In addition to his support of Pan-Africanism, Marcus Garvey was a Black nationalist and believed in racial separatism. This made him a controversial figure in and out of the Black community, especially as he challenged major thought leader W.E.B Du Bois.
Garvey was a controversial figure. Some in the African diasporic community regarded him as a pretentious demagogue and were highly critical of his collaboration with white supremacists, his violent rhetoric, and his prejudice against mixed-race people and Jews. Pan-Africanism is a political doctrine, as well as a movement, with the aim of unifying and uplifting African nations and the African Diaspora as a universal African community. In that sense, Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), founder of the Black Star Line and pioneer of the back-to-Africa movement can certainly be considered a Pan-Africanist. But is not the concept of Pan-Africanism supposed to include the notion of African pride too? I believe so. Nevertheless, when we take a closer look at Garvey's life and ideologies, the notion of African pride is barely perceptible at times. Indeed, we sometimes get the impression that he tended to put Western culture/ civilization on a pedestal. For example, it would appear that he tended to idolize Western leaders such as Napoleon and Hitler--though they were extremely racist. It also seems that he tended to prefer Christianity over African religions, Western music such as classical music over African music, and Western uniforms rather than African clothing, and so on. All these points, which seem to be the fruits of intellectual colonization, make Garvey a controversial figure in the history of Pan-Africanism. Besides trying to analyze objectively the complex personality of Garvey, this paper is aimed at questioning the notion of Pan-Africanism and raising the issue of intellectual colonization.
