The Moral Anthropology of Marcus Garvey

Abstract

This article retrieves and articulates key elements in Marcus Garvey's philosophy that point toward a moral anthropology. The author discusses these in the context of ancient and modern concerns for issues of human dignity and human rights and the right and responsibility of the struggle for freedom as a particular African and universal human project. This article is also part of the author's ongoing effort to expand ethical discourse and discussion in Africana studies by critically engaging new subjects and sources of ethical thought beyond the Judeo-Christian tradition, especially the classical African ethics of ancient Egypt (the Maatian tradition) and ancient Yorubaland (the Ifa tradition). Finally, the article is conceived as a way of putting the author's Kawaida philosophy in renewed conversation with Garvey's philosophy, from which it borrows and on which it builds, in search of new links and lessons to expand and enrich the Kawaida philosophical and practical initiative.