RESOURCES PAGE FOR MARCUS/EMMA:
(See below for a timeline and other resources)
Legacy:
Although she was well known during her life as “the most dangerous woman in America,” Emma Goldman faded quickly from public memory, regarded as less influential than her male anarchist peers, and remained in obscurity through most of the 20th century.
In the 1970s, activism and revolution was once again fomenting in the United States, and Goldman’s writing once again came to light. In 1970, Living My Life was reissued by Dover Press, and in 1972 feminist writer Alix Kates Shulman issued Red Emma Speaks, a collection of Goldman’s writings and speeches, bringing Goldman’s work to a larger audience. The women’s movement lionized her throughout the late 20th century, crediting her with expanding the scope of activism on sexual liberty, reproductive rights, and freedom of expression. At the same time, a resurgence in anarchism prompted a reevaluation of early 20th century works, uncovering Goldman’s true influence on the movement.
“What I Believe”
Excerpts from a manifesto by Emma Goldman, published in New York World, July 19, 1908
I. AS TO PROPERTY
“Property” means dominion over things and the denial to others of the use of those things.
It is the private dominion over things that condemns millions of people to be mere nonentities. I believe that there can be no real wealth, social wealth, so long as it rests on human lives --- young lives, old lives and lives in the making.
II. AS TO GOVERNMENT
I believe government, organized authority, or the State is necessary only to maintain or protect property and monopoly.
I believe -- indeed, I know -- that whatever is fine and beautiful in the human expresses and asserts itself in spite of government, and not because of it.
III. AS TO MILITARISM
I believe that militarism -- a standing army and navy in any country -- is indicative of the decay of liberty and of the destruction of all that is best and finest in our nation. ...
The fact is that Anarchists are the only true advocates of peace, the only people who call a halt to the growing tendency of militarism, which is fast making of this erstwhile free country an imperialistic and despotic power.
IV. AS TO FREE SPEECH AND PRESS
I believe that free speech and press mean that I may say and write what I please. This right, when regulated by constitutional provisions, legislative enactments, almighty decisions of the Postmaster General or the policeman’s club, becomes a farce.
V. AS TO THE CHURCH
...[T]he Church has been a foe of human development and free thought, and as such it has no place in the life of a truly free people.
Religion is a superstition that originated in man’s mental inability to solve natural phenomena. The Church is an organized institution that has always been a stumbling block to progress.
VI. AS TO MARRIAGE AND LOVE
Marriage and love are not synonymous; on the contrary, they are often antagonistic to each other.…
Love is that most powerful factor of human relationship which from time immemorial has defied all man-made laws and broken through the iron bars of conventions in Church and morality. Marriage is often an economic arrangement purely... prepar[ing] the woman for the life of a parasite, a dependent, helpless servant, while it furnishes the man the right of a chattel mortgage over a human life….
VII. AS TO ACTS OF VIOLENCE
As an anarchist, I am opposed to violence. But if the people want to do away with assassins, they must do away with the conditions which produce murderers. In diagnosing the true nature of our social disease I cannot condemn those who, through no fault of their own, are suffering from a wide-spread malady.
And now I have come to that point in my beliefs about which the greatest misunderstanding prevails in the minds of the American public….
I believe that Anarchism is the only philosophy of peace, the only theory of the social relationship that values human life above everything else. I know that some Anarchists have committed acts of violence, but it is the terrible economic inequality and great political injustice that prompt such acts, not Anarchism. Every institution to-day rests on violence; our very atmosphere is saturated with it...
FOR MORE ON EMMA GOLDMAN ---
The Revolutionary Life of Emma Goldman from Feminist Frequency
feministfrequency.com/video/the-revolutionary-life-of-emma-goldman/
(6 minute crash-course on the life and legacy of Emma Goldman)
American Experience from PBS
http://ow.ly/7ZVg307zcXW
(85 minute documentary on the life and legacy of Emma Goldman)
Emma Goldman's NY 1934 Press Conference
http://ow.ly/c1wO307zd3P
(2 minute clip)
Emma Goldman was arrested 16 times over 23 years. View a complete list of her arrests: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldman/sfeature/sf_arrests.html
Place Emma Goldman in the larger context of anarchism in the early 20th century: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldman/timeline/index.html
The Social Significance of the Modern Drama (1914) by Emma Goldman
http://ow.ly/GlnF307zd99
(Selected pages from a book that Goldman penned about theatre!)
Emma Goldman’s New York Times Obituary
http://ow.ly/yu4y307zdss
Marcus Garvey: The Most Dangerous Black Man In America
Legacy:
On November 10, 1964, Marcus Garvey’s body was returned to Jamaica.
The next day, he was declared the country’s first national hero.
Garveyism--Marcus Garvey’s particular Pan-African philosophy of global mass movement and economic development--would inspire other black nationalist movements such as the Nation of Islam.
Rastafaris, who were deeply influenced by Garvey’s Back-to-Africa movement in Jamaica,
came to view Garvey as a religious prophet.
In 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited Garvey’s shrine in Jamaica. In a speech, he said Garvey, “was the first man of color to lead and develop a mass movement. He was the first man on a mass scale and level to give millions of Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny. And make the Negro feel he was somebody.
General Objects of the Universal Negro Improvement and Conservation Association and African Communities League
In view of the universal disunity existing among the people of the Negro or African race, and the apparent danger which must follow the continuance of the such a spirit, it has been deemed fit and opportune to found a Society with a universal programme, for the purpose of drawing the peoples of the race together, hence the organization above-named.
All people of Negro or African parentage are requested to join in with us for the propagation and achievement of the following objects.
GENERAL OBJECTS:
● To establish a Universal Confraternity among the race.
● To promote the spirit of race pride and love.
● To reclaim the fallen of the race.
● To administer to and assist the needy.
● To assist in civilizing the backward tribes of Africa.
● To strengthen the imperialism of independent African States.
● To establish Commissionaries or Agencies in the principal countries of the world for the protection of
all Negroes, irrespective of nationality.
● To promote a conscientious Christian worship among the native tribes of Africa
● To establish Universities, Colleges and Secondary Schools for the further education and culture of the
boys and girls of the race.
● To conduct a world-wide commercial and industrial intercourse.
“African Fundamentalism”
Excerpts from a speech by Marcus Garvey
The time has come for the Black man to forget and cast behind him his hero worship and adoration of other races, and to start out immediately to create and emulate heroes of his own….
Africa has produced countless numbers of men and women, in war and in peace, whose lustre and bravery outshines that of any other people. Then why not see good and perfection in ourselves?
We must inspire a literature and promulgate a doctrine of our own without any apologies to the powers that be. The right is the Black man’s and Africa’s. Let contrary sentiments and cross opinions go to the winds. Oppositions to Race Independence is the weapon of the enemy to defeat the hopes of an unfortunate people.
The world today is indebted to us for the benefits of civilization.
They have sprung from the same family tree of obscurity as we have; their history is as rude in its primitiveness as ours. When our civilization had reached the noon-day of progress, they were still running naked and sleeping in holes and caves with rats, bats, and other insects and animals. After we had already unfathomed the mystery of the Stars and reduced the Heavenly Constellations to minute and regular calculus they were still backwoodsmen, living in ignorance and blatant darkness.
They stole our Arts and Sciences from Africa. Then why should we be ashamed of ourselves?
Their modern improvements are but duplicates of a grander civilization that we reflected thousands of years ago; without the advantage of what is buried and still hidden, to be resurrected and reintroduced by the intelligence of our generation and our posterity….
As the Jew is held together by his religion, the white races by the assumption and the unwritten law of superiority... so likewise the Black man must be united in one grand racial hierarchy. Our union must know no climate, boundary or nationality.
Black men the world over must practice one faith, that of confidence in themselves,
with one cause, one goal, one destiny.
Let no religious scruples, no political machination divide us, but let us hold together under all climates and in every country; making among ourselves a racial empire upon which, “The Sun shall never set….”
Never forget your Cause. Remember! We live, work and plan for the establishment of a great and binding racial hierarchy; the founding of a racial empire whose only natural, spiritual and political limits shall be: LIBERTY FOR AFRICANS, AT HOME AND ABROAD.
FOR MORE ON MARCUS GARVEY
Look for Me in the Whirlwind – The Marcus Garvey Story
from PBS's American Experience series
http://ow.ly/E9VF307zerp
(130 minute documentary on the life and legacy of Marcus Garvey)
Marcus Garvey’s “Know Yourself” Speech
http://ow.ly/h5lc307zeuQ
(9 minutes)
Clip from Garvey’s “Look for Me in a Whirlwind” Speech
http://ow.ly/aEyr307zeHW
(6 minutes)
Economic empowerment was the cornerstone of Marcus Garvey's philosophy. Read more about the businesses he owned and nurtured: http://www.buyblackmovement.com/MarcusGarvey/
Website compiling Garvey’s writings, speeches, and philosophy.
marcusgarvey.com/
Marcus Garvey still has not been pardoned. Read his son Julius Garvey's most recent appeal to President Obama: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/22/opinions/marcus-garvey-should-have-a-presidential-pardon-garvey/
Marcus Garvey’s New York Times Obituary
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0817.html
TIMELINE OF IMPORTANT DATES/ACTIONS OF MARCUS GARVEY & EMMA GOLDMAN:
1869
The United States is in the midst of Reconstruction following the end of the Civil War.
The 13th Amendment formally abolishing slavery has been law for four years.
The 14th Amendment guaranteeing all free(d) men equal protection under the law, has been law for one year.
June 27: Emma Goldman is born in Kovno, Lithuania, a province of the Russian empire.
1886
February: Goldman marries Jacob Kershner, gaining US citizenship. They divorce less than a year later.
May 4: A labor strike grows violent when an unknown person throws a bomb into a crowd of policemen in Chicago’s Haymarket Square. Seven policemen are killed, sixty are injured, and civilian casualties—while undocumented—are likely as high.
1887
August 17: Marcus Garvey is born in Jamaica.
1889
August 15: Goldman arrives in New York City. She meets Alexander Berkman who will eventually become her lifelong friend and lover. Soon afterwards she meets a prominent anarchist who will become her mentor, Johann Most.
August—December: Goldman works at the office of an anarchist newspaper, Freiheit, and helps organize the November 11 Haymarket Commemoration.
1890
October 19: Goldman speaks in Baltimore to members of the International Working People’s Association. She later speaks in German to the Workers’ Educational Society. This is the first lecture by Goldman to be reported in the mainstream press.
1892
July 23: Alexander Berkman shoots and stabs steel manager Henry C. Frick. In the aftermath, Goldman is suspected of complicity. Police raid her apartment, seizing her papers. The press refers to Goldman, temporarily in hiding, as the “Queen of the Anarchists.”
1893
The Panic of 1893 rocks the country. From 1893-1987, 500 banks close, 15,000 business fail, and unemployment rises to 43% in some states.
August: Goldman addresses a public meeting, urging those in need to take bread if they are hungry. Four days later, she leads a march of 1,000 people to Union Square where she repeats her belief that workers are entitled to bread. The speech leads to her arrest.
October 16: Goldman is found guilty of inciting a riot and is sentenced to one year in prison.
1894
August 17: Goldman is released from prison.
1896
The Supreme Court rules that “separate but equal” facilities are considered constitutional in Plessy vs. Ferguson, affording federal support to Jim Crow laws and upholding state racial segregation laws for public facilities for over 50 years.
1901
September 6: Leon Czolgosz, after hearing Goldman give a speech in May, attempts to assassinate President William McKinley, who dies from gangrene eight days later.
September 10: A warrant is issued for Goldman’s arrest in connection with the assassination attempt on President William McKinley. She gives herself up, though never officially charged with a crime.
September 24: Goldman is released after two weeks in jail; the case is dropped for lack of evidence. She subsequently writes a controversial defense of Czolgosz.
1903
The Immigration Act of 1903, also known as the Anarchist Exclusion Act, becomes law and adds four inadmissible classes: anarchists, people with epilepsy, beggars, and importers of prostitutes.
1906
Garvey leaves St. Ann’s Bay and moves to Kingston where he is employed by the printing shop of P.A. Benjamin Manufacturing Company.
1914
June 28: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is assassinated by a Yugoslav nationalist, sparking the beginning of WWI.
July: Garvey meets Amy Ashwood.
August 1: Together, Garvey and Ashwood found the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the African Communities League (ACL).
1915
May 6: The British liner R.M.S. Lusitania is brought down by a German U-boat, killing 128 Americans.
August 6: In Portland, OR, Goldman is arrested for distributing literature on birth control.
1916
March 24: Garvey arrives in the US penniless and finds work as a printer. He gains a following for his movement by speaking nightly as a soapbox orator on a Harlem street corner.
May 9: Garvey holds his first public lecture. It ends with him falling off the stage.
June: Garvey begins a year long, 38-state speaking tour.
1917
April 6: The United States officially joins WWI.
May: After Garvey concludes his speaking tour, 13 members join to form the New York branch of the UNIA.
June 16: With the US having just declared its involvement in WWI, Goldman is indicted for obstructing the Draft Act.
July 9: Goldman is found guilty of conspiracy against the selective draft law and sentenced to two years in prison.
1918
November 11: An armistice with Germany is signed, effectively ending World War I.
July: The UNIA publishes the Constitution and Book of Laws Made for the Government of the UNIA/ACL.
August 17: The first issue of The Negro World, the official paper of the UNIA, is published.
1919
February—August: Copies of The Negro World are confiscated by authorities in various countries; it is banned by the governor of Belize, called seditious by the governor of Trinidad, and seized by the government of British Guiana.
April 27: Garvey announces his plan to start the Black Star Line.
September 17: Garvey purchases his first ship, the S. S. Yarmouth, which he renames the Fredrick Douglas.
October 11: J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, sends a memo warning of Garvey’s activities and encouraging investigation, although Garvey had “unfortunately” done nothing to warrant this.
October 14: Garvey is shot and wounded in an assassination attempt.
December 25: Garvey marries Amy Ashwood.
September 27: Goldman is released from prison.
December 1: Goldman is ordered to appear at Ellis Island on December 5 for deportation to Russia.
1920
August 18: The 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote, is ratified.
January 17: Goldman arrives in Russia.
January 23: The Negro Factories Corporation is incorporated.
August 1: The UNIA holds its first International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World at Madison Square Garden. During the convention, the UNIA adopts and signs a Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, adopts a nation flag with the colors of red, black, and green, and elects Garvey as the Provisional President of Africa.
1922
January 22: Garvey is arrested for fraudulent use of mails.
April: The Black Star Line is dissolved due to financial failure.
June 15: Garvey divorces Amy Ashwood.
June 25: Garvey meets with the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, resulting in a vehement “Garvey Must Go” campaign headed by black leaders.
July 27: Garvey marries Amy Jacques.
December: Disillusioned with the quality of life & the workers’ inability or desire to rebel, Goldman leaves Russia for Europe.
1923
January: Chandler Owen and seven other black leaders send a letter of complaint against Garvey to the Attorney general. The “Garvey Must Go” campaign continues.
January 31: Due to failure to pay rent, the UNIA enterprise is closed.
June 21: Garvey is sentenced to 5 years in prison for mail fraud.
September 10: The Marcus Garvey Committee on Justice forms and mounts a petition drive to free Garvey. He is released on bail after 3 months in prison.
September 25: Immigration authorities begin preparing a deportation case against Garvey.
1925
June 26: The Immigration and Naturalization Service issues a warrant for Garvey’s deportation.
1927
April: Goldman travels to Canada, just in time to learn about the impending executions of Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartomelo Vanzetti, dubiously convicted in Boston for armed robbery and murder.
August: Mass demonstrations break out in Boston, and the Industrial Workers of the World call for a nationwide three-day strike. Goldman participates in none of this.
December 2: Garvey is deported from the US, headed for London.
1929
October 24: The stock market crashes, plunging the United States into The Great Depression.
1932
September 17: The last issue of The Negro World with Garvey listed as the managing editor is published.
October 20: Goldman’s memoir Living My Life is published in London.
1933
The Great Depression reaches its nadir. Nearly half of the nation’s banks have closed, and between 13-15 million people are unemployed.
October 17: The Negro World ceases publication.
1934
February 2: Goldman is temporarily allowed back into the United States to lecture about her memoir--on the condition that she not speak on current events.
May: After her visa expires, Goldman returns to Toronto to file another request to visit the United States. The request is denied.
1940
February 17: Goldman suffers a stroke that leaves her paralyzed on her right side and unable to speak.
May 14: Goldman dies at the age of 70.
May 17: Goldman is buried in Chicago, close to the Haymarket memorial.
January 20: Garvey suffers a cerebral hemorrhage. He is paralyzed on his right side and his speech is affected.
May 18: The Chicago Defender erroneously announces the death of Garvey, stating that he died “broke, alone, and unpopular.”
June 10: After suffering a second cerebral hemorrhage while reading the inaccurate new of his death, Garvey dies in London at the age of 52.