During our National Plenary that will be occurring on February 18-21, the African People's Socialist Party USA will remember Marcus Garvey with a remarkable presentation by renowned actor Ron Bobb-Semple who becomes Marcus Garvey with a magnificent interpretation based on the actual words of Garvey himself.
Bobb-Semple is an accomplished actor who has enthralled countless audiences, including Garvey's son and other relatives, with his Garvey presentation throughout the world.
Currently appearing in the stage production of Seven Guitars, written by playwright extraordinaire August Wilson, Bobb-Semple will appear at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, February 19, the second day of the African People's Socialist Party National Plenary. Bobb-Semple's performance at the Plenary will be a preview of a joint international Marcus Garvey Legacy tour by Bobb-Semple and ASI Chairman Omali Yeshitela that will span the U.S., Europe and the Caribbean. The public is invited.
Marcus Garvey is the single most important African leader in modern history. Born on August 17, 1887 on the island of Jamaica, one of the many places Africans were transported and enslaved by Europeans, Garvey built the largest, most significant liberation organizations the world has seen up to now.
It was Marcus Garvey who, in the first quarter of the 20th century, fought tooth and nail against the plans of the white world to cannibalize Africa following the first world war that was fought by Europeans to re-divide the whole world between them. With the slogan, "Africa for Africans, those at home and abroad," Marcus Garvey and his organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), challenged the international African community and the white world with the vision and determination of our people assuming our rightful place in the world in charge of our own affairs.
In 1919, Garvey launched the Black Star Line, a shipping company designed to facilitate trade and industry among African people as a means of reintroducing our people back into history through our own independent economic capacity.
The work of Marcus Garvey and the UNIA-ACL to win our liberation and to develop an economy of self-reliance has become the hallmark of our struggle for African liberation, unification and socialism. Malcolm X's father and mother were both Garveyites and Kwame Nkrumah felt the works of Marcus Garvey were some of the most influential writings he read.
Hence, upon achieving the leadership of the independent state of Ghana, Nkrumah named the national shipping line after the Black Star Line of Marcus Garvey and set out to build a program for the unification of Africa that was based on ideas advanced by Marcus Garvey years after the imperialists, including the U.S. from which Garvey was deported, conspired to arrest him and destroy his organization.
Today the legacy of Marcus Garvey resides in the hands of the African Socialist International, the worldwide organization of African liberation that has applied the lessons and principles of Marcus Garvey to the conditions of the 21st century. We are 21st century Garveyites and Bobb-Semple�s presentation, our National Plenary and the existence of our Party and the ASI all testify to the reality that Garvey lives!
