Native Africans Exploited
by White Men
The native Africans once owned all the wealth of South Africa,
but Cecil Rhodes and other white men robbed and exploited
them, and today the diamond fields are owned by white men,
who have practically reduced the native Africans (who once
owned the lands) to slavery, and by the system of forced labour,
compelled them to mine the diamonds and other minerals and
to live on reservations, herded together like cattle, under
conditions wholly unsuited to human beings.
The British Empire today owes its present financial existence
to the wealth which has been recruited from Africa, the wealth
that we Negroes could have controlled fifty years ago, when
there was not so much interest in Africa. It is only within
this period of time that Italy, France, England, Portugal,
and Belgium have started a wholesale colonization and exploitation
of Africa.
As for Belgium's contact with the native African in the Congo
Basin, every Negro who knows anything about the "Leopoldian
System" shudders St the mention of the word Belgian..
This system out-rivals any of the most fiendish wholesale
massacres and atrocities ever committed by human beings, and
all for rubber and ivory.
Villages were compelled to furnish a certain amount of rubber
every week as a tax. Natives were not allowed to cultivate
the soil, all their time was spent in getting rubber. Men,
women, and children were utilized in rubber getting, hence
they died in large numbers from starvation and over work.
When certain areas became non-productive by being over-worked,
the inhabitants of these areas were massacred by the soldiers
who were sent out to collect the rubber, and instead of returning
with rubber, they returned with trophies of hands and other
parts of the human body, to prove that they had done their
work.
This system in its entirety lasted for twenty years, with
a loss of life of over twenty million black men, women and
children. In the last world war Negroes from every clime were
called out to protect "poor Belgium" from the "brutal
Hun." In the coming struggle of the "survival of
the fittest," we may be able to repay "poor Belgium"
measure for measure for her colonization of over one million
square miles of African territory."
"There
is now a world revival of
thought and action, which is
causing peoples everywhere to
bestir themselves towards their own security, through which
we hear the cry of Ireland for the Irish,
Palestine for the Jew, Egypt for the Egyptian, Asia for the
Asiatic, and thus we Negroes raise the cry of Africa for the
Africans, those at
home and those abroad."
Negroes Robbed of Their History
"The white world has always tried to rob and discredit
us of our history. They tell us that Tut-Ankh-Amen, a King
of Egypt who reigned about the year 1350 BC was nota Negro,
that the ancient civilization of Egypt and the Pharoahs was
not of our race, but that does not make the truth unreal.
Every student of history, of impartial mind, knows that the
Negro once ruled the world, when white men were savages and
barbarians living in caves; that thousands of Negro professors
at that time taught in the Universities in Alexandria, then
the seat of/earning; that Ancient Egypt gave to the world
civilization and that Greece and Rome have robbed Egypt of
her arts and letters, and taken all the credit to themselves.
It is not surprising, however, that white men should resort
to every means to keep Negroes in ignorance of their history,
it would be a great shock to their pride to admit to the world
today that 3, 000 years ago black men excelled in government
and were the founders and teachers of art, science, and literature.
The power and sway we once held passed away, but now in the
twentieth century we are about to see a return of it in the
rebuilding of Africa; yes, a new civilization, a new culture,
shall spring up from among our people, and the Nile shall
once more flow through the land of science, of art, and of
literature, wherein will live black men of the highest learning
and the highest accomplishments."
19
Ethiopia Shall Stretch Forth her hands unto JAH Ras Tafari
"We have reached the time when every minute, every second
must count for something done, something achieved in the cause
of Africa. We need the freedom of Africa now, therefore, we
desire the kind of leadership that will give it to us as quickly
as possible. You will realize that not only individuals, but
governments are using their influence against us. But what
do we care about the unrighteous influence of any government?
Our cause is based upon righteousness. And anything that is
not righteousness we have no respect for, because God Almighty
is our leader and Jesus Christ our standard bearer. We rely
on them for that kind of leadership that will make us free,
for it is the same God who inspired the Psalmist to write
Princes shall come out of Egypt and Ethiopia shall stretch
out her hands unto God. At this moment methinks I see Ethiopia
stretching forth her hands unto God and methinks I see the
Angel of God taking up the standard of the Red, the Black,
and the Green and saying Men of the Negro Race, Men of Ethiopia,
follow me
"
|