Garveyites in Uniform

[RJBowman]

Someone started a topic about the visual aesthetic of the Nazis. I thought that I should call attention to another, less likely, group that embraced the Prussian military aesthetic: the followers of Marcus Garvey:



This was the group for which the expression "Black Militant" might have been coined. They arose from the same movements from which the Nation of Islam and the Rastafarians emerged, but instead of creating a crackpot religion, they borrowed trappings from 19th century German militarism, got themselves some sweet military uniforms, and marched in parades.


That's Garvey himself on the right.

See? You don't have to be a Nazi to admire German military pageantry.

[Drew P]

Well, you shouldn't say that whomever admires German military pageantry is a Nazi.......

[J. Wilhelm]

Someone started a topic about the visual aesthetic of the Nazis. I thought that I should call attention to another, less likely, group that embraced the Prussian military aesthetic: the followers of Marcus Garvey:



This was the group for which the expression "Black Militant" might have been coined. They arose from the same movements from which the Nation of Islam and the Rastafarians emerged, but instead of creating a crackpot religion, they borrowed trappings from 19th century German militarism, got themselves some sweet military uniforms, and marched in parades.


That's Garvey himself on the right.

See? You don't have to be a Nazi to admire German military pageantry.

[mod hat]
Sweet Jehozaphat! What is it with you guys?  Are you trying to resuscitate activity in the forum by way of polemic shocks?   
[/mod hat]

Definitely Marcus Garvey was both an important and yet a highly controversial early leader of the Pan-African movements, having made a real enemy of WEB DuBois, and also alienating large segments of the African American community by meeting and even agreeing (!) with white supremacists, including leaders the Ku Klux Klan. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey

Alas, something escapes my mind. My penchant for history just being a hobby, how specifically do you know those are Prussian or even more generally German uniforms? I can find no reference to that. 

[Atterton]

They don't look particularly german to me to be honest. I think many countries in the 1800s had something similar.

[J. Wilhelm]

Not only that, but this movement specifically belongs to the 20th. C. starting in the 1910'a peaking in the 1920s. The uniforms are clearly ceremonial and some of the more elaborate regalia looks like Caribbean colonial era uniforms (i.e. Regency/Napoleonic eras).

[RJBowman]

Someone told me that the early Garveyite uniforms were inspired by German uniforms, because Garvey was an admirer of Bismarck, the man who united the German people into a single nation. This could be entirely wrong, and the uniforms could be from somewhere else; maybe Haiti, as has been suggested.

[J. Wilhelm]

Someone told me that the early Garveyite uniforms were inspired by German uniforms, because Garvey was an admirer of Bismarck, the man who united the German people into a single nation. This could be entirely wrong, and the uniforms could be from somewhere else; maybe Haiti, as has been suggested.

Well, Otto Von Bismark was a stateman who sought to re unite the German states after Napoleon has disbanded the Holy Roman Empire, but he saw Prussia as a rival to Austria, the traditional seat of German power. Bismark was also a Protestant fundamentalist who had no problem kicking the teeth of Catholic Austria, creating as many problems (and even wars) as possible, to keep Austria out of the German Federation; partly his actions were due to religion, but also they were intended to prevent non German ethnicities from coming into the federation, specifically, Austria's Hungarian possessions. So you can see him as uniter or divider. Another polemic figure