Social Equity, Intellectual History, Black Movement Leaders, and Marcus Garvey

Abstract

This paper engages the U.S.-focused social equity literature and its ahistorical understanding of its pre-1968 intellectual histories. We use racial contract theory to highlight the epistemological necessity of a disciplinary reconsideration. We suggest that intellectual histories bound to an exclusively academic voice negate a fuller understanding of lived realities. By engaging the work of a Jamaican-born activist like Marcus Garvey and his significant inroads into 1910s and 1920s America, we create an updated historical understanding of social equity that challenges the disciplinary script.