Black leader Marcus Garvey

Factual Questions
1

Please look at this English text …

*A controversial figure throughout most of his public life, the Black leader Marcus Garvey advocated that some Blacks return to Africa, the land that, to him, symbolized the possibility of freedom.
*

I’m confused at those red part . see there are 3 commas and thats the reason I’m getting lost in the flow. I’m not able to capture the meaning.
I’m breaking that piece down here

…that some Blacks return to Africa, => No Issue

the land that, => I don’t understand this . which land ? Africa ? Can I write this immediate reference this way in English?

to him, => looks a discontinuity in flow here.

This is a hard.
Could you please help me how to read this sentence in a meaningful way ?

2

To me the sentence looks very clear: Africa is the land that, to Garvey, symbolized the possibility of freedom. In fact, it would look very strange without those commas in those places.

ETA: and yes, AFAIK this is correct and fairly common usage. The first part of the sentence is stating what he advocated, the second part of the sentence starting with “, the land that…” is alluding to the reasoning behind it.

3

Ok.

I understand Africa is the land . so they are connected . I put **green **for that
return to Africa, the land that, to him, symbolized the possibility of freedom.
is not to him suddenly popped up in the middle…tearing a connectivity ? Is this ok ?

symbolized the possibility of freedom. …which symbolized ? I guess its the land Africa here.

This is quite uncomfortable sentence . Does English speakers talk like this ?

4

The which is superfluous since you already have that in the preceding clause. In this case, it’s a non-restrictive clause, so you need the commas too.

5

It’s not the best written sentance but it does make sense.

I guess it’s distancing the writer from the claim that Africa equals freedom, and pointing out that this claim is particular to Garvey.

6

This is one is pretty straightforward. All the references point the right way to what you expect to.

“The land” does refer back to Africa. “To him” refers back to Garvey.

If the sentence were to be broken apart it might read:

Black leader Marcus Garvey was a controversial figure throughout most of his public life. He advocated that some Blacks return to Africa. Africa is the land that symbolized the possibility of freedom.

“To him” is slippery because it can be inserted at several points in that last sentence and keep the same meaning.

To him, Africa is the land that symbolized the possibility of freedom.

Africa, to him, is the land that symbolized the possibility of freedom.

Africa is the land that to him symbolized the possibility of freedom.

Africa is the land that symbolized the possibility of freedom to him.

English is often written as a string of conjunctions and prepositional phrases. The more formal the English, the greater the tendency. Look at this paragraph from the G-20 summit final statement.

I can’t diagram in a text box, but that needs arrows to connect all the parts. It is unbalanced (“the importance” starts a short clause; “the need” starts a long one) and hard-to-follow. That’s why many native speakers can’t read formal texts.

Is our advice helping you? You keep starting new threads, so I assume so. Comments from you would make it easier for us to know what approaches to take.

7

‘return to Africa, the land that, to him, symbolized the possibility of freedom’ could have been written as ‘return to Africa, the land that symbolized the possibility of freedom to him’. Inserting the clause ‘to him’ in the midst of the sentence is a means of clarifying the term ‘symbolized’ as an opinion held by Garvey. The English language mavens can give more precise analysis of this style, but I would think that a parenthical clause would be more clear, as in ‘return to Africa, the land that (to him) symbolized the possibility of freedom’. The form you are citing sounds more like a speech pattern, where empasis could be placed on the clause ‘to him’ for better clarity. You seem to be able to read and write in English fairly well. Do you have experience in spoken English though? This might help you understand some of the ways the language is used.

8

Garvey advocated that some Blacks return to Africa, the land that - to him - symbolised the possibility of freedom.

I’d probably punctuate it that way. You could use brackets instead of dashes, which might be more correct, too.

It’s not an elegant sentence, but the meaning was clear to me, and using commas in that way is correct.

9

>>Is our advice helping you ?

Yes . Of course . It is helping me a lot. I am improving fast.

You guys are so much helpful and knowledgeable. I read each and every post with care and attention.

Thank you so much for your time.