Invisable Man - Black Leaders
Uploaded by Admin on Oct 21, 2000
At the time that Ralph Ellison writes the novel The Invisible Man there were, as there are today, many ideas on how to improve the black mans status in a segregated nation. Marcus Garvey was a militant black nationalist leader who created a “Back to Africa” movement. On the other side was Booker T. Washington who preached for racial uplift through educational attainments and economic advancement. A man who strayed more on the middle path was W.E.B. Du Bois. He was less militant than Marcus Garvey but was more so than Booker T. Washington. Ellison uses characters from the novel to represent these men. Marcus Garvey is fictionalized as Ras the Exhorter. Booker T. Washington is given voice by the Reverend Barbee. W.E.B. Du Bois is never directly mentioned in the novel. However, the actions and thoughts of W.E.B. Du Bois are very similar to that of the narrator. While all three men were after the same dream they all went about making that dream reality in different ways. There are strengths and weakness that can be found in all three men’s philosophies.
The most militant and extreme of the three was Garvey. Marcus Garvey was born Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. on August 17 1887, at Saint Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. He was the youngest of eleven children. His father, Malcus (Marcus) Mosiah Garvey, was a stonemason and his mother, Sarah Jane Richards, was a domestic servant and produce grower. He left school at the age of fourteen to serve as a printer’s apprentice. After completing his training he took a job with a printing company in Kingston. There he organized and led a strike for higher wages. He then traveled to Central and South America. He moved to London in 1912 and became interested in African history and culture. He returned to Jamaica two years later and founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the African Communities League. The UNIA helped found the Black Muslim movement. In 1916 Garvey moved to the United States. He went to New York City and set up a branch of the UNIA and began a weekly newspaper called the Negro World. Garvey preached that blacks should be proud of who they are. He called for racial pride. Because of his persuasiveness and his eloquence people started to listen to Garvey. Blacks became proud of who they were. Booker T. Washington said to bow down...