Comparison Of Marcus Garvey And David Duke

Racial issues have always been debated and followed by many people throughout the history of America and will continue to be for a long time. Along with these debates come movements and with movements come leaders. Two well-known leaders of racially driven movements are Marcus Garvey and David Duke. Garvey was a black man looking to forward his fellow black man’s financial state and living conditions, and he became a leader for his movement. Duke is a white man who feels that with all of the racial diversity in this country the white race is being mistreated and destroyed, and became a leader for a more extreme group of believers. These two extraordinary men can be compared and contrasted with respect to their groups, views, and faults.

First, both of these men were known for their participation in racial interest groups. Marcus Garvey founded the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). The objectives of the UNIA were to promote racial pride, create colleges and universiteies for blacks, and establish world-wide commercial ventures. (Rogoff 67). Garvey founded the UNIA because during his frequent ravels he observed that black people were being mistreated, especially when it came to work. He observed the inferior status of black workers around the world. In an attempt to help relieve the plight of these workers he founded the UNIA. The UNIA was, in fact, the first, dominant black interest group, even before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In just a few years after it was founded in 1914, the UNIA had four million members in 1920 and six million in 1923. David Duke’s famous interest group was the infamous Ku Klux Klan. Duke became a member of the KKK when he was only a teenager. He quickly became the Imperial Wizard of the Klan, the highest ranking official. What Duke brought to the Klan was a new, charming, intellectual personality. He wanted to change the stereotypical view of a rowdy, unintelligent redneck Klansman. Under his leadership many new people joined the Klan thinking that it was now respectable with Duke at the Helm. While he is not still with the Klan now, he left an impression in that group that will never be forgotten. Both Garvey’s and Duke’s affiliation with interest groups helped draw attention to not only the group but also t...

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...itical experts thought he would be. The downfall for Duke’s political success was his notorious past. He had been associated with many ill-famed groups such as the Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan as a young man. In an event that would haunt his political career forever, he marched around in his Nazi uniform at LSU in a student protest. While now he regrets doing that and blaming it on his immaturity and youth, he will never live it down. His opponents use his Klan affiliation and Nazi Party affiliation against him in every election. Like Garvey, he had a fault that kept him from achieving his goal.

Marcus Garvey and David Duke were both very extraordinary people with unique ideas and contributions. While being totally different people and races they held many of the same viewpoints. Each man had his own way of expressing his ideas and each was well known for his stand. Each man envisioned a better world for both races. They saw peace and tranquillity within mankind, but each man had a different view of how it would get that way. These men’s goals, when looked at objectively are not all bad. They just wanted what they felt was best.