"Our economic future depends upon our ability to organize our own capital and direct our own labor for the benefit of our own people."

As we celebrate the fourth day of Kwanzaa and the pivotal principle of UJAMAA, which means cooperative economics, there is no voice more relevant and potent than the voice of Marcus Garvey. Garvey was the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the largest global, Pan-African organization in history. In these quotes taken from The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, the UNIA's newspaper, The Negro World, and Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy, we hear Father Garvey loud and clear.

"Economic power is the only thing that will protect the Negro from the whims and prejudices of other races. When we own our own industries, we shall be able to dictate our own terms." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"Wealth is the only power that the modern world respects. If you want to be free, you must be wealthy as a race, and that wealth comes through cooperative effort." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"A race that is solely dependent upon another for its existence; its food, its clothing and its shelter, will soon die. For the time comes when the other race will find it inconvenient to provide these things for you." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"The time has come for the Negro to forget and cast behind him his hero worship and adoration of other races, and to start to create and build for himself."

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"We are going to link the various units of the Negro race together by the common tie of economic interest. We shall trade with each other, for in so doing, we shall keep the wealth within our own race." 

Source: The Negro World (1922)

"A race that is not industrial and commercial will never be a great race. We must build and maintain our own steamships, our own banks, and our own industrial centers to provide employment for our own people." 

Source: Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy

"The world does not respect the beggar. The world respects the producer. We must produce the things that other men want, and in so doing, we shall command their respect and their trade." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"Every Negro should be a shareholder in the industrial and commercial institutions of his race. We must pool our small amounts of capital to create great and powerful enterprises." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"Let us not be satisfied with being employees of others. Let us strive to be employers of ourselves. Let us build the factories and the businesses that will give our children a future." 

Source: Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy

"The Negro must develop his own genius in the field of commerce and industry. We have the brains, we have the labor; all we need is the organization of our resources." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"We must become a self-sustaining race. We must learn to feed ourselves, clothe ourselves, and house ourselves from our own efforts and through our own institutions." 

Source: Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy

"The first essential of any movement for the uplift of a race is the organization of its people. Without organization, the individual is helpless; but with organization, the individual becomes a giant." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"Industry is the only way to wealth. No race can be truly free until it is economically independent. You must produce what you consume." 

Source: Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy

"We must have a commercial and industrial life of our own. We must create our own markets and our own opportunities."

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"The greatest weapon used against the Negro is disorganization. We must learn to pull together and support our own institutions as a matter of survival." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"The only protection against injustice in man is power—physical, financial, and scientific. We must build that power through the pooling of our resources." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"The man who is not prepared to do his part in the world's work is not a man. We must all contribute to the industrial and commercial building of our race." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"Wealth is the only thing that will command the respect of the world. Therefore, let us make a great effort to build up our own industrial and commercial institutions." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"The political and social salvation of the Negro depends upon his economic success. If he is not economically sound, his political and social status will always be at the mercy of the other man." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"Commerce is the only door through which a race can enter into the activities of the world and make itself felt. We must build and trade between the various units of our race in Africa and the Americas." 

Source: The Negro World (1921)

"The only way the Negro is going to be independent is by his becoming an industrial and commercial power. We must have our own steamship lines, our own banks, and our own industrial institutions." 

Source: Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy

"Negroes must learn the value of the penny. Thousands of us must put our pennies together to create millions of dollars to build the things that we need." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"We must create for ourselves. We must have our own markets. We must have our own producers and our own consumers." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"The Negro must have a world of his own. Not a world of isolation, but a world of economic independence that commands the respect of all other men." 

Source: The Negro World (1923)

"No race can be respected that does not produce for itself. We must produce the food we eat, the clothes we wear, and the houses in which we live." 

Source: Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy

"Let us build for ourselves. Let us provide for ourselves. Let us show the world that we are a race of builders and not just a race of consumers." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"Our economic future depends upon our ability to organize our own capital and direct our own labor for the benefit of our own people." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"Up, you mighty race, accomplish what you will. There is no height to which we cannot climb if we are organized and economically sound." 

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

"There is no force on earth more powerful than a people who are economically organized and working toward a common goal of material and spiritual uplift."

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey