4. Criticisms of Garveyism

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About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we explore criticisms of Garveyism, focusing in particular on: (i) W. E. B. Du Bois’s rejection of Garvey; (ii) the different aims of Garveyism, which is fundamentally separatist, and the civil rights/integrative reform movements with which Du Bois was involved; (iii) Garvey’s controversial and strategic involvement with the Ku Klux Klan; (iv) criticisms of Garvey as a ‘Black racist’ and counter-arguments; (v) the role of colourism in contemporary attitudes towards Garvey; (vi) Du Bois’s concept of the ‘talented tenth’; (vii) the influence of the UNIA’s activism on subsequent civil rights organising, despite critiques of Garvey; (viii) criticisms of Garvey’s capitalist leanings.

Course

In this course, Professor Kehinde Andrews (Birmingham City University) explores the ideas and politics of Marcus Garvey and the movement of Garveyism. In the first module, we explore Garveyism, Britain, and the concept of the nation-state, focusing in particular on how Garveyism challenges the concept of the nation and the nation-state. In the second module we explore Garvey’s key ideas and political activism, including his ‘Back to Africa’ movement. In the third module, we explore the concept of nationalism in Garvey’s thought, focusing in particular on the idea of the global Black nation, as well as how this idea challenges the Western concept of the nation-state as established in Treaty of Westphalia (1648). In the fourth module we turn to criticisms of Garveyism, including Garvey’s controversial and strategic involvement with the Ku Klux Klan. Then, in the fifth and final module, we outline the fundamental differences between Garveyism and Pan-Africanism.

Lecturer

Kehinde Andrews is Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University. Professor Andrews is an academic, activist and author whose books include 'Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century' (2018) and 'Resisting Racism: Race, Inequality and the Black Supplementary School Movement' (2013). He is currently engaged in a project examining the role of Black radicalism in contemporary organising against racial oppression.