Negro politician does not allow any other kind of organization within his race to thrive.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“The race needs workers at this time, not plagiarists, sopists and mere imitators; but men and women who are able to create, to originate and improve, and thus make an independent racial contribution to the world and civilisation.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“was the crying voice from the grave that said, ‘Garvey, we have suffered for 250 years for your day and for your time; we expect something from you at this hour.’”16”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“whipped. It annoys me to be defeated; hence to me, to be once defeated is to find cause for an everlasting struggle to reach the top.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“Every student of political science, every student of political economy, every student of economics knows that the race can only be saved through a solid industrial foundation; that the race can only be saved through political independence. Take away industry from a race, take away political freedom from a race and you have a slave race.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“be defeated; hence to me, to be once defeated is to find cause for an everlasting struggle to reach the top.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“Ideals of liberty , freedom and righteousness do not prosper in the 20th century excepts they coincide with oil, rubber, gold, diamond, coal, iron, sugar, coffee, and such other minerals and products desired by the privileged, capitalists and leaders who control the system of government.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“Pay no attention to the man who criticizes unless he is doing something better than what he criticizes.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“Pay no attention to the man who criticizes unless he is doing something better than what he criticizes”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“Situated as we are, in a civilization of prejudice and contempt, it is not for us to inspire and advertise the vices of our people, but, by proper leadership, to form characters that would reflect the highest credit upon us and win the highest opinion of an observant and critical world.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“We need crusaders in journalism who will not seek to enrich themselves off the crimes and ignorance of our race, but men and women who will risk everything for the promotion of racial pride, self-respect, love and integrity. The mistake the race is making is to accept and believe that our unprincipled newspaper editors and publishers are our leaders; some of them are our biggest crooks and defamers.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“Nearly all the newspapers of the race had entered into a conspiracy to taboo the term “Negro” and popularize the term “colored” as the proper race term. To augment this they also fostered the propaganda of bleaching out black skins to light complexions, and straightening out kinky or curly hair to meet the “standard” of the new “society” that was being promoted. I severely”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“Every student of political science, every student of political economy, every student of economics, knows that the race can only be saved through a solid industrial foundation {applause}; that the race can only be saved through political independence.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“If I hate you, no law in the world can make me love you. If I am prejudiced against you for reasons, no law, no constitution in the world can make me change my attitude toward you.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“No, we are interpreting the spirit of every true white American; but we are honest enough to say certain things that others do not care to say.” Now”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“I prefer and have a higher regard for the man who intends to take my life who will warn me and say, “Garvey, I am going to take your life,” so as to give me time to prepare my soul for my God, rather than the man who will pretend to be my friend, and as I turn my back he ushers me into eternity without even giving me a chance to say my Lord’s Prayer.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“All of us know that America is as much the Negro’s as the white man’s, but the white man says, “I am going to make this a white man’s country.” The only thing for you to do is to get hold of him, beat him and take it away.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“The attitude of the Ku Klux Klan is that America shall be a white man’s country at all hazards, at all costs.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“found out, therefore, that the Ku Klux Klan was purely a racial organization standing up in the interests of white folks exclusive of the interests of others.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“The exposé of the Ku Klux Klan was solely a skillful method of advertising the activities of the Klan at very little cost to the Klan.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

“Let me tell you this: that the Ku Klux Klan is really the invisible government of the United States of America, and that there are more people identified with the Klan than you think; that there are more people in sympathy with the activities of the Ku Klux Klan than you think, and that there is more sympathy in this country for the Ku Klux Klan than the ordinary literate Negro newspaperman thinks and sees on the surface.”
― Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey