Marcus Mosiah Garvey Junior was an outstanding writer, black rights advocate, and political activist during his time on earth. Many of his notable actions were exemplified by those of Rupert Lewis, a retired professor and former professor of political thought at the University of the West Indies. Professor Lewis, one of the leading scholars on the life and work of Marcus Garvey, with over fifty years of material devoted to him and his various movements, has documented his journey through the 2018 biography of the University of the West Indies Press titled Marcus Garvey, a book that guides readers through the highs and lows of the journey one man faced to bring equality, justice and a sense of empowerment to black people in the whole world. From his birth to low-income class parents, to the spark that grew within Garvey from his brief exposure to journalism to the creation of a massive global movement, the Universal Association for the Improvement and Negro Conservation and the African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), this biography explores themes of racism, colonialism, gender roles as well as education which all helped shape the life of Marcus Garvey. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Racism was encountered at every stage of Garvey's life. Due to Caribbean history, where race is at the center of all actions and motivations, black people still struggled to identify their place in the world as a person rather than as property. For Garvey, being away from his white playmate as a child didn't hurt him, as his self-confidence and education through his love of reading books like his father replaced his emotional reaction to senseless things such as racism and as such developed one of the pillars of his life mission to seek social and political equality of all black people compared to their counterparts whites. Perhaps one of the hardest terms to come up with was the fact that Marcus Garvey was being racially profiled by his own people. Due to the impact of early colonization, most Jamaicans of this period sought to be associated with white culture and, as a result, most of them identified with the British stamp that had been assigned to them. When Garvey attempted to form the UNIA in 1914, the criticism from his own compatriots was enough to discourage anyone. Garvey quoted: "I never knew that there was so much color prejudice in Jamaica, my native country, until I began the work of the Universal Negro Improvement...". The idea that people were willing to define their identity based on their country's ruling monarch was confusing, especially given the brutal treatment people of color faced and the inability to own land or even property. exercise their right to vote. Vocal Jamaican writers such as Raphael Morgan published articles in a local newspaper opining that Garvey's comments about his homeland were bound to harm the country's people and economy (Daily Gleaner October 4, 1916). In order to correct this backward mentality, Garvey enlisted the help of Robert Russa Morton who, according to Garvey, was to help awaken sleeping Jamaicans and awaken them to their possibilities. Racism from people of one's own color was not just local. but I was also met atthe foreigner. Founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Du Bois only crossed paths with Garvey following the death of Booker T Washington, who had been contacted by Garvey before his death in an attempt to bring the UNIA to the United States. WEB Du Bois was the loudest and most forward-thinking person on Garvey's hate train and although the two are similar in black liberation missions, the two differ. Garvey was dark-skinned and wanted to move all blacks to Africa, while the lighter-skinned Du Bois held a strong belief that for blacks to progress, the integration of blacks with whites was essential to the upward progression of the race. It is speculated that the color of Garvey's skin played a role in the hatred he received from Du Bois who described Garvey as a short, fat black man; ugly, but with intelligent eyes and a big head. Du Bois's use of Garvey's skin color in order to emphasize the insults directed at him can be considered color prejudice, however, Du Bois is not the only culprit. Garvey's main problem with Du Bois was not only due to his initial disdain for him, but also his position that the only way for the black race to rise was through racial mixing. This begs the question, was Marcus Garvey racist? Garvey shared similar qualities with Ku Klux Klan President Warren G. Harding, who in 1921 declared that "there can be no racial amalgamation" (Kendi). Garvey believed in maintaining the purity of the black line, which did not involve mixing it with white blood. This perspective of Garvey can be attributed to the fact that he grew up seeing the deprivation of his people by white people and recognizing that no matter how much progress the black man made in society, white people would always use race. to decipher the standard of living. Colonialism, after the theme of racism, was one of the strongest themes in the biography and played a major role throughout Garvey's life. Colonialism is defined as a practice of domination that involves the subjugation of one people to another (Stanford) and forms the basis on which the Universal Negro Improvement and Conservation Association and the League of African Communities ( UNIA-ACL) were created. Growing up in Jamaica, Garvey had become aware of the loyalty with which Jamaicans served the Queen, but it was not until the world was on the cusp of its first war that the strength and severity of that loyalty became apparent to him. Black Jamaicans, as Rupert explains, were the product of British military and commercial missionary incursions into Africa. These series of incursions culminated in the long reign of slavery which resulted in members of the Caribbean community shedding their African identity through violence and biblical scriptures and replacing it with that of the Great- Colonial Britain which created an array of aspiring black men. - be white. Having continued his education in England at Birkbeck College focusing primarily on African studies, Garvey had easily separated himself from the postcolonial Caribbean identity as he was able to witness the treatment meted out to Negroes across the world. This allowed him to identify the difference between the valorization and exploitation of a race that, despite their loyalty to their monarchies through continued service in the military and other fields, black people were continually ignored in as important human beings in society. Garvey's belief in the advancement of black people and that there were ways to achieve such advancement through the use of.