Is Marcus Garvey Challenging Through Bob Johnson?

BUSINESS EXCHANGE
By William Reed

As African activists celebrated Marcus Garvey’s 121st birthday, Black Entertainment Television founder-turned-billionaire developer Robert Johnson was building a four-star, beachfront resort to open March 2009 near the Liberian capitol of Monrovia.

Most African Americans know little of Liberia. Located on Africa’s west coast, Liberia’s name denotes “liberty” as a result of Black Americans’ colonization in 1822. By 1921, Garvey had the conviction that American Blacks should have a permanent homeland in Africa and sought to develop Liberia. He had intended to build colleges, industrial plants, and railroads as part of an industrial base from which to operate. During the 1980s and 90s, the country was embroiled in a civil war that destroyed its economy and image.

Now, Bob Johnson says, “Last September, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf captivated an audience at the Clinton Global Initiative with descriptions of the extraordinary challenges facing her country. Sirleaf’s courage and vision inspired me and a group of colleagues to commit to revitalizing the historic but dormant relationship between African Americans and Liberia. After all, Jewish Americans have been vital to Israel’s welfare. African Americans should play a similar role for Liberia.”

Johnson led the first American investment mission to Liberia in over 30 years and initiated the RLJ Liberia Initiative, a RJR Companies development fund, to help bring Liberia back from its war-ravaged struggles. The RLJ Kendeja Resorts & Villas will be an 85-room, four-star resort on the Atlantic coast. ‘There is no hotel in West Africa like this,’ says Johnson. ‘This will be a Class-A beachfront property, with great views out to the ocean’. Johnson is taking a risk on an upscale project in a country that has not seen a new hotel room built in 20 years. Ground was broken with a labor force of 500 Liberian workers. The RJR Kendeja will have rates of $150 to $200 a night. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is expected to host the first guests. And, if all goes as planned, she will be followed by ambassadors, multinational corporate executives, foundations and others looking to fuel Liberia’s growth.

The property is located outside Monrovia, a city of 400,000, which only has a handful of hotels. Johnson says the project furthers his ‘commitment of mobilizing resources to aid Liberia’s rehabilitation and signal to the international and local sectors that Liberia is open for business.’ As the Liberia government seeks to boost tourism, it’s hard not to see Johnson’s initiative as a good thing. Just six hours from America’s East Coast, Liberia has 300 miles of white sandy beaches and attractions such as shallow lagoons, islands, lakes, mangrove swamps, rivers, volcanoes and colonial-styled wide porch homes. Liberia’s unique history as the first black African republic and a haven for freed black American slaves in the 19th century can be great attractions.

RLJ Liberia Enterprise Development Fund programs aid entrepreneurs and coordinate advocacy and outreach efforts with President Johnson-Sirleaf’s programs. The American Johnson says revenue returns will help spur reconstruction of the country’s schools, roads, hospitals, utilities and businesses. Some could see the initiative as Bob Johnson taking up where Marcus Garvey left off. Best known for the “Back to Africa” movement, Marcus Garvey is credited with creating history’s biggest movement of people of African descent. His business and social movements of the 1920s is said to have had more participation from people of African descent than the Civil Rights Movement

Though Garvey never actually went to Liberia, large numbers of U.S. tourists went before the wars. Now, Johnson is chronicling Garvey’s back to Africa movement. Johnson says, “Liberia deserves American support, and African Americans especially must come forward to reestablish the historic bond between our nations”. He has increased the U.S. government’s has attention and investments and programs toward Liberia. In many sectors, Liberia has world-class natural resources. While many still condemn Johnson about the content of BET programming, the paradox is that Garvey would probably be proud of Johnson and his successes at ‘working the system’. He is to be applauded for addressing very real economic issues in the motherland.

William Reed – www.BlackPressInternational.com

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