Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. ONH (1887-1940) was a Jamaican political activist, black nationalist, and Pan-Africanist who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). Through the UNIA, he declared himself Provisional President of Africa, advocating for unity between Africans and the African diaspora and campaigning for an end to European colonial rule in Africa. Garvey's message resonated deeply with African Americans, encouraging them to embrace their shared African heritage and strive for self-determination.
Garvey's philosophy had a rich religious component that he blended with the political and economic aspects. Garvey himself claimed that his "Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World," along with the Bible, served as "the Holy Writ for our Negro Race." He stated very clearly that "as we pray to Almighty God to save us through his Holy Words so shall we with confidence in ourselves follow the sentiment of the Declaration of Rights and carve our way to liberty." For Garvey, it was no less than the will of God for black people to be free to determine their own destiny. His organization took as its motto "One God! One Aim! One Destiny!"
Early Life and Influences
Born in St. Anne's Bay, Jamaica, in 1887, Marcus Garvey left school at age fourteen due to economic hardship and entered the printing and newspaper business. He became interested in politics and projects aimed at helping those on the bottom of society. Unsatisfied, he traveled to London in 1912, where he studied the controversy between Ireland and England concerning Ireland's independence and was exposed to black colonial writers around the African Times and Orient Review. The most influential experience of his stay in London was reading Booker T. Washington's autobiography Up From Slavery.
Washington believed African Americans needed to improve themselves first, showing whites in America that they deserved equal rights. Although politically involved behind the scenes, Washington repeatedly claimed that African Americans would not benefit from political activism and started an industrial training school in Alabama that embodied his own philosophy of self-help. Garvey was heavily influenced by Washington's ideas and returned to Jamaica in 1914 to found the UNIA with the motto "One God! One Aim! One Destiny!" Initially, he kept very much in line with Washington by encouraging his fellow Jamaicans of African descent to work hard, demonstrate good morals and a strong character, and not worry about politics as a tool to advance their cause.
The Rise of UNIA and the "Back to Africa" Movement
Garvey did not make much headway in Jamaica and decided to visit America in order to meet Booker T. Washington and learn more about the situation of African Americans. As World War One came to an end, disillusionment was beginning to take hold. Not only was the optimism in the continuing improvement of humanity and society broken apart, but so was any hope on the part of African Americans that they would gain the rights enjoyed by every white American citizen.
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Between 1917 and 1919 race riots erupted in East St. Louis and other cities, further shattering any illusions that service in the armed forces and hard work would bring about equality and respect. Marcus Garvey, the charismatic founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), which advocated that all people of African descent return to an African homeland, saw the earlier East St. Louis race riots of 1917 as proof that the United States had failed in its promise of democracy.
The UNIA thrived in Harlem, and Garvey spoke to crowds of thousands across the country. He advocated African separatism and pride, and he urged people of African descent to return to their homeland. To facilitate this, Garvey established the Black Star Line shipping company. In June 1919, Garvey set up the Black Star Line, which was intended to facilitate the return of thousands, and eventually millions, of people to Africa as well as provide a mercantile future for the company as the vehicle for exclusively black industry and trade.
The UNIA popularized the Back-to-Africa movement, encouraging African Americans to resettle in Africa. Much like the Emigrationist ideals of the early 19th century, Garvey believed that African Americans could never achieve true freedom and equality in the United States due to systemic racism and oppression. Garvey founded the Black Star Line, a steamship company, in 1919 to facilitate the transportation of African Americans to Africa. Garvey inspired African Americans to embrace their shared African heritage and take pride in their racial identity during a time of intense racial violence (lynchings) and discrimination (Jim Crow laws). He promoted the wearing of African-inspired clothing and the adoption of African names to celebrate Black culture and history.
Garvey's Vision: Unity, Pride, and Autonomy
Garvey's message had three components-unity, pride in the African cultural heritage, and complete autonomy. To promote unity, Garvey encouraged African Americans to be concerned with themselves first. He wanted African Americans to see themselves as members of a mighty race. He proclaimed "black is beautiful" long before it became popular in the 1960s. Garvey organized his group in a way that made those sentiments visible. Members of the UNIA marched in parades and dressed in a military uniform with a plumed hat.
Garvey championed the ideals of industrial, political, and educational advancement and self-determination through the establishment of separatist Black institutions. Garvey's economic vision incorporated capitalism as the tool that would establish African Americans as an independent group. He believed that business was the quickest and most effective way to independence. The Black Star Line served as a prime example of what blacks could accomplish. He also established the Negro Factories Corporation and offered stock for African Americans to buy.
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The Black Star Line for instance was funded by $10,000,000 of investment mainly contributed by ordinary working African-Americans, making it an important symbol. Garvey gave black people hope by talking about Africa’s glorious past telling them to unite, emancipate and improve. Members of the UNIA were given uniforms which developed pride as a physical statement. Garvey believed in and promoted racial purity and a mobilised black nationalism. He refused any white philanthropy. His ‘Africa for Africans’ movement encouraged black Americans to move to Africa, which he regarded as their racial homeland, whilst implying that white people should not live there.
He accepts that the world is broken down into “separate race groups,” with each ethnicity fighting for itself and an exclusive homeland. It is time for “Africa for the Africans.” In Garvey’s vision, this means an African homeland for all people of African blood, even those whose ancestors have lived in the United States or Europe centuries before.
Garvey advocates for unity among all people of African descent, specifically through membership in the UNIA. In this speech, he claims to have four million members, all working hard to convert “the rest of the four hundred million that are all over the world.” Garvey is certain that if African Americans join the UNIA, the organization will establish an independent government in Africa “in another few years.” Garvey assures potentially skeptical listeners that they already have a foothold in Africa. “Pioneers have been sent by this organization to Nigeria, and they are now laying the foundations upon which the four hundred million Negroes of the world will build.” Garvey challenges his listeners to deny that people of African descent are incapable of self-government and an independent society: “you must acknowledge that what other men have done, Negroes can do. We want to build up cities, nations, governments, industries of our own in Africa.” With the “moral and financial support of every Negro,” the UNIA would establish an African homeland with an independent government and economy.
Marcus Garvey's address to the Second UNIA Convention in 1921 was a defining moment for the Pan-African movement. The speech exemplified Garvey's influential philosophy of Black nationalism and pride, which had a lasting impact on African American political thought.
The Life and Times of Marcus Garvey Applied Today
Challenges and Controversies
There were many practical problems attached to the movement. Garvey was not a good business man, he was vicously autocratic and put loyalty ahead of expertise. This meant businesses soon floundered because employees were not experienced in relevant fields of knowledge or work. The Black Star Line endeavour, embarked upon with such high-profile fanfare, ended in disaster as Garvey was conned by vastly overpaying for an old ship, whilst he was also unsuccessful in persuading the Liberian government to provide land for African-Americans to move to. He was also criticised for being hypocritical by contemporaries: for example, despite insisting that his followers think ‘race-first’ in all areas of life, he was ‘exposed’ for having a Jewish tailor. Furthermore, an irredeemable turning point for many was when Garvey met with a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in 1922 to discuss enforcing racial separatism.
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News of Garvey's meeting with the KKK soon spread and it was covered on the front page of many African-American newspapers, causing widespread upset. Several prominent black Americans-Chandler Owen, A. Philip Randolph, Robert Bagnall, William Pickens, and George Frazier Miller-publicly denounced Garvey in a statement titled "An Open Letter to the 400,000 Negroes and to the Friends of Negro Freedom".
Garvey's leadership unravelled as his growing popularity and the success of the movement had made him a target of the federal government, which eventually led to his downfall. J. Edgar Hoover was then working for the Department of Justice and had a vendetta against Garvey sending a black agent to infiltrate the UNIA and build a legal case against him. Eventually he was charged with defrauding one man of $25. For this he was sent to prison for two years. He had served half of his sentence when President Calvin Coolidge commuted the rest of his prison term and had him deported to Jamaica.
Garvey was deported from the United States to Jamaica in 1927 after serving time in prison in both Georgia and New York. Following this Garvey embarked on a number of short-lived and unsuccessful projects. In 1935, he moved to London where he died on 10 June 1940. His body was returned in 1964 to Jamaica, where he was declared a national hero.
The Lasting Legacy of Marcus Garvey
Despite the mixed successes of UNIA projects, and Garvey’s questionable latter alliances, his positive symbolic power for African-Americans was inextinguishable, and he laid the foundations for later black pride and black power movements. Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association was the largest pan-African movement in African American history.
Garveyism had a massive impact in terms of promoting black pride. Garvey gave black people hope by talking about Africa’s glorious past telling them to unite, emancipate and improve. Despite these setbacks, as well as questions about the financial reporting of the UNIA-ACL, Garvey continued to ask for the “moral and financial” support of all people of African descent for the establishment of an independent African homeland.
His "Africa for Africans" movement, while controversial, inspired African Americans to embrace their heritage and strive for self-determination. Though his dream of a mass return to Africa was never realized, Garvey's message of Black pride and unity continues to resonate, influencing subsequent generations of activists and leaders in the fight for racial equality and empowerment.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1887 | Born in St. Anne's Bay, Jamaica |
| 1914 | Founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) |
| 1916 | Moved to the United States and established a UNIA branch in New York City's Harlem district. |
| 1919 | Established the Black Star Line shipping company |
| 1922 | Met with a leader of the Ku Klux Klan |
| 1927 | Deported to Jamaica after serving time in prison |
| 1940 | Died in London |
| 1964 | Declared a national hero in Jamaica |
