Marcus Garvey Research Paper

Our Caribbean region has benefitted from the invaluable contribution of leaders who have struggled to uplift their country, their people and the cohesive advancement of the region. The social, political and economic systems African Americans in the United States – who shared a historical past with the enslaved and emancipated blacks of the Caribbean, had a clear impact on political movements in the Caribbean. C.L.R James and Marcus Garvey were two Caribbean leaders whose common dominator was their “Caribbeaness” but their views and ideologies on the life they envisioned for the black and working class people, especially those in the Caribbean, were tangentially opposing.
C.L.R James (1901 – 1989) was a formally educated Trinidadian born
Garvey’s influence was also present in Belize through the Black Cross Nurse Association, which was founded out of the UNIA movement in Belize, and became the impetus for the iconic Nurse Seay and Cleopatra White. His philosophy of uniting blacks universally was promoted in Belize largely through the newspaper “Belize Independent” and through the work of Belizean patriot and benefactor Isaiah Morter in the establishment of Liberty Hall. While Garvey’s black power movement was tangible in Belize, his ideology of repatriation to Africa was not as tangible. As working-class and employer relations improved in Belize the relevance of the Garvey movement dwindled. While the ideology of repatriation to Africa and the promotion of a separate black nation have faded, Garvey’s teaching of black pride, black race struggle, upliftment, self-determination and reverence for our African-Belizean roots lives on through music and the literary arts.
Both Caribbean icons – James and Garvey promoted a fundamental awareness of our shared black struggles, fostered a means of empowerment through their ideologies and encourage an awakening in blacks throughout the