Abakosem Sunsum 2018

Queen Mother Moore: What's the Hour of the Night?

“What’s the Hour of the Night?”

After four score years of freedom

Our so-called leaders say

That the Race has made great progress

And we face the dawn of day

But the day is not quite dawning

Millions of my peoples stand

Pleading at the bars of justice

For reparations and land

We’re not free in this country

And the truth is the light

So I turn to ask my watchman

“What’s the hour of the night?”

We died fighting for democracy

I admit this to be true

Yet countless Afrikan men and women

Have no homes or work to do

If we wish to see the daylight

Or the rising of the sun

We need our self-determination

Our own affair to run

Since only reparations will

Put freedom in our sight

Let us turn to ask the watchman

“What’s the hour of the night?”

Civil rights laws just for us

Is proof that we’re not free

How could we be fooled to think

We had a share in this democracy

When foreigners come here

They’re made citizens by choice

Citizenship was imposed upon us

We never had a voice

The passage of the 14^th amendment

Took away the right

So you’d better ask your watchman

“What’s the hour of the night?”

Marcus Garvey Quotes

  “All of us may not live to see the higher accomplishments of an Afrikan Empire, so strong and powerful as to compel the respect of mankind, but we in our lifetime, can so work and act as to make the dream a possibility in the next generation.”

“This is the day of racial activity, when each and every group of this great human family must exercise its own initiative and influence in its own protection, therefore, African people should be more determined today than they have ever been, because the mighty forces of the world are operating against non-organized groups of peoples, who are not ambitious enough to protect their own interests.”-       Marcus Garvey

“NATIONHOOD is the only means by which modern civilization can completely protect itself.Independence of nationality, independence of government, is the means of protecting not only the individual, but the group.Nationhood is the highest ideal of all peoples.”-       Marcus Garvey 

“The world does not count races and nations that have nothing. Point me to a weak nation and I will show you a people oppressed, abused, taken advantage of by others.Show me a weak race and I will show you a people reduced to serfdom, peonage and slavery.Show me a well organized nation, and I will show you a people and a nation respected by the world.”-       Marcus Garvey

  

Excerpted from The Philosophy And Opinions of Marcus Garvey(1968)(Ed.)Amy Jacques Garvey

Abakosem Sunsum 2018: Building Kilombos

Haitian Constitution of 1805

CONSTITUTION OF HAYTI

We, H. Christophe, Clerveaux, Vernet, Gabart, Petion, Geffard, Toussaint, Brave, Raphael, Roamin, Lalondridie, Capoix, Magny, Daut, Conge, Magloire, Ambrose, Yayou, Jean Louis Franchois, Gerin, Mereau, Fervu, Bavelais, Martial Besse…

As well in our name as in that of the people of Hayti, who have legally constituted us faithfully organs and interpreters of their will, inpresence of the Supreme Being, before whom all mankind are equal, and who has scattered so many species of creatures on thesurface of the earth for the purpose of manifesting his glory and his power by the diversity of his works, in the presence of all nature bywhom we have been so unjustly and for so long a time considered as outcast children.

Do declare that the tenor of the present constitution is the free spontaneous and invariable expression of our hearts, and the generalwill of our constituents, and we submit it to the sanction of H.M. the Emperor Jacques Dessalines our deliverer, to receive its speedyand entire execution.

Preliminary Declaration.

Art. 1. The people inhabiting the island formerly called St. Domingo, hereby agree to form themselves into a free state sovereign andindependent of any other power in the universe, under the name of empire of Hayti.

2.Slavery is forever abolished.

'3.The Citizens of Hayti are brothers at home; equality in the eyes of the law is incontestably acknowledged, and there cannot exist anytitles, advantages, or privileges, other than those necessarily resulting from the consideration and reward of services rendered to libertyand independence.

4. The law is the same to all, whether it punishes, or whether it protects.

5. The law has no retroactive effect.

6. Property is sacred, its violation shall be severely prosecuted.

7. The quality of citizen of Hayti is lost by emigration and naturalization in foreign countries and condemnation to corporal or disgrace punishments. The fist case carries with it the punishment of death and confiscation of property.

8. The quality of Citizen is suspended in consequence of bankruptcies and failures.

9. No person is worth of being a Haitian who is not a good father, good son, a good husband, and especially a good soldier.

10. Fathers and mothers are not permitted to disinherit their children.

11. Every Citizen must possess a mechanic art.

12. No whiteman of whatever nation he may be, shall put his foot on this territory with the title of master or proprietor, neither shall he infuture acquire any property therein.

13. The preceding article cannot in the smallest degree affect white woman who have been naturalized Haytians by Government, nordoes it extend to children already born, or that may be born of the said women. The Germans and Polanders naturalized by governmentare also comprized (sic) in the dispositions of the present article.

14. All acception (sic) of colour among the children of one and the same family, of whom the chief magistrate is the father, being necessarily to cease, the Haytians shall hence forward be known only by the generic appellation of Blacks.

Of the Empire

15. The Empire of Hayti is one and indivisible. Its territory is distributed into six military divisions.

16. Each military division shall be commanded by a general of division.

17. These generals of division shall be independent of one another, and shall correspond directly with the Emperor, or with the generalin chief appointed by his Majesty.

18. The following Islands are integral parts of the Empire, viz. Samana, La Tortue, La Gonave, Les Cayemites, La Saone, L'Isle a Vache, and other adjacent islands.

Of the Government

19. The Government of Hayti is entrusted to a first Magistrate, who assumes the title of Emperor and commander in chief of the army.

20. The people acknowledge for Emperor and Commander in Chief of the Army, Jacques Dessalines, the avenger and deliverer of hisfellow citizens. The title of Majesty is conferred upon him, as well as upon his august spouse, the Empress.

21. The person of their Majesties are sacred and inviolable.

22. The State will appropriate a fixed annual allowance to her Majesty the Empress, which she will continue to enjoy even after thedecease of the Emperor, as princess dowager.

23. The crown is elective not hereditary.

24. There shall be assigned by the state an annual income to the children acknowledge by his Majesty the Emperor.

25. The male children acknowledged by the Emperor shall be obliged, in the same manner as other citizens, to pass successively fromgrade to grade, with this only difference, that their entrance into service shall begin at the fourth demi brigade, from the period of theirbirth.

26. The Emperor designates, in the manner he may judge expedient, the person who is to be his successor either before or after hisdeath. 

27. A suitable provision shall be made by the state to that successor from the moment of his accession to the throne.

28. The Emperor, and his successors, shall in no case and under no pretext whatsoever, have the right of attacking to their persons anyparticular or privileged body, whether as guards of honour, or under any other denomination.

29. Every successor deviating from the dispositions of the preceding article, or from the principles consecrated in the present constitutionshall be considered and declared in a state of warfare against the society. In such a case, the counselors of state will assemble in orderto pronounce his removal, and to chose one among themselves who shall be judged the most worthy of replacing him; and if it shouldhappen that the said successor oppose the execution of this measure, authorized by law, the Generals, counselor of state, shall appealto the people and the army, who will immediately give their whole strength and assistance to maintain Liberty.

30. The Emperor makes seals and promulgates the laws; appoints and revokes at will, the Ministers, the General in Chief for the Army, the Counselors of State, the Generals and other agents of the Empire, the sea offices, the members of the local administrations, theCommissaries of Government near the Tribunals, the judges, and other public functionaries.

31. The Emperor directs the receipts and expenditures of the State, Surveys the Mint of which he alone orders the emission, and fixesthe weight and the model.

32. To him alone is reserved the power of making peace or war, to maintain political intercourse, and to form treaties.

33. He provides for the interior safety and for the defense of the State: and distributes at pleasure the sea and land forces.

34. In case of conspiracies manifesting themselves against the safety of the state, against the constitution, or against his person, theEmperor shall cause the authors or accomplices to be arrested and tried before a special Council.

35. His Majesty has alone the right to absolve a criminal and commute his punishment.

36. The Emperor shall never form any enterprize (sic) with the views of making conquests, nor to disturb the peace and interior administration of foreign colonies.

37. Every public act shall be made in these terms: "THE EMPEROR I. OF HAYTI, AND COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE ARMY BY THE GRACE OF GOD, AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW OF THE STATE."