MJJG: pg 40

[Raphael Saltwood]

(As we know:
 the mayor of New Orleans was blessed with Jes Grew, but his cultural programming and circle of influencers convinced him to treat it as an illness

(As we know: The inevitable - or is it? If it isn’t, why does it so oft occur? - conflict between glorious self-expression and the demands of society has enlivened many a work of art.

(As we might surmise: Here rapturous bliss is personified as Jes Grew, the enlivening principle behind the human protagonist PaPa LaBas, so in a sense, Jes Grew is the actual protagonist on the ideational plane

(In which case:  the antagonist, the Atonist Path, opposes the Jes Grew on the same (rarefied) level of abstraction.

(It follows that: we might posit Atonist alignments among other characters - Subsidiary opponents -(who also vie among themselves) including the Wallflower Order, the Teutonic League, the Knights Templar, others yet to be named...

(Extending the interpellation: Subsidiary allies (who aren’t immune to internecine strife either) might be said to include Mu’tafikah, and roots and loas practitioners such as PaPa LaBas and Black Herman

(Not all characters are easily placed: Abdul Hamid’s Islamist monotheism would seem to make him an Atonist, but privately he is not all unfriendly to PaPa LaBas and Black Herman

(Similarly tough to attribute sidedness to: Buddy Jackson, gangster and Mason, so Atonist by provenance, but because of racial issues he’s not directly opposing Jes Grew. His violence becomes vengeance against the financiers who laughingly profit from military incursions into Haiti.

(As we know: PaPa LaBas and his daughter Earline go to the Chitterling Switch, a house party in Harlem raising money to oppose lynchings in the South.

(As we remember: Earline doesn’t tend the loa tray 22, which seems ominous...

(As it happens, Earline’s romantically linked with Berbelang, leader of the Mu’tafikah, although Berbelang has left the LaBas fold in favor of his Art reclamation project.)

>From page 40 ——-

Black Herman and Abdul Hamid already at the shindig. LaBas joins their parley:

BH: “Why PaPa LaBas, you old jug-blower you! I haven’t seen you since the last Black Numerology Convention. How have you been?”

(PaPa LaBas walks into the room; Abdul stares sneeringly at his shoes. Then his face.)

PLB: “I didn’t want to interrupt you. How have you been? I hear you’re packing them in at Liberty Hall.”

BH: “That’s right. 4,000 per night; as big as Garvey.”

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/garvey.htm

“In my experience with undergraduates, I find that students know little if anything about Marcus Garvey. The simplest way to get their attention is to tell them that Garvey's UNIA was bigger than the Civil Rights Movement, which most of them do know something about. Telling them that Garvey's influence extended well beyond the borders of the United States to the Caribbean, Canada, and Africa may also pique their interest. Pointing out that Garvey's message had a tremendous influence on later groups such as theRastafarians<http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/garvey.htm#rastafarians> and the Nation of Islam is also important. Much of what he said concerning racial pride and the potential for great racial success can be heard in later figures such as Malcolm X and even Stokely Carmichael, leader of SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee). Garvey, Malcolm, and Carmichael are all considered more radical than the mainstream civil rights protesters, yet it was Booker T. Washington, someone considered quite conservative by most scholars, who had a profound influence on Garvey. Exploring that connection between the accommodationist philosophy of Washington and the black nationalism of Garvey and the other leaders might generate the most interest and help the students see the important place that Garvey holds in American history.”


Liberty Hall was real. Marcus Garvey was an amazing person!

https://drstephenrobertson.com/digitalharlemblog/maps/unia-harlem/

Shipping company Black Star Line - a Garvey creation.

doesn’t the Black Star Line appear later on in MJ?