Black history: celebrating two prominent leaders

By Azariah S. Santoli

In celebration of Black History Month, The Rider News will highlight one to two prominent figures in black history each week during the month of February.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey was a publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, black nationalist, Jamaican national hero and the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). The group’s main focus was to “unite all people of African ancestry of the world to one great body to establish a country and absolute government of their own.”

Garvey was not a believer in black supremacy. Garvey believed that blacks needed to understand and grasp the importance of their African ancestry. He focused on influencing blacks to “take back” their homeland and disregard European colonial powers. He is widely known for his Back-to-Africa movement, which encouraged many to return to the motherland. His teachings inspired other movements such as the Nation of Islam and the Rastafarian movement. Garvey, with his UNIA group, was credited with the largest movement of people of African descent. With more than 1 million followers, the UNIA had more people than the Civil Rights Movement.

Huey P. Newton was an inspirational leader and the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, a black nationalist and racial equality organization formed during the late 1960s.

Growing up in Oakland, Calif., Newton saw the profound brutality and injustice of police against blacks. Educated by college studies of law, he influenced his followers to exercise their rights to bear arms. He and his Black Panther followers would roam the communities where police brutality and injustice toward blacks was prevalent to prevent further abuse. Through the Black Panther organization his goal was to realign economic policies in the United States to benefit struggling people of all races.

In 1967, Newton was stopped by an Oakland police officer who attempted to disarm him. Shots were fired, killing the officer and wounding Newton. With a bullet wound, Newton was handcuffed to a hospital bed and beaten by police who blamed him for the officer’s death. Newton was sentenced for voluntary manslaughter. It was during this time the FBI allegedly began to end the organizations started by Newton, including food drives and sickle cell disease tests. In 1989 he was shot and killed, allegedly by a drug dealer in the same community where the movement thrived.