Garvey, Marcus

By: Claudrena N. Harold

Source:

 Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century

Garvey, Marcus

Sex:  Male

Born:  St. Anne's Bay, Jamaica
17 August 1887

Died:  London, England, United Kingdom
10 June 1940

Activity/Profession:  Black Nationalist

(b. 17 August 1887; d. 10 June 1940),

Jamaican-born political activist. A charismatic black nationalist whose political activism, impassioned rhetoric, and disciplined pursuit of individual greatness inspired women and men from various parts of the world, Marcus Mosiah Garvey contributed mightily to the black liberation struggle in the years between the end of World War I and the onset of the Great Depression. Suspicious of integrationist solutions to the problem of global white supremacy, Garvey preached a message of race pride, Pan-African unity, and economic self-reliance. “It is of no use for the Negro,” Garvey once asserted, “to continue to depend on the good graces of the other races of the world, because we are living in a selfish, material age, when each and every race is looking out for itself” (Hill, vol. 3, p. 55). To facilitate his people's struggle for independence, Garvey formed the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), created economic cooperatives, organized international conventions, and started a newspaper with a wide readership. Nowhere were his efforts more appreciated than in the United States. Sharing this West Indian's belief in the ability of African-descended people to liberate themselves from the shackles of white supremacy, thousands of black women and men across the nation championed his program with an evangelical fervor rooted in years of political struggle.

Marcus Garvey was a complicated individual blessed with extraordinary talents but also burdened by glaring contradictions. Over the course of his nine-year stay in the United States, Garvey unified women and men from diverse backgrounds, but he also antagonized many activists committed to the African American freedom struggle. Sharp in his criticism of others, Garvey proved unable to engage in critical reflection about his own shortcomings. Much harder to digest for many was his inability to see the ways in which his actions occasionally contradicted his theoretical positions. Consider his stance on interracial alliances: Garvey frequently derided liberal integrationists and black leftists for working with whites, yet he unflinchingly cooperated with white supremacists in seeking government funding for African American emigration to Liberia. Understanding Garvey's contradictions, achievements, and struggles requires an examination of his Jamaican background and his political experiences prior to his arrival in the United States.

Speech by Garvey. Garvey presenting a constitution for Negro rights, c. 1920.

Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

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Early Years and Founding of the UNIA.

Situated on the northern coast of Jamaica, Saint Ann's Bay was the birthplace of Marcus Garvey. Naming her son after his father, Sarah Jane Richards gave birth to Malchus Mosiah Garvey on 17 August 1887. Sarah's only son later changed his name to Marcus, but during his early years his relatives and friends called him “Mosiah.” Young Mosiah matured in a household made up of his eccentric father, his loving mother, and an older sister named Indiana. Feeling as if the world was his to conquer, Garvey excelled as a student at the local Anglican church school and distinguished himself as a leader among his white and black playmates. At the age of fourteen Mosiah began learning the printer's trade from Alfred E. Burrowes, who eventually hired him as a compositor for his printing company in nearby Port Maria.

Seventeen years old when he departed his hometown, Garvey remained in Port Maria for approximately two years before moving to Kingston in 1906. Over the next four years he gained invaluable political experience as vice president of the Kingston Typographical Union, publisher of Garvey's Watchman, and assistant secretary of the National Club. These activities not only deepened Garvey's racial consciousness but fueled his desire to learn more about the world. The budding political activist who now called himself Marcus headed for Latin America in 1910.

Details are rather hazy, but according to many accounts he spent most of his time in Costa Rica, where he worked as a timekeeper on a banana plantation, and Panama. “Eye-opening” best describes his experiences in these countries. “What black people had to brave sickened him,” Garvey's second wife, Amy Jacques, remarked in Garvey and Garveyism. “Daily they had to encounter snakes, swamps and wild tigercats. Mutilated black bodies in the rivers and bushes were common sights” (Garvey, p. 6). A brief return to Jamaica in 1911 was followed by a two-year stay in London, where Garvey enrolled at Birkbeck College, developed a relationship with the noted Pan-Africanist Duse Muhammad Ali, and befriended several West African students.

Increasingly, Garvey envisioned himself as the one who could lead his people toward the path of true liberation. “My doom,” he wrote in 1923, “of being a race leader dawned upon me in London” (Hill, vol. 1, p. 5). Carrying the weight of the world and his race on his shoulders, Garvey returned to Jamaica in 1914. Upon his return, Garvey and his future wife Amy Ashwood organized the Universal Negro Improvement Association with the intention of contributing to the social, political, and economic uplift of blacks in Jamaica and the world over. Their most immediate goal was the creation of an industrial school in Kingston along the lines of Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute. Unsuccessful in his efforts to rally local support, Garvey departed for the United States in 1916 with hopes of raising funds for his proposed school.

Growth of the UNIA.

Two months after his arrival in New York City, Garvey began an extensive tour of black communities in various parts of the country. Nothing impressed him more than African Americans’ entrepreneurial accomplishments in the face of Jim Crow segregation and economic hardships. On the road for nearly a year, Garvey returned to Harlem in May 1917. Transformed by the activists and political questions of the time, he engaged in passionate discussions and debates on World War I's implications for Africa and African-descended peoples. Garvey in his speeches focused less on his previous plans in the educational sphere and more on the creation of an international movement with the economic and political capacity to uplift African-descended peoples the world over.

An indication of his desire to make Harlem his organizational base was Garvey's incorporation of the New York chapter of the UNIA in June 1918. Two months later the organization's official organ, the Negro World, was established. The Negro World achieved tremendous success, with subscribers in the United States, the West Indies, Latin America, and Africa. Less than a year after its incorporation, the New York UNIA claimed an impressive thirty thousand members, but Garvey wanted to extend his influence beyond New York.

Contributing significantly to the UNIA's geographical expansion was its efforts to improve blacks’ economic position through the commercial endeavors of the Black Star Line Steamship Corporation (BSL). Organized to facilitate commercial trade among blacks in the United States, the West Indies, Latin America, and Africa, the BSL was created in the summer of 1919. BSL shares were sold at $5 apiece. Strongly supported by black workers anticipating the postwar recession, the BSL acquired its first ship, SS Yarmouth, on 5 November 1919. Two weeks later the Yarmouth crew embarked on a maiden voyage to the West Indies, where hundreds of UNIA supporters enthusiastically greeted the crew. “We have entered the field of commerce,” Garvey proudly noted, “not to take advantage of any race or people, but to gather our share of the wealth there is in the world, that wealth which should be equally distributed among mankind” (Hill, vol. 2, p. 151). Soon, Garvey announced, the BSL would purchase a ship to sail among the United States, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. It would not only facilitate trade among black producers, consumers, and merchants, but also provide inexpensive transportation to blacks in the West interested in migration to West Africa.

Convinced that the freedom of blacks in the West depended on their connection to an independent African nation-state with the political leverage to protect the rights of African-descended peoples regardless of their nationality, Garvey attempted to form a relationship with Liberia. Late in the spring of 1920, Garvey dispatched Elie Garcia to Monrovia, Liberia. Garcia detailed the organization's Pan-African goals to government officials, asked about the possibility of forming a UNIA colony on unsettled land, and stated the association's willingness to lend financial support to the country. Liberia's secretary of state, Edwin Barclay, informed Garcia of the government's willingness to “afford the Association every facility legally possible in effectuating in Liberia, industry, agriculture, and business projects” (Hill, vol. 2, p. 347). The news delighted Garvey.

So, too, did the organization's progress. Vibrant UNIA chapters were being formed in rural and urban communities across the United States, working women and men were purchasing Black Star Line shares, and the Negro World was being read by blacks all over the world. Nothing demonstrated the movement's growing popularity more than the huge turnout for the UNIA's First Annual International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World, held in New York City in August 1920. Twenty-five thousand black women and men gathered at Madison Square Garden on 2 August to open the convention. An extremely proud Garvey welcomed the convention's delegates and participants, detailed the UNIA's progress over the past two years, and reminded those in attendance of the important work to be done.

Convention delegates remained busy for the entire month, engaging in serious discussions about the conditions of blacks globally, the similarities and differences in their political situations, and the most viable ways to advance the black freedom struggle. Garvey and the delegates also penned the historic Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, as well as elected officers for the UNIA. Not surprising given the spectacular event, delegates returned to their homes even more committed to the UNIA.

Liberia.

Foremost on Garvey's agenda after the close of the convention was strengthening the UNIA's political and economic relationship with Liberia. “The white man,” Garvey informed his followers, “will only respect your rights constitutionally as a citizen of this country, when you have some government behind you. When you can compel a nation to respect your rights because of your connection with some government that is sufficiently strong to support you, then and only then will you be respected.” To realize his goals, Garvey created the Liberian Construction Loan in the fall of 1920. “The purpose of this loan,” Garvey informed prospective contributors, “is to start construction work in Liberia, where colleges, universities, industrial plants, and railroad tracks will be erected; where men will be sent to make roads, and where artisans and craftsmen will be sent to develop industries.” An industrially developed Liberia, Garvey insisted, would “offer great opportunities to all men and women who desire to start off independently to build fortunes for themselves and their families” (Hill, vol. 3, p. 114). Many women and men in the UNIA were interested in leaving the United States for Liberia, but several things stood in their way.

First of all, the UNIA hardly possessed the capital necessary to facilitate the migration of interested parties to Liberia. By 1921 the BSL was in serious financial trouble because of the postwar recession, its ships’ constant mechanical troubles, and administrative incompetence. Second, the UNIA faced serious diplomatic barriers. Garvey's African vision included not only a more economically and politically stable Liberia but a continent loosened from England and France's colonial yoke. Predictably, France and England viewed Garvey's political agenda as antithetical to their imperialistic designs. Unwilling to antagonize these imperial powers, Liberia protected its national interest by gradually disassociating itself from Garvey and his UNIA. There was no way, Liberia's president C. D. B. King declared publicly in 1921, that the country would become the launching pad for a continent-wide rebellion against British and French imperialism. Even so, Garvey continued to place Liberia at the center of his political program, spreading his Pan-African message as he toured various sections of the United States.

Troubles.

Not everyone appreciated his activities. Wanting desperately to remove Garvey from the country, the Justice Department, under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, who was special assistant to the attorney general, sought to build a criminal case for Garvey's deportation. Starting in 1919 the Justice Department planted agents in the New York UNIA and in other major chapters and branches across the country in order to uncover any criminal activity committed by the leader. Eventually the federal government built a case around the promotional practices of the Black Star Line. On 12 January 1922, Garvey, along with two other BSL officials, was arrested on mail-fraud charges for allegedly advertising and selling stock in a nonexistent ship. Garvey vehemently denied cheating his people: “I have no cause to defraud anybody; for the simple reason, thank God, or whosoever gave it to me, I was endowed with strength and ability always to do something for myself, for I can handle a pick or a shovel, or handle a pen, or handle a wheelbarrow. I always feel in such form as to be able to earn a livelihood anywhere, even in a desert” (Hill, vol. 3, p. 369).

Things got progressively worse for Garvey and the UNIA in 1922. Three months after Garvey's arrest, the BSL suspended operations as a result of limited capital and chronic mechanical trouble. Then Garvey found himself subjected to even more criticism after agreeing to meet with the Assistant Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Edward Clarke. This meeting occurred on 22 July 1922 in Atlanta, Georgia. Supposedly moved by one of Garvey's speeches advocating the segregation of the races, Clarke requested a meeting with Garvey as a person who had proudly expressed his opposition to integration and—more important for the white supremacist—to the civil rights establishment. No transcript of their meeting is available, but according to Garvey the two men discussed their organizations’ purposes, their mutual support of racial segregation, and the political benefits of African American emigration to Liberia. Criticism of the meeting emerged from various corners of the black community. Such noted African American leaders as W. E. B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, and A. Philip Randolph, among others, were infuriated by the meeting. Even some leaders within the UNIA frowned upon Garvey's meeting with the KKK, and this resulted in serious debate and conflict at the UNIA's Fourth Annual Convention during August 1922.

The period between the 1922 convention and the next gathering in the summer of 1924 proved stressful for Garvey, who faced criticism from both outside and within the organization. Of principal concern to him during this period was his mail-fraud case. To his detractors’ satisfaction, Garvey's trial commenced in New York's federal court in May 1923. A five-week trial in which Garvey unwisely decided to represent himself ended in his conviction on twelve counts of mail fraud. The only defendant convicted at the trial, on 21 June Garvey was sentenced to five years in prison. Immediately, Garvey and his lawyers petitioned for an appeal, but for three months the courts denied his request for bail. Finally, on 10 September 1923, the Parent Body of the UNIA secured his release on $25,000 bail.

Continued Work.

Still committed to his Pan-African vision, Garvey pushed ahead with the UNIA's political goals. A few days before Christmas, Garvey dispatched Robert Lincoln Poston, Henrietta Vinton Davis, and J. Milton Van Lowe to Liberia, where they negotiated with government officials over the possibility of the acquisition of territory in Maryland County. Simultaneous with these negotiation efforts was an effort to reconstitute the Black Star Line as the Black Cross Navigation and Trading Company (BCNTC). The BCNTC's first ship, Garvey announced in March 1924, would carry “the first organized group of colonists to Liberia.” Other ships would also be purchased to develop “a trade relationship between Negroes of Africa, the United States of America, the West Indies and South and Central America” (Negro World, March 22, 1924).

Five months after Garvey revealed plans for the newly organized line, BCNTC officials purchased General Goethals, rechristened as Booker T. Washington, for $100,000. Enthusiasm gripped those black workers who contributed thousands of dollars toward the line. But once again they were disappointed when the line repeated the mistakes of its predecessor. Failing to attract business, Booker T. Washington was taken out of service in the summer of 1925.

Further complicating matters for the movement, the Parent Body's African plans crumbled after Liberian State Department's 1924 decision to refuse entry to anyone associated with the UNIA. A team of UNIA technicians and representatives arriving in Liberia on 14 June with plans to prepare the projected UNIA settlement were seized, detained, and then deported. Never willing to concede defeat, Garvey vowed to take the necessary steps to improve the Liberia situation, but when on 3 February 1925 the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his original conviction for mail fraud, Garvey found himself struggling to maintain not only his African dream but his control over the organization.

Garvey in Custody. Garvey in the custody of U.S. marshals en route to a federal prison in Atlanta, 1925.

Marcus Garvey Papers Project, University of California, Los Angeles

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Deportation.

Taken into custody at New York City's 125th Street train station on 5 February, Garvey was transported to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. Staying connected to his followers, Garvey continued to write his editorials in the Negro World, commenting on various political, social, and cultural developments in black America. Strongly devoted to their leader, Garveyites flooded the offices of politicians, the U.S. attorney general, the pardon attorney, and the president of the United States with petitions and requests for the release of their beloved leader. To their satisfaction, President Calvin Coolidge commuted Garvey's sentence in November 1927. Included in the pardon was an order for Garvey's immediate deportation.

Turning down Garvey's request for a brief respite in New York, the Immigration Office immediately dispatched Garvey to New Orleans for deportation. On the rainy morning of 2 December 1927, more than five hundred UNIA followers gathered at the Algiers dock to bid farewell to the man who had captured their hearts and imagination. To many of his enemies Garvey was a racist demagogue who profited from the emotions and ignorance of his people, but for many women and men suffering under the most brutal forms of racial capitalism, Garvey was a divinely chosen leader whose racial program blazed a new path toward political freedom and self-consciousness.

Not all but most UNIA chapters in the United States remained active after Garvey's deportation to Jamaica. Supporters stayed abreast of his activities in Jamaica and then London through careful reading of the Negro World and of Garvey's second paper, the Blackman. Even though Garvey enjoyed his greatest popularity during the 1920s, his impact on black Americans was felt even after his death in 1940. The charismatic nationalist's influence surfaced in the organizational structure of Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam, in the political rhetoric of Malcolm X, and in the Pan-African politics of several activists of the Black Power era. Even in the twenty-first century he inspires many black women and men, young and old, who still carry and hold on to his dream of a world in which the children of Africa will enjoy their place in the sun.

[See also Black Nationalism; Liberia; Pan-Africanism; Universal Negro Improvement Association; and biographical entries on figures mentioned in this article.]

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