THE PAN-AFRIKAN LIBERATOR

Agitate until we create a stable society that benefits all our people.

Instigate the nation until we remedy the injustices of society.

Motivate our people to set a meaningful path for the coming generations.

Educate our people to free our minds and develop an Africentric consciousness.

THE VOICE FOR AN INDEPENDENT MONTSERRAT

VOL. 2 NO. 1    $1.00   Monthly Newsletter of KiMiT    August 1993

Published by Chedmond Browne, P.O. Box 197, Plymouth, Montserrat Phone: 809-491-6962 FAX: 809-491-6335

"As high as you rise to think, so much will be your progress and success wherever you are."

Marcus Garvey

Afrikans the world over remember Marcus Garvey for his messianic vision which gave the total solution to problems of Afrikans worldwide.

In 1936, Mr. Robert Griffith, "Marse Bob," arranged for the Honourable Marcus Garvey to speak to Montserratians. Mr. Griffith introduced Mr. Garvey by saying:

"I think it is almost silly, ladies and gentlemen, to introduce Mr. Marcus Garvey to you because you have heard about him so long. I have great pleasure in calling upon him to speak to you. Please tell them what you know to uplift them."

Montserratians today still desperately need to be uplifted as we appear to be even more lost now as to our true identities.

The Pan-Afrikan Liberator is proud to help to uplift our people by bringing to its readers, during the birth-month of our greatest leader in the 20th century, the text of the speech that the Hononourable Marcus Garvey delivered to Montserratians in 1936.

Mr. Griffith, ladies and gentlemen, citizens of Montserrat, I am really in your little island on a visit that is taking me through the Windward and Leeward group of the British islands.

I live at the present time in the metropolitan city of London, where the headquarters of the association is to be found.

I left London about two months ago to preside over a conference of branches of the association in Canada made up of the American and the Canadian branches;

After which I decided to visit the islands on the way from Bermuda to Demerara back to St. Johns, Nova Scotia, then to Montreal and back to England.

Anticipating my visit here, I wrote to Mr. Griffith, your fellow townsman, and asked him to arrange a meeting for me in the nature of a program at which I would address a meeting.

Unfortunately, he was not able to arrange the kind of meeting made up of a concerted programme which would give me time to reach my trip for the continuation of my journey.

I received a letter from him this morning, telling me he was not successful in arranging the concert programme.

I took it for granted there would be no meeting, and I was almost in doubt as to whether I should land or not, as I had no plans to go through, but he came aboard and welcomed me.

This is a very strange meeting in considera- tion of the custom I adopt in addressing meetings in strange places, but because Mr. Griffith has been such a good fellow, I would not disappoint him in not meeting you.

He knows your condition better than I, and he said, it was not possible for you to meet me in an enclosed place.

I am glad to see the people of my race anywhere, whether they are half a dozen, ten, or otherwise. I am part of you, and I am interested in you, and for this reason, I have come to visit you and I want to say, if there is anything that can be done by me to serve you, I shall be glad at any time if you will let me know.

I regard you as just part of a great number of people who need help, proper leadership and proper guidance toward a destiny that is worthy of men.

The conditions of men the world over are due more to themselves than to any other cause.

Men who live the life in our civilization have failed in the great majority to realize that on the individual rests the personal responsibility for progress and general happiness.

It is only a fool who expects happiness outside of himself.

Most of the people who suffer and are unfortunate, suffer because of their own ignorance and not because of anything else.

God made man an independent thinking force.

Every man has an independent mind and each and everyone has an independent force.

Very little can happen to you that is of benefit to you except you put that mind in action.

Whether a man is black or yellow or white, he has to do his own thinking and his thinking must be consistent with the kind of thinking that is in process of the civilization in which he lives.

People do think in keeping with the civilization of which they are a part and as they fail to act intelligently, they go down in the lowest social gutter only because they are not able to think to the higher plane of satisfaction.

No man can help you but yourself. You can be helped only through your own intelligence.

God gave you a mind and you must use it.

Some people use it to blaspheme, other people use it for developing. A man really is the result of his mind.

An individual never rises higher than his thoughts.

The people who rise are the people who think in the highest terms of life.

They do not waste time and become vulgar.

When you use your mind to present yourself to the community as a respectable citizen, as somebody who appreciates the rights of others, then the community regards you as an outstanding member of that society.

Every man was intended to merit respect. God hasn't made a low mind and a high mind. Whatever has happened to man is his own behaviour.

All this is done by mind. The man who develops his mind is the most successful man in the community.

It is not beyond the reach of any man. It is given by God to direct you through life. God gives man a mind to make him really a man in the highest sense.

No man is deprived of the opportunity of lifting himself to the highest state of society.

I came from a surrounding not better than many of you, but my mind lifted me out of my surroundings.

It is because I read books and improved myself.

The trouble with us is that we do not read enough. We eat too much (laughter) and let our minds go empty and dry.

If you do not feed your mind with intelligence you will get sick. Most of our people are sick because they eat too much so they have to take too much medicine.

A man is governed not by his stomach, but by his intelligence. Most intelligent people do not eat too much.

They eat light food and are physically better off than the fellow who wads his stomach with whole breadfruit (laughter). He is always going to the doctor.

The man who feeds his intelligence is an agile active fellow in body and mind. Except your mind is clear, you cannot be too much use to yourself.

I want to say something to you and whether you see me or not again, I want to leave you with a pleasant recollection of good behaviour.

If you want to help you must behave yourselves. No man gets much out of the world today if he makes himself a rowdy. Some people who do not know how to present themselves behave badly and think they are doing wonderful.

The function of man is to live peacefully with his brother. Man isn't responsible for his colour. He is responsible for his conduct and his conduct is the result of his mind.

When that man thinks and acts, you know who he is by his action, so he will be known as an upright and decent man.

That is how you are able to spot your decent and respectable citizens. We know people by their behaviour.

God made man and left him to be what he wants to be. You will never be anything in the world except you be yourself.

I can help develop your intelligence, but I cannot give you wealth. It is no use being in the world without understanding the world.

Some of you think that when certain people die, even in youth, God has taken them, but sometimes the people take their own lives through ignorance.

If a man gets drunk and drives his car at sixty miles an hour and goes over a precipice and kills himself, you cannot blame God for that.

If a girl goes to dances and puts on low-bossomed dresses and takes tuberculosis and dies, you cannot blame God for it. It is their own ignorance that causes their death.

God hasn't forgotten you because he made you. But the moment you become lazy and won't do for yourself God is vexed with you.

Most people know their neighbours' business but they do not know their own. First attend to your own business and your first business is to develop your own individual intelligence.

If any man is going to live off my intelligence, he is going to pay me tribute for my intelligence.

If you are so darned lazy, then you better pay me for using my mind.

That is what is happening to people all over the world: People who are too lazy to use their minds.

If another man is using his mind for you, you better pay him.

Help yourself by developing your own intelligence consistent with the society in which you live and the civilization in which you live.

You must know everything about life as pertaining to the civilization that controls your life.

You are a part of the social life of your country. You cannot escape it.

We are a part of the social life of England who live in England.

You must know all about your community and when you know all about the life of your community, you are one of the citizens, one of the leaders of that community.

When you refuse to learn, then those who learn must lead you.

The most unhappy man in the world is the biggest fool and he is unhappy because he has made himself a fool.

God has given every man a mind, and whether he is black or white, he can use that mind.

Therefore, anybody who is thinking in the particular is bound to have the advantage over the man who is not thinking.

Thought will help you; cultural thought, moral thought, ethical thought, the thought that props up the very system of our daily life.

And as high as you rise to think, so much will be your progress and success wheresoever you are.

A man who is thinking right need have no country, because if he thinks intelligently, he can succeed anywhere. But the man who will not think will fail anywhere he goes.

In closing, I want to impress upon you as a people, that you will rise no higher than your thoughts.

If your thoughts are bad, then your condition will be bad, and you create your condition by your thought.

I am wondering what you young men and women are thinking and I do hope I have said something to make you think in the higher terms of life.

I am a living evidence of that and think I can be a fair example to any man who can think correctly.

I thought of being the first gentleman in the world and that is the privilege of every man who lives up to that standard.

He may not achieve the goal of being the first gentleman but he may approach it nearer than many. If you think high, you may reach high. But if think low, you will stay low.

You can send your thoughts as high as heaven and then God will raise you if those thoughts are good.

I think he has helped me to realize my worth to myself, my family and to humanity.

I have helped myself all the way through by my mind and my hands and feet respond. Mind is the ruling force of man.

If a man keeps his mind disturbed he cannot reach very far. Therefore, I want to emphasize that you must use your mind to good result.

Don't allow anyone to impose upon you, and if you approach your community intelligently, your community and your world are ever anxious to hear and listen to you.

If it is not couched in the intelligence that the world demands, nobody will want to hear you.

Ten thousand fools in a community is not as valuable as one intelligent man.

Remember that ignorance doesn't pay at all. If you have a very intelligent man in your community, whom everyone knows to be truly representative, the whole world will mourn the loss of such a man, but if an epidemic comes and wipes out one million ignorant people, the world doesn't shed a tear.

No attention is paid to ignorant people in any part of the world.

Ignorant people can do no good so nobody pays any attention to them but to kick them down and let intelligent people pass.

If a man wants to help himself, he must develop his intelligence so as to be respected by every man in the world.

If you have the intelligence then the world wants it, will grab you, and say, you are the man we are looking for.

Some people sit down and waste their time. If some of those fellows who talk bad words and go before the police court would spend that energy in reading a book, probably we would get a genius from the race.

Too many of our people waste their energy on nothing. Life for every man is short.

I don't know how much more of it I will be having, but I shall let people know I have passed here by trying to do something for humanity.

I have been trying to lift men out of themselves and if I have only a short time here, I am going to continue using that time.

People must know that I passed this way. Some people come here and pass out like sheep. They were of no better use than the sheep.

God intended that man should leave some mark of his intelligence down here. The intelligence of man makes him a God on earth.

I don't want you to come to any belief not clear. Man is a part of God. God is the soul of intelligence.

Outside of that you have no resemblance to God. The thing that has resemblance to God is your soul and spirit intelligence.

God is universal intelligence. He is the intelligence of the whole universe. We are only particles of that intelligence by bearing a likeness to that intelligence.

Man in his resemblance to God is able to create in the world the thing that he wants. God made man and man makes the city.

Man made these things with his mind. For a man to do anything with his hands and feet he must think it out with his mind.

Whatever you want in life you must first develop it into your mind, therefore, if you want to make yourself a better man you must think and make yourself of use to your family and country.

You must think out the terms of that usefulness. Don't sleep on your brains. Use it to protect yourself and your community.

This is my address to you in brief, and I don't know when I will see you again. Try to remember what I have said, principally, that you can rise above your intelligence.

I can be a thousand miles away from you and tell what you are and I can meet you for the first time and know who you are.

If you are ignorant, you are left severely alone. God is too busy with the intelligence of the world to waste his time with a fool.

God is against a fool because he never made a fool, because he knows the intelligent man would take advantage of the fool.

Lots of people get hell in the world and look for God to come down and help them, but they get more hell.

God helps those who help themselves.

So, my friends, man's duty is to get intelligence. Get intelligence consistent with the society in which you live so that you may be a credit to the civilization to which you form a part, and may my words help you to rediscover yourselves.

Go to your beds and earnestly pray to your God to enlighten you about yourself. If you can find out who you are you needn't worry about your neighbour.

In Antigua, one lady, in her enthusiasm, peeked at me in the car and cried out, "Lawd, him ugly, but him have sense, yah!"

You must fit yourself for the greater life and be like Solomon, who asked for wisdom and not for wealth.

A fool never gets by when an intelligent man is nearby. So get knowledge, get it quickly, get it anyhow, but get it.

People who want to help themselves must first become intelligent. You must not grudge the man who educates himself because you too can educate yourself.

I feel that if I want a par- ticular thing, I can get it because every man has the same amount of intelligence.

Only God can stop a man being what he wants to be but it must be consistent with the civil- ization and society in which he lives.

Within the framework, a man can rise as high as he wants. No man is going to help you rise higher than himself (a voice: he doesn't want you to rise as high as himself). You must not covet anything anybody else has.

Your intelligence will show you how to get for yourself. God will take what the ignorant man has and give it to the intelligent man, as he did to the man who hid his talents.

God gives you intelligence to do things intelligently for yourself and you will get no more out of life than you put into it.

If a man dies before his time you mustn't blame God. An intelligent man protects himself against danger to his health.

Go back to your respective homes, law- abiding, peaceful, and don't expect to get anything out of life that you have not put into it.

If you haven't enough sense to pick up, then the other man will, and the fool will always be sidetracked. If you don't know values, if you can't calculate values, whether scientific or otherwise, then it's just your bad luck.

A fool is an unfortunate person. It is a crime to be a fool. Try to continue your education, improve your intelligence.

You can always tell the intelligence of a community by the intelligence that comes out of it. Improve your intelligence to know what the world is. God bless you!

I have to thank the gentleman for placing this yard at my disposal. I took advantage of the opportunity because I wanted to show my appreciation.

"I regard you as just part of a great number of people who need help, proper leadership and proper guidance toward a destiny that is worthy of men."

"The conditions of men the world over are due more to themselves than to any other cause."

"No man can help you but yourself. You can be helped only through your own intelligence. God gave you a mind and you must use it."

"It is no use being in the world without understanding the world."

"Most people know their neighbours' business but they do not know their own."

"You must know everything about life as pertaining to the civilization that controls your life. ..... When you refuse to learn, then those who learn must lead you."

"A man who is thinking right need have no country, because if he thinks intelli- gently, he can succeed anywhere. But the man who will not think will fail anywhere he goes".

"If you think high, you may reach high. But if think low, you will stay low. .... Mind is the ruling force of man."

"Ten thousand fools in a community is not as valuable as one intelligent man."

"No attention is paid to ignorant people in any part of the world."

"Don't sleep on your brains. Use it to protect yourself and your community."

"If you can find out who you are you needn't worry about your neighbour."

"A fool never gets by when an intelligent man is nearby. So get knowledge, get it quickly, get it anyhow, but get it."

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Then, as Now... "The Battlefield For The Continued Oppression Of The Many By The Few Is Your Mind."

Mwongozi Cudjoe Browne

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