"Whatsoever things common to man, that man has done, man can do"
About this Quote
Garvey’s line is a verbal crowbar: it pries open the locked cabinet of “impossible” and shows it’s mostly been held shut by inherited fear. “Whatsoever” gives it a biblical timbre, but the logic is strikingly practical. If something falls within the range of human action - “common to man” - then it’s not a miracle reserved for emperors, geniuses, or white institutions. It’s repeatable. It can be learned, organized, engineered, financed. The sentence is built like a proof, not a pep talk, and that matters: Garvey isn’t asking for sympathy, he’s authorizing ambition.
The context sharpens the edge. Garvey wrote and spoke amid Jim Crow, colonial rule, and a public culture dedicated to portraying Black life as permanently subordinate. Against that machinery of diminishment, the quote functions as a counter-propaganda slogan: a portable piece of reasoning meant to survive contact with daily humiliation. It’s also a publisher’s sentence - designed to circulate, to be quoted, to recruit. In Garvey’s world, ideas weren’t decoration; they were infrastructure.
The subtext is collective. “Man” is singular in grammar but plural in intent: a people can do what people have done. That’s why the line dovetails with his institution-building projects (newspapers, organizations, commercial ventures): proof must become practice. If others have built nations, shipping lines, schools, and symbols, then the barrier isn’t human capability. It’s access, coordination, and the courage to stop treating history as someone else’s property.
The context sharpens the edge. Garvey wrote and spoke amid Jim Crow, colonial rule, and a public culture dedicated to portraying Black life as permanently subordinate. Against that machinery of diminishment, the quote functions as a counter-propaganda slogan: a portable piece of reasoning meant to survive contact with daily humiliation. It’s also a publisher’s sentence - designed to circulate, to be quoted, to recruit. In Garvey’s world, ideas weren’t decoration; they were infrastructure.
The subtext is collective. “Man” is singular in grammar but plural in intent: a people can do what people have done. That’s why the line dovetails with his institution-building projects (newspapers, organizations, commercial ventures): proof must become practice. If others have built nations, shipping lines, schools, and symbols, then the barrier isn’t human capability. It’s access, coordination, and the courage to stop treating history as someone else’s property.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
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