Marcus Garvey has always been a controversial figure in the Black Community. He was many things to many people, some see him as a great leader and other see him as a political charlatan.

Steve Hahn over that The New Republic has excerpted Colin Grants book Negro With A Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey. It’s a fascinating look in to what Marcus has to teach us now and what lessons we can take from his controversial life.

In the pantheon of the past century’s African American leaders, Marcus Garvey holds an exceedingly ambiguous place. Widely regarded, then and now, as a spellbinding orator, a tireless organizer, and an immensely charismatic figure whose ideas seemed to resonate powerfully with many thousands (perhaps many millions) of people of African descent in the United States and abroad, Garvey has also been derided as a political charlatan, a scam artist, a religious revivalist, and a racial purist who traded on the desperation and the gullibility of his followers. Some influential black political leaders and intellectuals came to see him as an egomaniacal buffoon who imagined himself as president of an African-republic-to-be and dressed himself and his legions in resplendent military attire, aping the styles of the white authorities he set out to topple. Garvey, as W.E.B. Du Bois derisively put it, was the “negro with a hat.”

Click the link above and take the time to read the entire article and let me know what you think.

As always, be well
CF