Marcus Garvey: Pan-Africanist (2021)

[0] In the late spring of 1921, Josie Gatlin, a resident of Okmoggi, Oklahoma, saw a note come through the crack beneath her door.

[1] She picked it up, she read it, and immediately realized that she was in danger, just like the other 3 ,000 black residents in her town.

[2] When notes came through your door saying, leave now or suffer the consequences.

[3] The warning was clear, and so was.

[4] was the choice.

[5] What are you going to do?

[6] You're going to pack up and leave.

[7] Josie Gatlin, like many people, feared for her life, feared the Ku Klux Klan, and had to get out.

[8] The threat was delivered on cards commanding black residents to leave the state or suffer the consequences.

[9] Even a local newspaper allegedly published a similar warning.

[10] For a black citizen of Oklahoma, this threat was real.

[11] terrifyingly real.

[12] Help us to help you help yourself and the Negro race in general.

[13] Do your full share in helping to provide a direct line of steamships owned, controlled, and manned by Negroes to reach the Negro people's of the world.

[14] Josie Gatlin was determined to escape the terror, and she, like many others, knew where to go.

[15] The Black Star Line.

[16] Advantageous investment should go to purchasing shares in the Black Star Line and reap the reward that is bound to follow.

[17] The Black Star Line Company was a fleet of passenger ships Josie assumed she'd board in New York City that would take her to safety and real freedom in Liberia, West Africa.

[18] The Black Star Line becomes somewhat of an embodiment of the possibility of Black independence.

[19] So people like Josie Gatlin, believed that the Black Star Line and Liberia offered an opportunity for their salvation.

[20] African Americans were very proud that they had these certificates that made them a part of this joint stock company, the shipping line that would stream people and goods from the content of Africa directly to black communities.

[21] Babylon did it.

[22] Syria did it.

[23] France under Napoleon did it.

[24] Germany under Prince von Bismarck did it.

[25] America under George, Washington.

[26] did it.

[27] Africa with 400 million black people can do it.

[28] These are the words of Marcus Garvey.

[29] He's the man who came up with the idea for the Black Star Line.

[30] His pitch was simple.

[31] The only way for black people to survive is to liberate themselves from white society.

[32] If you cannot do it, if you are not prepared to do it, you will die.

[33] Put yourself in the shoes of Josie Gatlin for a second.

[34] You live in a racist state, in a racist country, and your life is in danger.

[35] And here's Marcus Garvey with a real, tangible promise of liberation.

[36] Not just something symbolic, an actual escape, a ticket on a steamship heading for Africa.

[37] For people like Josie, real hope was alive in the voice of Marcus Garvey.

[38] She, like many people, would turn up to the offices of the Black Star Line agents with her shares in the Black Star Line in her hand.

[39] Believe in that it was the equivalent of a ticket for passage to Liberia.

[40] I'm Ramtin Arab -Louis.

[41] I'm Randam al -Fatah, and you're listening to ThruLine from NPR.

[42] On this episode, The Visions of Marcus Garvey.