Love yourself better than anybody else, All beauty is in you and not outside of you. God made you beautiful. Confine your affection to your race and God will bless you and men will honor you. Marcus Garvey
We're serious about what we're doing, and this is a movement that we need at
this time. The people don't need anymore promises that are not kept. Our
children are our most important asset, and we must never forget that. We honor
ourselves, when we do things that benefit the race. All other races work
towards a better future for their children collectively among themselves. Yet
we have not perfected that duty to ourselves as of yet. We have made strides
towards it, but not what is needed. We are not a poor people, we are a very
rich people, and you must not measure richness in the capitalistic way that we
are use to in this society.
You must measure your richness, by the institutions and the society that you
create on your own, as well as what you have left for your children to inherit.
We must learn to value each childs life in our community as if they were our
own children. In reality, they are all our children. This is how one's worth is
measured, as well your worth to society. We African Americans must create a new
reality for ourselves. We must give our children something to inherit besides
an American dream. Integration has been a failure, and never was meant to work.
For people who are fooling you and telling you to stay the course are not being
honest with you. All the people who call themselves Civil rights leaders need
to retire, we no longer need your services, it's a new day and we are willing
to make our own way.
If we don't realize that we have to create our own realities then we're doom to
whatever happens to a people who must depend on others to survive. What we
advocate is a new solution to a problem that no elected official will say to
you and not too many people who you look to as a black leader will advocate
for, and that is Pan Africanism. Pan Africanism allows us to unite with other
Africans who have the same issues and problems as we do. Only through Pan
Africanism will we take control of our own destiny. As I stated earlier we're
serious about what we do, so we created a site that will give you a new
perspective about yourself and about your brothers and sisters in the Diaspora.
We must align ourselves with our people in the rest of the world.
We can no longer act as if we're the only Black people who matter in the world,
and this is the way we act at times. Not since South
Africa was under apartheid have we acted as
a people who cared about our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora. What we were
practicing without knowing it at the time was, Pan Africanism in it's simplest
terms. So why can't we do it today on a larger scale but maintain that
energy to unite on an international level. We have started a new organization
called Organization of Pan African Unity www.oopau.org
patterned after Malcolm's Organization of Afro-American Unity. The only thing
that has changed is the name. That was changed for we're not limiting ourselves
and want the scope to be Pan Africanism and not Pan Afro-Americanism. We will
use the original charter of the OAAU and work the plan that our Greatest
Warrior Malcolm left us.
We ask that African, Caribbean, South Pacific, Asian,
Central and South American people and governments who believe in Pan Africanism
help us to organize with you. We all need each other to help each other. There
should be no reason, at all, that we should be working together to have a
better relationship with each other. The most feared thing in this world, is
that we should organize with each other. It's no accident that we are kept
apart from another and allow misconceptions about each other to exist. The
people of African descent in South Africa
and the people of African descent in America
didn't continue to work together after apartheid ended and Mandela was freed.
They thought the struggle was over since Mandela became president and apartheid
had ended.
The struggle has not ended, what we need is a constant and continued struggle.
We need to practice today what we practiced then and that is working together.
Look at what we accomplished when we work together, so why not work
together today? The governments of all African countries should be working with
our communities so we that we can work together. There should be a new
understanding between each other, that we will come together and work together
so that we may give our children something that we don't have and that is a
Unified Pan African World. We're now going to examine Marcus Garvey's
"Message to the People" every family should have this book in their
home, all African person should read it. It's a course on how to develop
leaders and we need leaders today with an African consciousness. Let's begin
our lesson plan!
Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy
Lesson 1
Intelligence, Education,
Universal Knowledge,
and How to Get It
You must never stop learning. The worlds greatest men and women were people
who educated themselves outside of the university with all the knowledge that
the university gives, [ you have the opportunity of doing the same thing the
university student doesread and study.
One must never stop reading. Read everything that you can read that is of
standard knowledge. Dont waste time reading trashy literature. This is to say,
dont pay any attention to the ten cents novels, Wild West stories and cheap
sentimental books, but where there is a good plot and a good story in the form
of a novel, read it. It is necessary to read it for the purpose of getting
information on human nature. The idea is that personal experience is not enough
for a human to get all the useful knowledge of life, because the individual
life is too short, so we must feed on the experience of others. The literature
we read should include the biography and autobiography of men and women who
have accomplished greatness in their particular line.
Whenever you can buy these books and own them and whilst you are reading them
make pencil or pen notes of the striking sentences and paragraphs that you
should like to remember, so that when you have to refer to the book for any
thought that you would like to refresh your mind on, you will not have to read
over the whole book.
You should also read the best poetry for inspiration. The standard poets have
always been the most inspirational creators. From a good line of poetry, you
may get the inspiration for the career of a life time. Many a great man and
woman was first inspired by some attractive line or verse of poetry.
There are good poets and bad poets just like there are good novels and bad
novels. Always select the best poets for your inspirational urge. Read history
incessantly until you master it. This means your own national history, the
history of the world, social history, industrial history, and the history of
the different sciences; but primarily, the history of man. If you do not know
what went on before you came here and what is happening at the time you live,
but away from you, you will not know the world and will be ignorant of the
world and mankind.
You can only make the best out of life by knowing and understanding it. To
know, you must fall back on the intelligence of others who came before you and
have left their records behind. To be able to read intelligently, you must
first be able to master the language of your country. To do this, you must be
well acquainted with its grammar and the science of it. Every six months you
should read over again the science of the language that you speak, so as not to
forget its rules. People judge you by your writing and your speech. If you
write badly and incorrectly they become prejudiced towards your intelligence,
and if you speak badly and incorrectly, those who hear you become disgusted and
will not pay much attention to you but in their hearts laugh after you. A
leader who is to teach men and present any fact of truth to man must first be
learned in his subject.
Never write or speak on a subject you know nothing about, for there is always
somebody who knows that particular subject to laugh at you or to ask you
embarrassing questions that may make others laugh at you. You can know about
any subject under the sun by reading about it. If you cannot buy the books
outright and own them, go to your public circulating library in your district
or town, so as to get the use of those books. You should do that as you may
refer to them for information.
You should read at least four hours a day. The best time to read is in the
evening after you have retired from your work and after you have rested and
before sleeping hours, but do so before morning, so that during your sleeping
hours what you have read may become subconscious, that is to say, planted in
your memory. Never go to bed without doing some reading.
Never keep the constant company of anybody who doesnt know as much as you or [
as educated as you, and from whom you cannot learn something or reciprocate
your learning, especially, if that person is illiterate or ignorant because
constant association with such a person will unconsciously cause you to drift
into the peculiar culture or ignorance of that person. Always try to associate
with people from whom you can learn something. Contact with cultured persons
and with books is the best companionship you can have and keep.
By reading good books you keep the company of the authors of the books or the
subjects of the book when otherwise you could not meet them in the social
contact of life. NEVER GO DOWN IN INTELLIGENCE to those who are below you, but
if possible help to lift them up to you and always try to ascend to those who
are above you and be their equal with the hope of being their master.
Continue always in the application of the things you desire educationally,
culturally, or otherwise, and never give up until you reach the objective, and
you can reach the objective if others have done so before you, proving by their
doing it that it is possible.
In your desire to accomplish greatness, you must first decide in your own mind
in what direction you desire to seek that greatness, and when you have so
decided in your own mind work unceasingly towards it. The particular thing that
you may want should be before you all the time, and whatsoever it takes to get
it or make possible should be undertaken. Use your faculties and persuasion to
achieve all you set your mind on.
Try never to repeat yourself in any one discourse in saying the same thing over
and over again except you are making new points, because repetition is tiresome
and it annoys those who hear the repetition. Therefore, try to possess as much
universal knowledge as possible through reading so as to be able to be free of
repetition in trying to drive home a point.
No one is ever too old to learn. Therefore, you should take advantage of every
educational facility. If you should hear of a great man or woman who is to
lecture or speak in your town on any given subject and the person is an
authority on the subject, always make time to go and hear him. This is what is
meant by learning from others. You should learn the two sides to every story,
so as to be able to properly debate a question and hold your ground with the
side that you support. If you only know one side of a story, you cannot argue
intelligently nor effectively. As for instance, to combat communism, you must
know about it, otherwise people will take advantage of you and win a victory
over your ignorance. Anything that you are going to challenge, you must first
know about it, so as to be able to defeat it. The moment you are ignorant about
anything the person who has the intelligence of that thing will defeat you.
There fore, get knowledge, get it quickly, get it studiously, but get it
anyway.
Knowledge is power. When you know a thing and can hold your ground on that
thing and win over your opponents on that thing, those who hear you learn to
have confidence in you and will trust your ability. Never, therefore, attempt
anything without being able to protect yourself on it, for every time you are
defeated it takes away from your prestige and you are not as respected as
before. All the knowledge you want is in the world, and all that you have to do
is to go seeking it and never stop until you have found it. You can find
knowledge or the information about it in the public libraries, if it is not on
your own bookshelf. Try to have a book and own it on every bit of knowledge you
want. You may generally get these books at second hand book stores for
sometimes one-fifth of the original value.
Always have a well equipped shelf of books. Nearly all information about
mankind is to be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica. This is an expensive set
of books, but try to get them. Buy a complete edition for yourself, and keep it
at your home, and whenever you are in doubt about anything, go to it and you
will find it there. The value of knowledge is to use it. It is not humanly
possible that a person can retain all knowledge of the world, but if a person
knows how to search for all the knowledge of the world, he will find it when he
wants it.
A doctor or a lawyer although he passed his examination in college does not
know all the laws and does not know all the techniques of medicine but he has
the fundamental knowledge. When he wants a particular kind of knowledge, he
goes to the medical books or law books and refers to the particular law or how
to use the recipe of medicine. You must, therefore, know where to find your
facts and use them as you want them. No one will know where you get them, but
you will have the facts and by using the facts correctly they will think you a
wonderful person, a great genius, and a trusted leader.
In reading it is not necessary or compulsory that you agree with everything you
read. You must always use or apply your own reasoning to what you have read
based upon what you already know as touching the facts on what you have read.
Pass judgment on what you read based upon these facts. When I say facts I mean
things that cannot be disputed. You may read thoughts that are old, and
opinions that are old and have changed since they were written. You must always
search to find out the latest facts on that particular subject and only(when
these facts are consistently maintained in what you read should you agree with
them, otherwise you are entitled to your own opinion.
Always have up-to-date knowledge. You can gather this from the latest books and
the latest periodicals journals and newspapers. Read your daily newspaper every
day. Read a standard monthly journal every month, a standard weekly magazine
every week, a standard quarterly magazine every quarter and by this you will
find the new knowledge of the whole year in addition to the books you read,
whose facts have not altered in that year. Dont keep old ideas, bury them as
new ones come.
How to Read
Use every spare minute you have
in reading. If you are going on a journey that would take you an hour, carry
something with you to read for that hour, until you have reached the place. If
you are sitting down waiting for somebody, have something in your pocket to
read until the person comes. Dont waste time. Any time you think you have to
waste put it in reading something. Carry with you a small pocket dictionary and
study words while waiting or traveling, or a small pocket volume on some
particular subject. Read through at least one book every week, separate and
distinct from your newspapers and journals. It will mean that at the end of one
year you will have ready fifty-two different subjects.
After five years you will have read over two hundred and fifty books. You may
be considered then a well read man or a well read woman and there will be a
great difference between you and the person who has not read one book. You will
be considered intelligent and the other person will be considered ignorant. You
and that person therefore, will be living in two different worlds; one the
world of ignorance and the other the world of intelligence. Never forget that
intelligence rules the world and ignorance carries the burden. Therefore,
remove yourself as far away from ignorance as possible and seek as much as
possible to be intelligent. Your language being English, you should study the
English language thoroughly. To know the English language thoroughly you ought
to be acquainted with Latin, because most of the English words are of Latin
origin.
It is also advisable that you know the French language because most of the
books that you read in English carry Latin and French phrases and words. There
is no use reading a page or a paragraph of a book or even a sentence without
understanding it. If the paragraph has foreign words in it, go to the
dictionary before you pass over the words if you dont know the meaning of the
words. Never pass over a word without knowing its meaning. The dictionary and
the books on word building that can be acquired from book sellers will help you
greatly.
I know a boy who was ambitious to learn. He didnt have the opportunity of an
early school education because he had to work ten hours a day. He was deter
mined to learn, so he took to work with him every day a simplified grammar. He
would read and memorize pas sages and the rules of grammar while at work. After
one year he was almost an expert in the gram mar of his language. He knew the
different parts of speech; he could paraphrase, analyze and construct sentences.
He also took with him a pocket dictionary and he would write out twenty-five
new words with their meanings every day and study these words and their
meanings.
After one year he had a speaking vocabulary of more than three thousand words.
He continued this for several years and when he became a man he had a
vocabulary of over fifteen thousand words. He became an author because he could
write in his language because he had command of the words. What he wrote was
his experiences and he recorded his experiences in the best words of his
language. At the same time he was not able to write properly and so he took
with him to work what is called a copying book and he practiced the copying of
letters until he was able to write a very good hand. He naturally became
acquainted with literature and so he continued reading extensively. When he
died he was one of the greatest scholars the world ever knew. Apply the story
to yourself.
There is nothing in the world that you want that you cannot have so long as it
is possible in nature and men have achieved it before. The greatest men and
women in the world burn the midnight
lamp. That is to say, when their neighbors and household are in bed, they are
reading, studying and thinking. When they rise in the morning they are always
ahead of their neighbors and their household in the thing that they were
studying, reading and thinking of. A daily repetition of that will carry them
daily ahead and above their neighbors and household. Practice this rule. It is
wise to study a couple of subjects at a time. As for instance, a little
geography, a little psychology, a little ethics, a little theology, a little
philosophy, a little mathematics, a little science on which a sound academic
education is built. By doing this, week after week, month after month, year
after year, you will be so learned in the liberal arts as to be ready and fit
for your place in the affairs of the world. If you know what others do not know
they will want to hear you. You will then become invaluable in your community
and to your country, because men and women will want to hear you and see you
everywhere.
As stated before, books are ones best companions. Try to get them and keep
them. A method of doing so is Every time you have ten cents or twenty-five
cents or a dollar to spend foolishly, either on your friends or your self,
think how much more useful if that ten or twenty- five cents or dollar would be
invested in a book and so invest it. It may be just the thing you have been
looking for to give you a thought by which you may win the heart of the world.
The ten cents, twenty-five cents or a dollar, therefore, may turn out to be an
investment of worth to the extent of a million dollars. Never lend anybody the
book that you want. You will never get it back. Never allow anybody to go to
your bookshelf in your absence, because the very book that you may want most
may be taken from the shelf and you may never be able to get one of that kind
again.
If you have a library of your own, lock it when you are not at home. Spend most
of your spare time in your library. If you have a radio keep it in your own
library and use it exhaustively to listen to lectures, recitals, speeches and
good music. You can learn a lot from the radio. You can be inspired a lot by
good music. Good music carries the sentiment of harmony and you may think many
a good thought out of listening to good music.
Read a chapter of the Bible every day; old and new testaments. The greatest
wisdom of the age is to be found in the Scriptures. You can always quote from
the Scriptures. It is the quickest way of winning approval.
TRAGEDY OF WHITE JUSTICE:
1. Read and study thoroughly the poem, Tragedy
White Injustice and apply its sentiment and statements in connection with the
historic character and behavior of the white man. Know it so well as always to
able to be on guard against any professions of the white man in his suggested
friendship for the Negro. The poem exposes the white mans behavior in his and
is intended to suggest distrust of him in every phase of life. Never allow it
to get into the hands of a white man, if possible.
2. You can improve your English as you go along by reading critically the books
of the language; that is to say, you must pay close attention to the
construction of sentences and paragraphs as you see them in the books you read.
Imitate the style.
Read with observation. Never read carelessly and recklessly.
3. In reading books written by white authors of whatsoever kind, be aware of
the fact that they are not written for your particular benefit or for the
benefit of your race. They always write from their own point of view and only
in the interest of their own race.
Never swallow wholly what the white man writes or says without first critically
analyzing it and investigating it. The white mans trick is to deceive other
people for his own benefit and profit. Always be on your guard against him in whatsoever
he does or says. Never take chances with him. His school books in the
elementary and high schools, colleges and universities are all fixed up to suit
his own purposes; to put him on top and to keep him on top of other people.
Dont trust him. Beware! Beware!
You should study carefully the subject of ethnology. It is the subject that
causes races to know the difference between one race and another.
Ethnic relationships are important for they reveal the characteristics of one
people as different from another. There is no doubt that each race has
different habits and manners of behavior. You must know them so as to be able
to deal with them. There are books on this subject in the library. In your
reading and searching for truth always try to get that which is particularly
helpful to the Negro. Every thought that strikes you, see how it fits in with
the Negro and to what extent you can use it to his benefit or in his behalf.
Your entire obsession must be to see things from the Negros point of view;
remembering always, that you are a Negro striving for Negro supremacy in every
department of life, so that any truth you see or any facts you gather must be
twisted to suit the Negro psychology of things.
The educational system of today hides the truth as far as the Negro is
concerned. Therefore, you must searchingly scan everything you read,
particularly history, to see what you can pick out for the good of the race.
For instance, you will read that the Egyptians were a great people, the Carthaginians,
Libyans, etc., but you will not be told that they were Black people or Negroes.
Therefore, you should go beyond the mere statement of these events to discover
the truth that will be creditable to your race. Therefore, in a case like that
you would ask where did the Libyans, Carthaginians
or Egyptians get their civilization from. Following that kind of investigation
you will come upon the truth that it was all original Negro and subsequently
became Negroid. That is to say, subsequent people were mixed with other
peoples blood who were no doubt conquered by the Negro. As a fact, the
original Egyptians were Black men and women, and so the Carthaginians and
Libyans, but in the later centuries they became mixed in blood, just as the
Blacks are being mixed in America and the West Indies by the infusion of white
blood through the domination of the white man.
Never yield to any statement in history or a statement made by any individual,
caring not how great, that the Negro was nobody in history. Even if you can not
prove it, always claim that the Negro was great. Read everything you can get
written by Negroes and their ancestry, going back six thousand years. There are
statements in the Bible, in the old and new testaments, to show that Black was
always an important color among the races of man. Abraham had company with a
Black woman, even though he had his wife, Sarah, by whom he had Ishmael.
All the original Pharaohs were Black. Tutankhamen, whose bones and body were
dug up not very long ago at Luxor
in Egypt, was a
Black Pharaoh. The Sphinx, in Egypt,
which has stood through the millenniums, has black features. It is evident that
as art it was portrayed to teach us of the greatness of men. When you are
dealing with Jews let them know that they were once your slaves in Egypt,
if you have to say so. There is good grounds for saying that civilization
started in Africa and passed from and through Northern
Africa into Southern Europe, from which the
Greeks and Romans and the people of Asia Minor made good
copies. The swarthy color of the Asiatics and the brunette color of the
Southern Europeans are due to the fact that the cultured and civilized Blacks
of Africa mixed their blood with them. Search all history and all literature
and the Bible and find facts to support this argument and hold to it with a
grip that will never loosen. Things that may not be true can be made so if you
repeat them long and often enough Therefore, always repeat statements that will
give your race status and an advantage .
That is how the white man has built up his system of superiority. He is
always telling you he is superior and he has written history and literature to
prove it. You must do the same. One of the great back grounds for your argument
which cannot be disputed is that you are older than any other man as a race
because you are black. Your argument is that in nature everything by way of age
darkens. Because you are darker than the rest of men, proves logically that you
are older than the rest of men. Another proof of that is that even among white
people they grow darker in skin as they grow older in age in a lifetime.
If one individual were to live for six thousand years he would surely not be
white. If he were born white he would be as dark as the darkest of men. Therefore,
the argument that the Black man is black because as man he is older than the
other man is good. Use it everywhere you go to defeat the white man in his
belief that you sprung from something else. Use the argument that the white man
is white because most of the time when the Black man was great in Africa and
had succeeded in run- fling him across the Mediterranean into Southern Europe
he had to hide himself in caves where there was very little light and air. He
was almost covered up for most of the time in darkness. In natural creation,
the child in the womb of the mother is almost white, even though it is a Black child;
it is almost born white and doesnt change color until it comes in contact with
light and air.
Living in caves for as many centuries, the white man, therefore, became
colorless and the length of time made it so that he was born naturally white.
You must interpret anthropology to suit yourself. The thing for you to do is to
refute every pertinent statement of the white man that tends to degrade you and
to elevate him. Turn the tables on him and search for all reasons in the world
you can find to justify it. That is how new thoughts are given out by creation.
Never yield to the statement of your inferiority.
In reading Christian literature and accepting the. doctrine of Jesus Christ, lay
special claim to your association with Jesus and the Son of God. Show that
while the white and yellow worlds, that is to say, the worlds of Europe
and Asia Minor, persecuted and crucified Jesus the Son
of God, it was the Black Race through Simon, the Black Cyrenian, who befriended
the Son of God and took up the cross and bore it alongside of Him, up to the
heights of Calvary. Therefore, the Roman Catholics have
no rightful claim to the cross, nor any other professing Christian, before the
Negro makes his claim. The cross is the property of the Negro in his religion
because it was he who bore it.
Never admit that Jesus Christ was a white man, otherwise, he could not be the
Son of God, and the God to redeem all mankind. Jesus Christ had the blood of
all races in his veins and tracing the Jewish race back to Abraham and to Moses,
from which Jesus sprang through the line of Jesse, you will find Negro blood
everywhere; therefore, Jesus had mostly Negro blood in him.
Read the genealogical tree of Jesus in the Bible and you will learn from where
he sprang. It is a fact that the white man has borrowed his civilization from
other peoples. The first civilization was the Negros, Black people. The second
civilization was the brown peoples, Indians; the third civilization belonged
to yellow people, the Chinese or Mongols; the last civilization, up to the
present, belongs to the white man. All civilization goes back to the Black man
in the Nile Valley
of Africa. Therefore, in your reading search for all
these facts. Never stop reading and never stop until you find the proof of
them.
You must pay great attention to sociology. Get the best books on the subject
that you can and read them thoroughly. Find out the social relationship among
other races so that you may know how to advise your people in their social
behavior. Never admit that the Negro is more immoral than the white man, try to
prove the contrary. Socially, the white man has debauched and debased all other
races because of his dominant power. He is responsible for more illegitimacy
among the races than any other race. He has left bastard children everywhere he
has been. Therefore, he is not competent to say that he is socially and morally
purer than any other race.
The mixed population among Negroes from slavery to the present, in certain
countries, is due to the white mans immorality. Therefore, if you should hear
anyone talking about moral depravity among Negroes and the moral excellence of
the whites; draw the above facts to their attention. When through reading and
research you have discovered any new fact helpful to the dignity, prestige,
character and accomplishment of the Negro, always make a noise about it. You
should always keep with you a note book and fountain pen or indelible pencil
and make a note in that book of anything you hear or see that you would like to
remember. Always keep at home a larger note book in which you must transfer the
thought or experience so that it will not be lost to your memory. At least once
every three months read over that book and as the book becomes more voluminous
with facts, read it over at least once a year.
By constantly reading these facts they will be planted in your subconscious
mind and you will be able to use them without even knowing that you are doing
so. By keeping your facts and your very important experiences on record, at the
end of a full life you may have a volume of great value; such as Elbert
Hubbards Scrap Book. Get a copy of this book. It contains valuable inspiration.
Always have a thought. Always make it a beautiful thought. The world is
attracted to beauty, either in art or in expression. Therefore, try to read,
think and speak beautiful things.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever Gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the Shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the
scroll,
Invictus,
By W. E. Henley
Leadership
To lead suggests that you must
have followers. For others to follow you, you must be superior to them in the
things that they must follow you for. You must have superior ability in the
particular. You must always be ahead by way of knowledge of all those you lead.
The moment you fall down from the position of superior ability, you will
automatically fail to lead and you will have to follow others. Therefore, you
must be ever vigilant in keeping ahead of those you lead by get ting the latest
and most correct information for which they are searching, because for it they
are following you. People only respect leaders and follow them, when there is
something superior in them.
A leader must have personality; he must be clean cut in his appearance so as
not to be criticized. An untidy leader is always a failure. He must be neatly
dressed and his general appearance must be clean and presentable because people
are supposed to follow him in his manner, behavior and his general conduct. A
leaders hair should always be well kept; his teeth must also be in perfect
order for people will criticize him for his unkempt hair, and his bad teeth.
Your shoes and other garments must also be clean. If you look ragged, people
will not trust you. They will critically say, he has no clothing, his shoes are
very poor, and it is logical that whatever money he gets hold of he will use it
on himself rather than for the purpose for which he makes his appeal.
Never show your personal poverty to those you lead. They will never t you. This
does not mean that you should not reveal the poverty of the cause you
represent, because that cause is your cause and the peoples cause; in which
both of you are interested. Never tell lies to those you lead; sooner or later
they will find you out and then your career will come to an abrupt end. NO MAN
EVER TRUSTS A PERSON A SECOND TIME whom he disbelieves once and has proof for
his disbelief.
A leader, under all circumstances, must carry him self with dignity. He must
not be a snob, but he must maintain his pride.
A leader cannot well afford to mix himself up with anything that is not
dignified or self-respecting. If you have to do something that you know you
will be morally and socially ashamed of if some one else knows; never do it,
but if you have to do it, see to it that you are careful that no one else
knows. Dont carry your weakness on your face or in your eyes; somebody will
detect it and you will be ruined. If you have personal weaknesses, try to
conquer them and hide them as long as you can until you have conquered them;
otherwise you will be ruined. Every man can conquer his vices by bringing his
subconscious will to play upon and against such vices.
In everything you do, play the gentleman. Never be a hog, it doesnt pay.
You lose a friend every time you play the hog. Keep smiling with the world even
though your mother is dead. Smile with the world and the world will smile back
at you; be vexed with the world and the world will be vexed with you. Nobody is
obligated to you to make you happy, so dont carry your sorrow to the world and
on your sleeves. Keep them to yourself and get out of them the best way you
can. Leaders are not children, they must not, therefore, act as children.
Leaders must be self-possessed, confident, feeling self-reliant. When your
followers see that self confidence, they will believe in you and follow you.
Always speak out right from your head and from your heart. If your heart is not
in it, it is a lie. If your head is not in it, it is pure sentiment. Your heart
and your head must work together. People observing you can always tell when you
are sincere; that is, when you speak from your heart and your head. They can
always tell when you are fooling them, by looking in to your eyes and you
cannot stand their gaze. At that time, indeed, you are lying. When your heart
and your head is in it, your whole body expresses the truth and you can hold
any mans stare.
A leader must not be extravagant; he must not b flashy in the sense of being
over sporty. People will not think you serious. Always make your followers believe
you are serious. You can be serious without being sour Always think before you
speak or act. Dont write oi speak just to hear yourself. Speak or write only
when you have something to say and never touch anything, by way of leadership,
that you do not know about, because some body who knows about it will have a
joke at you] expense. A leader must always have something to say, otherwise he
forfeits his leadership and someone else who has something to say will supplant
it.
A leader should always make an effort to be known in his community. He must
acquaint himself with every thing that is happening. He must know the governor
of the state or country, the secretary of his state or his colonial secretary.
He must know the mayor of his city, and all the members of the legislature. He
must know the bishops of his city, the administrative heads of all government
departments, all the preachers and doctors and lawyers and business men.
Dont be seen with Communists too often; if you know them. Never take part in
their meetings unless you are to make a speech against their principles and
always see that it is known by the public that that is your only reason for
going among them. Never let them call you comrade for others to hear; because
you will be branded a Communist and your leadership will be destroyed.
You must seek to know all the people you want to be in your organization. Visit
them in their homes, their work places, and anywhere you can meet them and
always extend to them a glad hand. Always be diplomatic in your approach. If a
Negro is in company with a white man, never talk to him about the U.N.I.A. If
he is in company with some one you think is not in sympathy with the U.N.I.A.,
dont talk to him about the U.N.I.A., wait until he is alone. Never say
anything to one person who may be in sympathy with the U.N.I.A. in the presence
of two or three people unless you know that the others are also sympathetic;
because when you are gone the others may try to undo the good relationship. But
when you meet Negro strangers, you may talk to all of them about the aims of
the U.N.I.A. and try to win them over
.
Never divide or create confusion between the different colors in the Negro
race. Always try to prove that the standard Negro is the African and that all
Negroes should be proud of their black blood, without insulting any color
within the race. This is very, very important. The idea of the U.N.I.A. is to
unite into one race all the shades of color and build up a standard race. You
should discourage intermarriage between white and Black and Blacks and other
races. You should tell the people that it is an honor to be Black and that
nothing is wrong with the black skin but bad conditions. Tell them that a
well-kept Black woman or Black man is as good as a well-kept white man or
woman. Never allow your followers to have their children play with white dolls
because they will grow up to like white children and they will have them.
Discourage the Negroes from having white pictures in their homes because those
pictures will inspire them to become white in their ideas. Inspire them to have
pictures of Negroes who have achieved greatness in their homes.
Tell Negro parents that they must teach their children Negro history, Negro
pride and self-respect in their homes to counteract the elementary and high
school education they get that holds up the superiority of the white race. Let
the people know that God is not white nor is he Black; but God is a spirit and
universal intelligence, of which each and every one is a part. All of us are a
part of that intelligence. No man can have the full intelligence of God; only
partial intelligence. Therefore, no man can be God, neither the white man nor
the Black man is God, they are particles of God. Let the people know that in
them and in themselves only, is the power to rise. Let them know that God does
not go out of his way to give people positions or jobs or to give them good
conditions such as they desire. They must do that for themselves out of the
full ness of nature that God has created for everybody. God does not build
cities, towns, nations, homes, or factories. Men and women build them and all
those who want them must work for themselves and pray to God to give them
strength to do it.
Special notes on Intermarriage and race purity
For a rich Negro to marry a poor white is an unpardonable
crime and sin; because it simply means the transference of the wealth of the
race to another, and the ultimate loss of that wealth to the race. It is
logically evident that if the Negro is rich, he gained all or most of his
wealth from his race. Therefore, to ignore the opposite sex of his race and
intermarry with another race is to commit a crime or sin for which he should
never be pardoned by his race. Teach the people to abhor such Negroes. Have
nothing to do with them so long as they continue in that relationship. This
must be done diplomatically, not to the hearing of the white race.
For safety, let the advice take the form of a whisper campaign; dont say it
from the platform. Whisper it right through the neighborhood and never stop
until the burden of your campaign is felt by the individuals; so as to teach
them a good lesson that others may not do the same thing with impunity.
For a Negro man to marry someone who does not look like his mother or is not a
member of his race is to insult his mother, nature and God, who made his
father. The best tribute a race can pay to nature and God is to preserve its
species; when it does otherwise, it is in rebel lion. Dont be in rebellion
against God, nature or your parents that you know of; they came before you and
should have known better.
Insist on a campaign of race purity; that is, doing everything moral and social
within the race. Close ranks against all other races. It is natural that it is
a disgrace to mix your race with other races. To split up the race is
unwholesome and does not tend to morally dignify the race. It will be a
beautiful thing when we have a standard Negro Race.
In preaching race purity, be very careful because it is a delicate subject.
Most of the people are ignorant of this idealism. You must never put color
within the race against color. You must never insult any color within the race.
Whatever has happened in the past was without our consent and truly because
slavery and the wicked damnation of the white man imposed upon us moral
behavior that we could not restrain. Now that we know better, it is for us to
adjust these things within our own race.
Teach the people to respect all shades of their own race and never to have
prejudice against anyone because he is black, brown, yellow or any shade that
whites claim is not white. Never allow any other race to preside over your
affairs. If they come as visitors, they must conduct them selves as visitors.
They must never have executive control over you in your affairs, because they
will always say and do things to suit themselves and that are against your
interest; even though they profess the greatest amount of friendship.
If they swear on the Bible, dont believe them. If they swear in God, dont
believe them. Accept their friendship for all its worth to you and nothing
more. Their interest as a race can never be yours, whether they be Europeans,
Asiatics, Jews or whatever.
Never trust a Jew; dont let him know that. He is playing the odds against you
all the time. He plays with loaded dice. His cards are marked. You can never
win against him. Make this secret whispering propaganda in every community when
you go into a Negro home. Whisper all the time that the Jew is bad. Flatter him
as he flatters you and robs you. Never give him a square deal because he is
never going to give you one. Tell him how much you love his people and how kind
and nice his people are. Get all you can from him and give him nothing back
except good words and pleasant smiles; this is his policy.
The policy of the Jew is; if he sees a Gentile dying on the pathway and a penny
covers his eye, as a hope for recovery, he will take it off and let him die; he
will not do this to a Jew. You have your answer to this. Treat him similarly.
Always try to get something from the Jew because he has always robbed you and
your fathers in that he believes he is the chosen of God and as such all other
men must pay tribute to him. This is false and fictitious. It is Jewish
propaganda. Ignore it and let him pay tribute to you; if tribute must be paid.
The most fundamental truth to be told...is that America is killing us. Sonia Sanchez
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