Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Marcus Garvey

 
Who2 Biography: Marcus Garvey, Political Leader
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Who2 Biographies
Marcus Garvey
Source

  • Born: 17 August 1887
  • Birthplace: St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica
  • Died: 10 June 1940 (cerebral hemorrhage)
  • Best Known As: Founder of the "back to Africa" movement

Through his public speeches and his newspaper Negro World, Marcus Garvey became one of the most influential black leaders of the early 20th century. Born and raised in Jamaica, Garvey travelled in Central and South America, then moved to England to continue his education. In 1914 he started the Universal Negro Improvement Association and began speaking out publicly in favor of worldwide black unity and an end to colonialism. He moved to the United States in 1916 and helped start a steamship company, the Black Star Line. It was both a business venture and a part of his "back to Africa" plan for Americans of African descent -- the notion that African-Americans should return to Africa and set up their own new country there. Garvey was always a controversial figure: he favored fiery rhetoric and elaborate uniforms, and was considered a dangerous character by some established politicians. Garvey was jailed in 1925 after being convicted of mail fraud (related to the sale of stock in the Black Star line), but his sentence was reduced and he was deported to Jamaica two years later. Garvey eventually moved back to London, England, where he died in 1940. His body was returned to Jamaica in 1964.

The name of the Black Star Line was a riff on the White Star Line, the famous British shipping company whose most famous vessel was the Titanic.

Search unanswered questions...

Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics

African American Literature: Marcus Garvey
Top
Home > Library > Literature & Language > African American Literature

Garvey, Marcus (1887–1940), social activist and journalist. As a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Marcus Garvey was in the vanguard of the new awakening among African Americans. Although his philosophy was at odds with other leading figures of the era, such as W. E. B. Du Bois, his influence could not be abated. Promoting his ideals in the art of oratory and through his newspapers, first Negro World and later the Blackman, Garvey has influenced almost every generation of African American writers since.

Images depicting the destructive element in racial prejudice, one of the cornerstones of Garvey's ideology, were initially seen when major fiction writers of the Harlem Renaissance, such as Nella Larsen, grappled with the infirmities of ““color”” prejudice. In Larsen's so-called passing novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929), mulattoes move into the white world to escape personal oppression and limited opportunity. As is typical in Garveyism, this social mobility leads to selfhate and racial ambivalence.

Richard Wright and his school of fiction writers was the next group to depict the struggle of African Americans against social and political forces. Richard Wright's Bigger Thomas in Native Son (1940), for example, is an ““Everyman”” motif for social, political, and cultural disenfranchisement of African Americans. Bigger acquires self-pride and faces his troubles through the aid of two white males, both unlikely cohorts, and becomes the folk hero often created through the use of Garveyism.

The next generation of writers displaying Garveyism might be termed the precursors of the Black Arts Movement. Extending James Baldwin's protest themes in Nobody Knows My Name (1960) and The Fire Next Time (1963), the aggressive poets of the sixties, such as Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), decry the destructive environment of the northern ghetto and portray Garvey's contempt for such dehumanizing existence. Beyond the 1960s, an aesthetic perspective that embraces the racial loyalty and pride found in Garveyism is seen in works such as Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye (1970). Thus, the influence of the Garvey social and political movement continues.

Bibliography

  • Tony Martin, Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts and the Harlem Renaissance, 1983.
  • James de Jongh, Vicious Modernism: Black Harlem and the Literary Imagination, 1990

Patricia Robinson Williams

Biography: Marcus Mosiah Garvey
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Biographies

Marcus Mosiah Garvey (1887-1940), a black man from the West Indies, was the first to forcefully articulate the concept of African nationalism - of black people returning to Africa, the continent of their forefathers, to build a great nation of their own.

Marcus Garvey was born in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, on Aug. 17, 1887. He went to elementary school there and at the age of 14 became an apprentice in the printing trade. In 1903 he went to the capital, Kingston, to work as a printer. He soon became involved in public activities and helped form the Printers Union, the first trade union in Jamaica. He subsequently published a periodical called the Watchman.

In 1910 began a series of travels that transformed Garvey from an average person concerned about the problems of the underprivileged to an African nationalist determined to lift an entire race from bondage and debasement. He visited Costa Rica, Panama, and Ecuador. After briefly returning home, he proceeded to England, where contacts with African nationalists stimulated in him a keen interest in Africa and in black history. In each country he visited, he noted that the black man was in an inferior position, subject to the whim, caprice, and fancy of stronger races. His reading of Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery at this time also had great effect upon him.

On his return in 1914 from England, where he had done further study, Garvey formed the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the African Communities League. These organizations were intended "to work for the general uplift of the Negro peoples of the world."

In 1916 Garvey went to the United States to raise funds to carry on the work of his Jamaican organizations. He was immediately caught up in the agitation of the times, and his voice thundered in the evenings on the streets of Harlem in New York City. A New York branch of the UNIA was established, soon followed by branches in other cities in the United States, in Central and South America, and in the Caribbean. The expansion of the UNIA was fostered by its official organ Negro World, a newspaper published in English, Spanish, and French. Published in New York City from 1918 to 1933, it was succeeded by the monthly Black Man, which ran through the 1930s, published after 1934 in London.

The Negro World reached out to black communities all over the world. It even penetrated into the interior of Africa, although it had been banned there by the white rulers. Garvey stressed the need for blacks to return to Africa for the building of a great nation, but he realized that until this was accomplished Africans needed to make themselves economically independent wherever they were. He encouraged blacks to start their own businesses, taking the commerce of their ghettos into their own hands.

Together with the American clergyman Archbishop George A. McGuire, Garvey formed the African Orthodox Church. This was in accordance with one of his basic principles, for he believed that each race must see God through its own racial spectacles. The Black Christ and the Black Madonna were proclaimed at the UNIA convention of 1924.

The Black Star Line shipping company and the Negro Factories Corporation were to be the commercial arms of the Garvey movement. It was the failure of the shipping venture that gave Garvey's enemies their chance to destroy him. Investments in the line were lost, and Garvey was imprisoned in 1925 in the United States. After serving 2 years 10 months of a 5-year sentence, he was deported to Jamaica. Previously, his plans for colonization in Liberia had been sabotaged by the colonial powers who brought pressure to bear on the Liberian government. As a result, the land which had been granted to the Garvey organization for the settlement of overseas Africans was given to the white American industrialist Harvey Firestone, and the expensive equipment shipped to Liberia for the use of Garvey's colonists was seized.

In Jamaica, Garvey attempted to enter local politics, but the restricted franchise of the time did not allow the vote to the black masses. He went to England and continued his work of social protest and his call for the liberation of Africa. He died in London on June 10, 1940.

Marcus Garvey was married twice. His second wife, Amy Jacques, whom he married in 1922, bore him two sons.

The Garvey movement was the greatest international movement of African peoples in modern times. At its peak, in 1922-1924, the movement counted over 8 million followers. The youngest cadres were taken in at 5 years of age and, as they grew older, they graduated to the sections for older children.

Garvey emphasized the belief in the One God, the God of Africa, who should be visualized through black eyes. He told black people to become familiar with their ancient history and their rich cultural heritage. He called for pride in the black race - for example, he made black dolls for black children. His was the first voice clearly to demand black power. It was he who said, "A race without authority and power is a race without respect."

In emphasizing the need to have separate black institutions under black leadership, Garvey anticipated the mood and thinking of the future black nationalists by nearly 50 years. He died, as he lived, an unbending apostle of African nationalism. The symbols which he made famous, the black star of Africa and the red, black, and green flag of African liberation, continued to inspire younger generations of African nationalists.

Further Reading

For Garvey's views the definitive work is edited by his widow, Amy Jacques Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (2 vols., 1923-1925). Her Garvey and Garveyism (1963) is a biography. E. David Cronon, Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (1955), is a well-documented work which, however, fails to assess accurately Garvey's impact. A biographical sketch of Garvey is in Wilhelmena S. Robinson, Historical Negro Biographies (1967). See also E. Franklin Frazier, "The Garvey Movement" in August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, eds., The Making of Black America: Essays in Negro Life and History (1969), and C. L. R. James, A History of Pan-African Revolt (1969).

Black Biography: Marcus Garvey
Top
Home > Library > History, Politics & Society > Black Biographies

activist

Personal Information

Born Marcus Moziah Garvey, August 17, 1887; died from complications of a stroke, June, 1940; son of Sarah Jane Richards and Marcus Garvey, Sr.; married Amy Ashwood (playwright and lecturer), December, 1919 (divorced, 1921); married Amy Jaques (editor), July, 1922.

Life's Work

Marcus Garvey was one of the twentieth century's most influential leaders of black nationalism. In establishing the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Garvey hoped to build--through enterprise and mass education--a unified nation of people of African blood. A powerful orator, organizer, and writer, Garvey recruited nearly one million UNIA members worldwide. In 1919 he charted the Black Star Shipping Line (B.S.L.), which promoted black cross-continental trade. Under his red, black, and green banner of Pan-Africanism--a commitment to the solidarity of all black peoples--Garvey encouraged the worship of a black deity and the study of black history. Devoted to the separation of the black and white races, a position that he believed was vital to racial prosperity and cultural development, Garvey warned black workers to avoid the possible manipulation of white trade unions and Communist organizations. Although his success was short-lived, Garvey continues to symbolize racial pride and destiny for blacks around the world.

Born in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, in August of 1887, Garvey was the youngest of 11 children. A bright student, he acquired a passion for books at an early age. Family financial problems led to his apprenticeship in the printing trade, where he developed journalist skills. In 1907, participation in a failed printer's strike influenced Garvey to enter politics. Roughly four years later he joined the mass migration of Jamaicans seeking employment in Central and South America. In Costa Rica he contributed to publications that presented the oppressive conditions of black workers. While abroad, Garvey's futile attempts to gain British colonial protection for West Indians promoted his growing racial awareness.

Returning to Jamaica in 1912, Garvey realized that the island offered little opportunity for a young black politician. Traveling to London that same year, he met with black laborers, intellectuals, and businessmen whose descriptions of the injustices suffered under European colonial rule contributed to his gradual path toward racial militancy. The most influential of these acquaintances was a Sudanese-Egyptian actor, journalist, and nationalist named Duse Mohammed Ali. Working for Ali's publication African Times and Oriental Review exposed Garvey to the role of African business and the triumphs of Africa's ancestral past. While in London he read Booker T. Washington's autobiography Up From Slavery. The book's vivid account of racial conditions in America inspired the young Jamaican to become a "race leader."

On the voyage back to his homeland in 1914, Garvey conceived of the plan to create the UNIA and its coordinating body, the African Communities League. On August l, with the assistance of a few colleagues, he officially launched his organization. Adopting the motto "One God! One Aim! One Destiny!," the UNIA offered opportunity to all blacks. The organization's plan of African redemption centered upon the establishment of black educational institutions. Following Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee model, Garvey sought to build Jamaican trade schools that would provide missionaries for "Mother Africa." Black middle-class Jamaicans, however, remained indifferent to his vision. In need of funds and support, Garvey wrote to Washington, who in turn invited him to come to America. Tragically, Washington died in 1915, before the two could meet.

The following year Garvey arrived--at the age of 28--in New York City. Penniless and unknown, he struggled to raise support for his Jamaican educational program. At first, residents of New York City's Harlem were unresponsive to his speeches. Garvey became aware that to gain black support in the U.S. he would have to alter his Jamaican strategy; while his previous orientation had been strictly reformist, Garvey's outlook in America became increasingly revolutionary. He endorsed a broad economic plan for private business and industry. By the end of World War I in 1918, black migration, racial violence, and continuing segregation had provided a climate that vastly benefitted the expansion of Garveyism. The UNIA's economic strategy and publication, Negro World, attracted thousands of new proponents. Rapid success encouraged Garvey to move his base of operations from Jamaica to New York.

On August l, 1920, the first UNIA convention opened with a parade that stretched for miles along Lenox avenue in Harlem. That evening, before a crowd of 25,000 in Madison Square Garden, Garvey boldly announced his plan to build an African nation-state. Sympathizing with the plight of Irish Home Rule and Jewish Zionism advocates, he called upon blacks to seek their own "place in the sun." The highlight of the week-long convention was the adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World. Containing a bill of rights, the document proclaimed the equality of the black race and included resolutions for the creation of independent legal and educational systems.

Around the time of the convention, Garvey organized several business enterprises. These included the Negro Factories Corporation, a restaurant, a millinery, a publishing house, and a chain of cooperative grocery stores. But most importantly, he attempted to create a maritime fleet that he hoped would give blacks political power and bring them to the forefront of worldwide trade. Selling shares of five-dollar stock through the mail enabled him to acquire enough capital to purchase three ships for the Black Star Shipping Line. The shipping company contributed to Garvey's growing prominence as an international champion of Pan-Africanism. Consequently, he introduced a plan to transfer his organization's headquarters to Monrovia, Liberia.

Despite his emerging popularity, Garvey received widespread opposition among both black and white political, labor, and religious organizations. During the postwar era, a growing fear of Socialist and Communist conspiracies led many to view Garvey's movement as a harbinger of radical black power. In 1919 Garvey was summoned by the U.S. State Department regarding the legality of the B.S.L. operation. Although the investigation failed to produce any evidence against Garvey, the State Department pursued a plan for his eventual deportation.

Harshest resistance arose among black leaders, including Socialist Labor Party spokesman A. Philip Randolph and the African Blood Brotherhood's Cyril V. Briggs. After 1920 Garvey suffered continual attacks from the Negro publications Chicago Defender and Crisis, the journal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). W.E.B. DuBois, cofounder of the NAACP, was one of the leading adherents to the mounting "Garvey Must Go" campaign. Although he was a black nationalist and Pan-Africanist, DuBois rejected Garvey's segregationist and economic policies. As a result, the two became embroiled in bitter dispute over black progress and African liberation.

In the years following the first UNIA convention, the organization began to decline. After a trip to Central America in 1921 Garvey was denied a visa by the State Department, thereby delaying his reentry into the United States for several months. A year later, federal officials convicted Garvey of mail fraud. Released on bail, he tried to rescue the failing B.S.L. from collapse. Due to the poor condition and exorbitant operating costs of the company's vessels, however, the B.S.L. was forced into insolvency. During the same year, Garvey's meeting with the acting Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) greatly contributed to his faltering status. His statements that the UNIA and the KKK shared a similar policy of racial separation spread outrage throughout the black community. Garvey's demand for a unified African Orthodox church left him almost entirely alienated from conventional black religious denominations.

In 1923 the murder of former UNIA member Reverend James Eason generated further controversy. Eason's death motivated eight of Garvey's enemies to send an incriminating letter to Attorney General Harry Dougherty. The correspondence hastened the State Department's decision to bring Garvey to trial. With Garvey acting as his own defense, the hearing became a forum for his racial beliefs. Unable to adequately defend against the charge of mail fraud, he was incarcerated; six months later he was released on $25,000 bail. In 1924 he attempted to establish a second commercial fleet--the Black Cross Navigation and Trading Company--but facing a shortage of funds, the business soon folded. UNIA efforts to found an independent Liberian republic also proved unsuccessful. In 1925, despite an appeal to the Supreme Court, Garvey was sent to the Atlanta penitentiary. After serving two years, federal authorities ordered his release and immediate deportation.

Upon his return to Jamaica in 1927 Garvey entered local politics. Struggling to form the People's Political Party, he developed a program of national economic, agricultural, labor, and political reform. Although the UNIA's 1929 convention in Kingston, Jamaica, recaptured some of the splendor and enthusiasm of its earlier Harlem era, the organization never again amassed a substantial membership. Under a new charter, Garvey returned the UNIA headquarters to Jamaica, causing widespread fragmentation and desertion among branches in the United States. In 1935, confronted with ensuing political defeat and financial problems, Garvey took up permanent residence in London. But in England his racial program and political aspirations were met with indifference. From 1936 to 1938 Garvey attended conventions in Toronto, Canada, where he set up the School of African Philosophy. After a long period of failing health, he suffered a stroke in 1940 that led to his death in June of that year.

Despite limited success in his lifetime, Garvey has become an international symbol of black freedom. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., called him "the first man, on a mass scale to give millions of Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny." During its heyday the UNIA claimed as members Black Muslim leader Elijah Mohammed and the father of Malcolm X. In 1964 the Jamaican government proclaimed Garvey a national hero. His legacy served as an integral force in the "Black is Beautiful" consciousness of the 1960's. More recently, Garvey has become an inspirational figure within the Jamaican Rastafarian religious movement. Indebted to the perseverance and dedication of Garvey's Pan-African struggle, Malcolm X wrote, "Each time you see another independent nation on the African continent you know Marcus Garvey is alive."

Further Reading

Books

  • Black Leaders of the Twentieth Century, edited by John Hope Franklin and August Meir, University of Illinois Press, 1982.
  • Clarke, John Henry, with Amy Jaques Garvey, Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa, Random House, 1974.
  • Cronon, Edmund David, Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Improvement Association, foreword by John Hope Franklin, University of Wisconsin Press, 1955.
  • Garvey, Amy Jaques, Garvey and Garveyism, United Printers Ltd., 1963.
  • The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, edited by Robert Hill, University of California Press, 1983.
  • Irvin, Jeannette Smith, Marcus Garvey's Footsoldiers, African World Press, Inc., 1988.
  • Lewis, Rupert, Marcus Garvey: Anti-Colonial Champion, African World Press, Inc., 1988.
  • Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey; or, Africa for Africans, compiled by Amy Jaques Garvey, second edition, Frank Case and Co., Ltd., 1967.
  • Stein, Judith, The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society, Louisiana State University Press, 1986.
  • Vincent, Theodore G., Black Power and the Garvey Movement, Ramparts, 1971.
Periodicals
  • Crisis, May 1924.
  • Ebony, November 1926.
  • Journal of Negro History, January 1951.
  • Journal of Southern History, May 1988.
  • New York Times, February 1922.
  • Time, August 1924.
  • --John Cohassey

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Marcus Moziah Garvey
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Britannica Concise Encyclopedia

Marcus Garvey, 1922.
(click to enlarge)
Marcus Garvey, 1922. (credit: UPI)
(born Aug. 17, 1887, St. Ann's Bay, Jam. — died June 10, 1940, London, Eng.) Jamaican-born U.S. black-nationalist leader. In 1914 he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association; after moving to the U.S. in 1916, he established branches in New York's Harlem and other black neighbourhoods in the North. By 1919 the rising "Black Moses" claimed a following of about two million, to whom he spoke of a "new Negro," proud of being black. His newspaper, Negro World (1919 – 33), advocated an independent black economy within the framework of white capitalism, and he established black-run businesses, including the Black Star shipping line. In 1920 he convened an international convention to unify blacks and encourage trade between Africa and the U.S. His influence declined rapidly when he was indicted in 1922 for mail fraud. After he had served two years in prison, his sentence was commuted and he was deported (1927). His movement, the first important black-nationalist movement in the U.S., soon died out.

For more information on Marcus Moziah Garvey, visit Britannica.com.

US History Companion: Garvey, Marcus
Top
Home > Library > History, Politics & Society > American History Companion

(1887-1940), black nationalist leader. Born in Jamaica, Garvey aimed to organize blacks everywhere but achieved his greatest impact in the United States, where he tapped into and enhanced the growing black aspirations for justice, wealth, and a sense of community. During World War I and the 1920s, his Universal Negro Improvement Association (unia) was the largest black secular organization in African-American history. Possibly a million men and women from the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa belonged to it.

Garvey came to New York in 1916 and concluded that the growing black communities in northern cities could provide the wealth and unity to end both imperialism in Africa and discrimination in the United States. He combined the economic nationalist ideas of Booker T. Washington and Pan-Africanists with the political possibilities and urban style of men and women living outside of plantation and colonial societies. Garvey's ideas gestated amid the social upheavals, anticolonial movements, and revolutions of World War I, which demonstrated the power of popular mobilization to change entrenched structures of power.

Garvey's goals were modern and urban. He sought to end imperialist rule and create modern societies in Africa, not, as his critics charged, to transport blacks "back to Africa." He knitted black communities on three continents with his newspaper the Negro World and in 1919 formed the Black Star Line, an international shipping company to provide transportation and encourage trade among the black businesses of Africa and the Americas. In the same year, he founded the Negro Factories Corporation to establish such businesses. In 1920 he presided over the first of several international conventions of the unia. Garvey sought to channel the new black militancy into one organization that could overcome class and national divisions.

Although local unia chapters provided many social and economic benefits for their members, Garvey's main efforts failed: the Black Star Line suspended operations in 1922 and the other enterprises fared no better. Garvey's ambition and determination to lead inevitably collided with associates and black leaders in other organizations. His verbal talent and flair for the dramatic attracted thousands, but his faltering projects only augmented ideological and personality conflicts. In the end, he could neither unite blacks nor accumulate enough power to significantly alter the societies the unia functioned in.

Finally, the Justice Department, animated by J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Investigation and sensing his growing weakness, indicted Garvey for mail fraud. He was convicted in 1923, imprisoned in 1925, and deported to Jamaica in 1927. Unable to resurrect the unia, he moved to London, where he died in 1940.

Garvey's movement was the first black attempt to join modern urban goals and mass organization. Although most subsequent leaders did not try to create black economic institutions as he had, Garvey had demonstrated to them that the urban masses were a potentially powerful force in the struggle for black freedom.

Bibliography:

Robert Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, 10 vols. projected (1983-); Judith Stein, The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society (1986).

Author:

Judith Stein

See also Africa-U.S. Relations; Black Nationalism; Black Power; Expatriates and Exiles; Washington, Booker T.


 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Marcus Garvey
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Columbia Encyclopedia - People
Garvey, Marcus, 1887-1940, American proponent of black nationalism, b. Jamaica. At the age of 14, Garvey went to work as a printer's apprentice. After leading (1907) an unsuccessful printers' strike in Jamaica, he edited several newspapers in Costa Rica and Panama. During a period in London he took law classes and became interested in African history and black nationalism. His concern for the problems of blacks led him to found (1914) the Universal Negro Improvement Association and in 1916 he moved to New York City and opened a branch in Harlem. The UNIA was an organization designed "to promote the spirit of race pride." Broadly, its goals were to foster worldwide unity among all blacks and to establish the greatness of the African heritage. The organization quickly spread in black communities throughout the United States, the Caribbean, and Central America, and soon had thousands of members.

Garvey addressed himself to the lowest classes of blacks and rejected any notion of integration. Convinced that blacks could not secure their rights in countries where they were a minority race, he urged a "back to Africa" movement. In Africa, he said, an autonomous black state could be established, possessing its own culture and civilization, free from the domination of whites. Garvey was the most influential black leader of the early 1920s. His brilliant oratory and his newspaper, Negro World, brought him millions of followers. His importance declined, however, when his misuse of funds intended to establish a steamship company that would serve members of the African diaspora, the Black Star Line, resulted in a mail fraud conviction. He entered jail in 1925 and was deported to Jamaica two years later. From this time on his influence decreased, and he died in relative obscurity.

Bibliography

See Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, compiled by A. J. Garvey (2d ed. 1967, repr. 1986); biographies by E. D. Cronon (1955, repr. 1969) and C. Grant (2008); studies by A. J. Garvey (1963), T. Vincent (1971), E. C. Fax (1972), E. D. Cronon, ed. (1973), J. H. Clarke, ed. (1974), and J. Stein (1985).

History Dictionary: Garvey, Marcus
Top
Home > Library > History, Politics & Society > History Dictionary

Jamaican-born black nationalist who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in the 1920s to encourage self-help among blacks. Opposed to colonialism, Garvey advocated black separatism and nationalism. The Black Star shipping line, which facilitated emigration of American blacks to Africa, was among his projects. He was eventually jailed for mail fraud and deported to Jamaica by the U.S. government, which feared his influence in the black community. (See also W. E. B. DuBois.)

Quotes By: Marcus Garvey
Top
Home > Library > Literature & Language > Quotes By

Quotes:

"If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started."

Wikipedia: Marcus Garvey
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr.

Garvey in 1924,
Born 17 August 1887(1887-08-17)
St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica
Died 10 June 1940 (aged 52)
London, England
Occupation Publisher, Journalist
Known for Activism, National Hero of Jamaica
Religious beliefs African Orthodox
Parents Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Sr.
Sarah Jane Richards
African-American topics
 
African-American history
Atlantic slave trade · Maafa
Slavery in the United States
African-American military history
Jim Crow laws · Redlining
Civil Rights Movements 1896–1954 and
1955–1968
Afrocentrism · Reparations
African-American culture
African American studies
Neighborhoods · Juneteenth
Kwanzaa · Art · Museums
Dance · Literature · Music · Schools · Historic colleges and universities
Religion
Black church · Black theology
Black liberation theology
Doctrine of Father Divine
Black Hebrew Israelites
American Society of Muslims
Nation of Islam · Rastafari
Political movements
Pan-Africanism · Black Power
Nationalism · Capitalism
Conservatism · Populism
Leftism · Black Panther Party
Garveyism
Civic and economic groups
NAACP · SCLC · CORE · SNCC · NUL
Rights groups · ASALH · UNCF
NBCC · NPHC · The Links · NCNW
Sports
Negro league baseball
CIAA · SIAC · MEAC · SWAC
Ethnic sub-divisions
Black Indians · Gullah · Igbo
Languages
English · Gullah · Creole
African American Vernacular
Diaspora
Liberia · Nova Scotia · France
Sierra Leone
Lists
African Americans
National firsts · State firsts
Landmark legislation
Black diaspora
Index
Category · Portal
This box: view • talk • edit

Rastafari movement
Flag of Ethiopia (1897).svg
Main doctrines
Jah · Afrocentrism · Ital · Zion · Cannabis use
Central figures

Queen of Sheba · King Solomon · Haile Selassie · Marcus Garvey · Leonard Howell · God
Key scriptures
Bible · Kebra Nagast · The Promise Key · Holy Piby · My Life and Ethiopia's Progress · Royal Parchment Scroll of Black Supremacy
Branches and festivals
Mansions · United States · Shashamane · Grounation Day
Notable individuals
Bob Marley · Peter Tosh · Walter Rodney · Mutabaruka · Benjamin Zephaniah
See also:
Vocabulary · Persecution · Dreadlocks · Reggae · Ethiopian Christianity · Index of Rastafari articles
This box: view • talk • edit

Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH (17 August 1887 – 10 June 1940[1]), was a publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, Black Nationalist, Pan-Africanist, and orator. Marcus Garvey was founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL).[2]

Prior to the twentieth century, leaders such as Prince Hall, Martin Delany, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Henry Highland Garnet advocated the involvement of the African diaspora in African affairs. Garvey was unique in advancing a Pan-African philosophy to inspire a global mass movement focusing on Africa known as Garveyism.[2] Promoted by the UNIA as a movement of African Redemption, Garveyism would eventually inspire others, ranging from the Nation of Islam, to the Rastafari movement (which proclaims Garvey as a prophet). The intention of the movement was for those of African ancestry to "redeem" Africa and for the European colonial powers to leave it. His essential ideas about Africa were stated in an editorial in the Negro World titled “African Fundamentalism” where he wrote:

“ Our union must know no clime, boundary, or nationality… let us hold together under all climes and in every country…[3] ”

Contents

Early years

Garvey was born in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, on 17 August 1887, to Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Sr., a mason, and Sarah Jane Richards, a domestic worker and farmer. Of eleven siblings, only Marcus and his sister Indiana reached maturity.[4] Garvey's father was known to have a large library, and it was from his father that Marcus gained his love for reading.[2][5] Sometime in the year 1900, Garvey entered into an apprenticeship with his uncle, Alfred Burrowes. Like Garvey Sr., Burrowes had an extensive library, of which young Garvey made good use.[6][7] When he was about fourteen, Garvey left St. Ann's Bay for Kingston, where he found employment as a compositor in the printing house of P. A. Benjamin, Limited. He was a master printer and foreman at Benjamin when, in November 1907, he was elected vice-president of the Kingston Union. However, he was fired when he joined a strike by printers in late 1908. Having been blacklisted for his stance in the strike, he later found work at the Government Printing Office. In 1909, his newspaper The Watchman began publication, but it only lasted for three issues.

In 1910 Garvey left Jamaica and began traveling throughout the Central American region. He lived in Costa Rica for several months, where he worked as a time-keeper on a banana plantation. He began work as editor for a daily newspaper titled La Nacionale in 1911. Later that year, he moved to Colón, Panama, where he edited a biweekly newspaper before returning to Jamaica in 1912.

After years of working on the Caribbean, Garvey left Jamaica to live in London from 1912 to 1914, where he attended Birkbeck College, worked for the African Times and Orient Review, published by Dusé Mohamed Ali, and sometimes spoke at Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner.

Founding and Projects of the UNIA-ACL

During his travels, Garvey became convinced that uniting Blacks was the only way to improve their condition. Towards that end, he departed England on 14 June 1914 aboard the S.S. Trent, reaching Jamaica on 15 July 1914. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in August 1914 as a means of uniting all of Africa and its diaspora into "one grand racial hierarchy." Amy Ashwood, who would later be Garvey's first wife, was among the founders. As the group's first President-General, Garvey's goal was "to unite all people of African ancestry of the world to one great body to establish a country and absolute government of their own."[8]

Following much reflection the following day and night about what he learned, he named the organization the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities (Imperial) League."[9]

After corresponding with Booker T. Washington, Garvey arrived in the U.S. on 23 March 1916 aboard the S.S. Tallac to give a lecture tour and to raise funds to establish a school in Jamaica modeled after Washington's Tuskegee Institute. Garvey visited Tuskegee, and afterward, visited with a number of Black leaders. After moving to New York, he found work as a printer by day. He was influenced by Hubert Harrison. At night he would speak on street corners, much like he did in London's Hyde Park. It was then that Garvey perceived a leadership vacuum among people of African ancestry. On 9 May 1916, he held his first public lecture in New York City at St Mark's Church in-the-Bowery and undertook a 38-state speaking tour.

In May 1917, Garvey and thirteen others formed the first UNIA division outside Jamaica and began advancing ideas to promote social, political, and economic freedom for Blacks. On 2 July, the East St. Louis riots broke out. On July 8, Garvey delivered an address, titled "The Conspiracy of the East St. Louis Riots," at Lafayette Hall in Harlem. During the speech, he declared the riot was "one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind." By October, rancor within the UNIA had begun to set in. A split occurred in the Harlem division, with Garvey enlisted to become its leader; although he technically held the same position in Jamaica.

Garvey next set about the business of developing a program to improve the conditions of those of African ancestry "at home and abroad" under UNIA auspices. On 17 August 1918, publication of the widely distributed Negro World newspaper began. Garvey worked as an editor without pay until November 1920. By June 1919 the membership of the organization had grown to over two million.

On 27 June 1919, the Black Star Line of Delaware, was incorporated by the members of the UNIA with Garvey as President. By September, it obtained its first ship. Much fanfare surrounded the inspection of the S.S. Yarmouth and its rechristening as the S.S. Frederick Douglass on 14 September 1919. Such a rapid accomplishment garnered attention from many.

One person who noticed was Edwin P. Kilroe, Assistant District Attorney in the District Attorney's office of the County of New York. Kilroe began an investigation into the activities of the UNIA, without finding any evidence of wrongdoing or mismanagement. After being called to Kilroe's office numerous times, Garvey wrote an editorial on Kilroe's activities for the Negro World. Garvey was arrested and indicted for criminal libel in relation to the article, but charges were dismissed after Garvey published a retraction.

While in his Harlem office at 56 West 156th Street on 14 October 1919, Garvey received a visit from George Tyler, who told him that Kilroe "had sent him" to get Garvey. Tyler then pulled a .38-caliber revolver and fired four shots, wounding Garvey in the right leg and scalp. Garvey was taken to the hospital and Tyler arrested. The next day, it was let out that Tyler had committed suicide by leaping from the third tier of the Harlem jail as he was being taken to his arraignment.

By August 1920, the UNIA claimed four million members. That month, the International Convention of the UNIA was held. With delegates from all over the world in attendance, over 25,000 people filled Madison Square Garden on 1 August to hear Garvey speak.

Another of Garvey's ventures was the Negro Factories Corporation. His plan called for creating the infrastructure to manufacture every marketable commodity in every big U.S. industrial center, as well as in Central America, the West Indies, and Africa. Related endeavors included a grocery chain, restaurant, publishing house, and other businesses.
"Explanation of the Objects of the Universal Negro Improvement Association"
Complete 1921 speech
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Convinced that Blacks should have a permanent homeland in Africa, Garvey sought to develop Liberia.

The Liberia program, launched in 1920, was intended to build colleges, universities, industrial plants, and railroads as part of an industrial base from which to operate. However, it was abandoned in the mid-1920s after much opposition from European powers with interests in Liberia. In response to suggestions that he wanted to take all Americans of African ancestry back to Africa, he wrote, "We do not want all the Negroes in Africa. Some are no good here, and naturally will be no good there."[10]

Garvey has been credited with creating the biggest movement of people of African descent. This movement that took place in the 1920s is said to have had more participation from people of African descent than the Civil Rights Movement. In essence the UNIA was the largest Pan-African movement.

Charge of mail fraud

In a memorandum dated 11 October 1919[11], J. Edgar Hoover, special assistant to the Attorney General, and head of the General Intelligence Division (or "anti-radical division") [12] of The Bureau of Investigation or BOI (after 1935, the Federal Bureau of Investigation),[13] wrote a memorandum to Special Agent Ridgely regarding Marcus Garvey. In the memo, Hoover wrote that:

“ Unfortunately, however, he [Garvey] has not as yet violated any federal law whereby he could be proceeded against on the grounds of being an undesirable alien, from the point of view of deportation.[14][15] ”

Sometime around November 1919 an investigation by the BOI was begun into the activities of Garvey and the UNIA. Toward this end, the BOI hired James Edward Amos, Arthur Lowell Brent, Thomas Leon Jefferson, James Wormley Jones, and Earl E. Titus as its first five African-American agents. Although initial efforts by the BOI were to find grounds upon which to deport Garvey as "an undesirable alien", a charge of mail fraud was brought against Garvey in connection with stock sales of the Black Star Line after the U.S. Post Office and the Attorney General joined the investigation.[15]

The accusation centered on the fact that the corporation had not yet purchased a ship with the name "Phyllis Wheatley".[clarification needed] Although one was pictured with that name emblazoned on its bow on one of the company's stock brochures, it had not actually been purchased by the BSL and still had the name "Orion". The prosecution produced as evidence a single empty envelope which it claimed contained the brochure. During the trial, a man by the name of Benny Dancy testified that he didn't remember what was in the envelope, although he regularly received brochures from the Black Star Line. Another witness for the prosecution, Schuyler Cargill, perjured himself after admitting[16] to having been told to mention certain dates in his testimony by Chief Prosecutor Maxwell S. Mattuck. Furthermore, he admitted that he could not remember the names of any coworkers in the office, including the timekeeper who punched employees' time cards. Ultimately, he acknowledged being told to lie by Postal Inspector F.E. Shea. [17] He said Shea told him to state that he mailed letters containing the purportedly fraudulent brochures. The Black Star Line did own and operate several ships over the course of its history and was in the process of negotiating for the disputed ship at the time the charges were brought. Assistant District Attorney, Leo H. Healy, who was, before he became a District Attorney, attorney for Harris McGill and Co., the sellers of the first ship, the S. S. Yarmouth, to the Black Star Line Inc. was also a key witness for the government during the trial. [18]

Of the four Black Star Line officers charged in connection with the enterprise, only Garvey was found guilty of using the mail service to defraud. His supporters called the trial fraudulent. While there were serious accounting irregularities within the Black Star Line and the claims he used to sell Black Star Line stock could be considered misleading, Garvey's supporters still contest that the prosecution was a politically motivated miscarriage of justice, given the above-mentioned false statement testimony and Hoover's explicit regret that Garvey had committed no crimes.

When the trial ended on 23 June 1923, Garvey had been sentenced to five years in prison. He initially spent three months in the Tombs Jail awaiting approval of bail. While on bail, he continued to maintain his innocence, travel, speak and organize the UNIA. After numerous attempts at appeal were unsuccessful, he was taken into custody and began serving his sentence at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary on 8 February 1925.[19] Two days later, he penned his well known "First Message to the Negroes of the World From Atlanta Prison" wherein he makes his famous proclamation:

“ Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you, for, with God's grace, I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for Liberty, Freedom and Life.[20] ”

Professor Judith Stein has stated, “his politics were on trial.”[21]

Garvey's sentence was eventually commuted by President Calvin Coolidge. Upon his release in November 1927, Garvey was deported via New Orleans to Jamaica, where a large crowd met him at Orrett's Wharf in Kingston. A huge procession and band converged on UNIA headquarters.

Criticism

While W. E. B. Du Bois expressed the Black Star Line was “original and promising,”[22] he also said: “Marcus Garvey is, without doubt, the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America and in the world. He is either a lunatic or a traitor.”[23] Du Bois feared that Garvey's activities would undermine his efforts toward black rights.

Garvey suspected Du Bois was prejudiced against him because he was a Caribbean native with darker skin. Du Bois once described Marcus Garvey as "a little, fat black man; ugly, but with intelligent eyes and a big head."[24] Garvey called Du Bois “purely and simply a white man's nigger" and "a little Dutch, a little French, a little Negro … a mulatto … a monstrosity.” This led to an acrimonious relationship between Garvey and the NAACP.[25] Garvey accused Du Bois of paying conspirators to sabotage the Black Star Line to destroy his reputation.[26]

At the National Conference of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1921 a Los Angeles delegate Noah Thompson spoke on the floor complaining on the lack of transparency in the group's financial accounts. When accounts were prepared Thompson highlighted several sections with what he felt were irregularities.

Garvey recognized the influence of the Ku Klux Klan, and in early 1922, he went to Atlanta, Georgia for a conference with KKK imperial giant Edward Young Clarke.

According to Garvey, “I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together. I like honesty and fair play. You may call me a Klansman if you will, but, potentially, every white man is a Klansman, as far as the Negro in competition with whites socially, economically and politically is concerned, and there is no use lying.”[27] Leo H. Healy publicly accused Garvey of being a member of the Ku Klux Klan in his testimony during the mail fraud trial. [18]

After Garvey's entente with the Ku Klux Klan, a number of African American leaders appealed to U.S. Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty to have Garvey incarcerated.[28]

Although historians tend to side with Du Bois, Theodore Vincent's "Black Power and the Garvey Movement" contends that, "Cronon and most other scholars dealing with Garvey have misunderstood their subject, and have written off as unimportant a man who founded a most significant movement for black freedom." This book is devoted to dispelling "militant" criticism of Garvey from people like W. E. B. Du Bois.

Later years

In 1928, Garvey travelled to Geneva to present the Petition of the Negro Race. This petition outlined the worldwide abuse of Africans to the League of Nations. In September 1929, he founded the People's Political Party (PPP), Jamaica's first modern political party, which focused on workers' rights, education, and aid to the poor.

Also in 1929, Garvey was elected councilor for the Allman Town Division of the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC). However, he lost his seat because of having to serve a prison sentence for contempt of court. But, in 1930, Garvey was re-elected, unopposed, along with two other PPP candidates.

In April 1931, Garvey launched the Edelweiss Amusement Company. He set the company up to help artists earn their livelihood from their craft. Several Jamaican entertainers — Kidd Harold, Ernest Cupidon, Bim & Bam, and Ranny Williams — went on to become popular after receiving initial exposure that the company gave them.

In 1935, Garvey left Jamaica for London. He lived and worked in London until his death in 1940. During these last five years, Garvey remained active and in touch with events in war-torn Ethiopia (then known as Abyssinia) and in the West Indies. In 1937, he wrote the poem Ras Nasibu Of Ogaden[29] in honor of Ethiopian Army Commander (Ras) Nasibu Emmanual. In 1938, he gave evidence before the West Indian Royal Commission on conditions there. Also in 1938 he set up the School of African Philosophy in Toronto to train UNIA leaders. He continued to work on the magazine The Black Man.

In 1937, a group of Garvey's American supporters called the Peace Movement of Ethiopia openly collaborated with Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo in the promotion of a repatriation scheme introduced in the US Congress as the Greater Liberia Act. In the Senate, Bilbo was a supporter of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Bilbo was an outspoken supporter of segregation and white supremacy and, attracted by the ideas of Black separatists like Garvey, Bilbo proposed an amendment to the federal work-relief bill on 6 June 1938, proposing to deport 12 million black Americans to Liberia at federal expense to relieve unemployment.[30] He took the time to write a book titled Take Your Choice, Separation or Mongrelization, advocating the idea. Garvey praised him in return, saying that Bilbo had "done wonderfully well for the Negro".[31]

During this period, Evangeline Rondon Paterson the grandmother of the current (55th) Governor of New York, David Paterson served as his secretary.

Death

See also: List of premature obituaries

On 10 June 1940, Garvey died after two strokes, putatively after reading a mistaken, and negative, obituary of himself in the Chicago Defender which stated, in part, that Garvey died "broke, alone and unpopular".[32] Because of travel conditions during World War II, he was interred at Kensal Green Cemetery in London. Rumours claimed that Garvey was in fact poisoned on a boat on which he was travelling and that was where and how he actually died.

In 1964, his remains were exhumed and taken to Jamaica. On 15 November 1964, the government of Jamaica, having proclaimed him Jamaica's first national hero, re-interred him at a shrine in National Heroes Park.

Personal life

Marcus Garvey was married twice: to the Jamaican Pan-African activist Amy Ashwood (married 1919, divorced 1922), who worked with him in the early years of UNIA; then to the journalist and publisher Amy Jacques (married 1922). The latter was mother to his two sons, Marcus Jr. and Julius.

Influence

The UNIA flag uses three colors: red, black and green.

Garvey's memory has been kept alive.[33] Schools, colleges, highways, and buildings in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States have been named in his honor. The UNIA red, black, and green flag has been adopted as the Black Liberation Flag. Since 1980, Garvey's bust has been housed in the Organization of American States' Hall of Heroes in Washington, D.C.

Malcolm X's parents, Earl and Louise Little, met at a UNIA convention in Montreal. Earl was the president of the UNIA division in Omaha, Nebraska and sold the Negro World newspaper while Louise was a contributor to the Negro World.

Kwame Nkrumah named the national shipping line of Ghana the Black Star Line in honor of Garvey and the UNIA. Nkrumah also named the national soccer team the Black Stars as well. The black star at the center of Ghana's flag is also inspired by the Black Star Line.

Flag of Ghana

During a trip to Jamaica, Martin Luther King and his wife Coretta Scott King visited the shrine of Marcus Garvey on 20 June 1965 and laid a wreath.[34] In a speech he told the audience that Garvey "was the first man of color to lead and develop a mass movement. He was the first man on a mass scale and level to give millions of Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny. And make the Negro feel he was somebody."[35]

King was also the posthumous recipient of the first Marcus Garvey Prize for Human Rights on 10 December 1968 issued by the Jamaican Government and presented to King's widow.

The United States of Africa first saw light in a 1924 poem by Garvey and is still discussed.

There have been pop culture references to Marcus Garvey since he first came on the international scene. Garvey is cited repeatedly in a diverse variety of books, songs and films. He is mentioned particularly frequently in blues, reggae, jazz and hip hop music.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Marcus Garvey on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.[36]

Rastafari and Garvey

Rastafarians consider Garvey a religious prophet, and sometimes even the reincarnation of Saint John the Baptist. This is partly because of his frequent statements uttered in speeches throughout the 1920s, usually along the lines of "Look to Africa, when a black king shall be crowned for the day of deliverance is at hand!"[37]

His beliefs deeply influenced the Rastafari, who took his statements as a prophecy of the crowning of Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. Early Rastas were associated with his Back-to-Africa movement in Jamaica. This early Rastafari movement was also influenced by a separate, proto-Rasta movement known as the Afro-Athlican Church that was outlined in a religious text known as the Holy Piby — where Garvey was proclaimed to be a prophet as well. Thus, the Rastafari movement can be seen as an offshoot of Garveyite philosophy. As his beliefs have greatly influenced Rastafari, he is often mentioned in reggae music.

Garvey himself never identified with the Rastafari movement, and was, in fact, raised as a Methodist who went on to become a Catholic.

Memorials to Garvey

 This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this section if you can. (November 2007)

There are a number of memorials worldwide which honor Marcus Garvey. Most are in Jamaica and the United States.

Jamaica

  • A marker in front of the house of his birth at 32 Market Street, St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.[38]
  • A statue on the grounds of St. Ann's Bay Parish Library.
  • A secondary school in his name in St. Ann' Bay.
  • A major highway in his name in Kingston.
  • A bust in Apex Park in Kingston.
  • Likeness on the Jamaican 50 cent coin,20 dollar coin, and 25 cent coin.
  • A building in his name housing the Jamaican Ministry of Foreign Affairs located in New Kingston.
  • A Marcus Garvey statue at National Heroes Park in Kingston, JA.
  • The album "Marcus Garvey" and "Garvey's Ghost" (a dub version of the "Marcus Garvey" album) by reggae legend Burning Spear.
  • A deejay version (Jamaican rap) by reggae legend Big Youth, based on an instrumental mix of the original Burning Spear recording "Marcus Garvey".
  • A cover version of Burning Spear's "Marcus Garvey" recorded by reggae singer Spectacular (as Burning Spectacular) was released in 2002 on a 12" vinyl record on the Jamaican label Human Race Records. Produced by Bruno Blum, it features an original recording of a live Marcus Garvey speech in which several key slogans of the Rastafari movement founded in the 1930s can be heard. The flip side includes another recording by Big Youth of the "Marcus Garvey" composition mentioned right above.
  • In the Bob Marley song "so much things to say" Marley sings "I'll never forget, no way. They crucify Jesus Christ, I'll never forget, no way. They sold Marcus Garvey for rights".
  • Reggae band The Gladiators recorded the song "Marcus Garvey Time", proclaiming him as a prophet with lyrics like, "Every thing he has said has come to pass".

Trinidad

  • A statue on Harris Promenade, San Fernando

United States of America

Sinead Oconner reggae album released in 2008 has a track named "Marcus Garvey"

Canada

  • Marcus Garvey Centre for Unity in Edmonton, Alberta [39]
  • Marcus Garvey day festival held yearly on 17 August in Toronto (North York), Ontario [40]

Africa

United Kingdom

GARVEY, Marcus (1887-1940) Pan-Africanist Leader, lived and died here, 53 Talgarth Road, W14. [Hammersmith and Fulham 2005]

See also

References

  1. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica Online. "Marcus Garvey." Retrieved on 2008-02-20.
  2. ^ a b c "The "Back to Africa" Myth". UNIA-ACL website. 2005-07-14. http://www.unia-acl.org/archive/themyth.htm. Retrieved 2007-04-01. 
  3. ^ Garvey, Marcus; Jacques-Garvey, Amy (ed.) (1986). The philosophy and opinions of Marcus Garvey or Africa for the Africans. Dover (Mass.): Majority Press. p. 163. ISBN 0-912469-24-2. 
  4. ^ Crowder, Ralph L. (January 1, 2003). "Grand old man of the movement:" John Edward Bruce, Marcus Garvey, and the UNIA." Afro-Americans in New York Life and History. Retrieved through freelibrary.com on 2008-02-17.
  5. ^ UNIA-ACL website from Archive.org, The "Back to Africa" Myth., Accessed November 19, 2007.
  6. ^ UNIA ACL Website Historical Facts about Marcus Garvey and the UNIA [1]. Published January 28, 2005 BY THE UNIA-ACL. Accessed 2007-04-01.
  7. ^ Historical Facts about Marcus Garvey and the UNIA From Archive.org. Accessed November 19, 2007.
  8. ^ "African American Political Thought, 1890-1930: Washington, Du Bois, Garvey", pg 169, M.E. Sharpe (Armonk NY) 1996.
  9. ^ The Negro's Greatest Enemy by Marcus Garvey, Posted/Revised: 28 May 2002, Last Accessed 31 October 2007
  10. ^ Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey Or, Africa for the Africans By Marcus Garvey pg 122, Majority Press Fitchburg, MA;1986 Centennial Edition. Retrieved on 1 December 2007.
  11. ^ Memorandum to Special Agent Ridgely on wikisource
  12. ^ Reel 12 Department of Justice-Bureau of Investigation Surveillance of Black Americans, 1916-1925 cont. National Archives and Research Administration, RG 65 Federal Bureau of Investigation cont: 0703 Casefile OG 374217: Memorandum upon Work of the Radical Division, August 1, 1919 to October 15, 1919, Prepared by J. Edgar Hoover; and Other Memoranda. 1919-1920. 263pp. p. 19
  13. ^ Reel 13 Department of Justice-Bureau of Investigation Surveillance of Black Americans, 1916-1925 cont. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 65 Federal Bureau of Investigation cont.: 0626 Casefile OG 391465: Confidential Informants, Memoranda of J. Edgar Hoover, Compensation, Policy, Washington, D.C. 1920. 3pp. p. 22 p. xxi
  14. ^ J. Edgar Hoover to Special Agent Ridgely Washington, D.C., October 11, 1919 MEMORANDUM FOR MR. RIDGELY.
  15. ^ a b Theodore Kornweibel (Ed.) Federal Surveillance of Afro-Americans (1917-1925): The First World War, the Red Scare, and the Garvey Movement p. x. Retrieved on 1 December 2007.
  16. ^ The Trial Part 1 Page 2. Marcusgarvey.com. Retrieved on 1 December 2007.
  17. ^ The Trial Part 1 Page 3. Marcusgarvey.com. Retrieved on 1 December 2007.
  18. ^ a b Application for Executive Clemency by Marcus Garvey Marcusgarvey.com. Retrieved on 6 March 2009.
  19. ^ Online Forum: Marcus Garvey vs. United States
  20. ^ First Message to the Negroes of the World from Atlanta Prison"
  21. ^ "New York Times", "Pardon Marcus Garvey by Judith Stein", "5 November 1983, Page 5
  22. ^ “The Collapse of the Only Thing in the Garvey Movement Which Was Original or Promising”, Last accessed 2 November 2007.
  23. ^ Dubois, "The Crisis", Vol 28, May 1924, pp. 8-9
  24. ^ Hill, Robert A.; Garvey, Marcus; Forczek, Deborah; Universal Negro Improvement Association (1987). The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association papers. University of California Press. p. 233. ISBN 9780520058170. http://books.google.com/books?id=6y4hbFXFtv8C&pg=PA233. Retrieved 2009-07-09. 
  25. ^ Grant, Colin (2008). Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey and His Dream of Mother Africa. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-536794-2. 
  26. ^ American Series Introduction Volume I: 1826--August 1919 Accessed April 1, 2007.
  27. ^ Spartucus Educational website, Ku Klux Klan, quoting from Negro World (September, 1923). Accessed December 3, 2007.
  28. ^ Richard B. Moore, "The Critics and Opponents of Marcus Garvey," in Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa, ed. John Henrik Clarke with Amy Jacques Garvey (New York, 1974), 228.
  29. ^ Poem - Ras Nasibu of the Ogaden
  30. ^ Current Biography 1943, p50
  31. ^ Brothers and Strangers: Black Zion, Black Slavery, 1914-1940, Ibrahim K. Sundiata, Duke University Press 2003. ISBN 0822332477, p. 313
  32. ^ Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind, PBS documentary (transcript). Last accessed on December 3, 2007.
  33. ^ See for example the viral video, Marcus Garvey Lives!, combining a 1921 recording of Garvey's speech on the aims of the U.N.I.A. with the 1975 dub soundtrack of fellow Jamaican (also from St. Ann) and reggae superstar, Winston "Burning Spear' Rodney: http://www.archive.org/details/MarcusGarveyLivessubtitledVersion
  34. ^ June 20, 1965: Martin Luther King Jr. visits Jamaica
  35. ^ The Black 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential African-Americans, Past and Present By Columbus Salley, Page 82, 1999, Citadel Press.
  36. ^ Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst, New York. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-963-8.
  37. ^ M.G. Smith, Roy Augier and Rex Nettleford, "The Rastafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica," Kingston 1960, p.5
  38. ^ 32 Market Street,25 January 2008
  39. ^ http://www.edmontonplus.ca/arts_entertainment/marcus_garvey_centre_for_unity/1084248
  40. ^ http://www.marcusgarvey.net/index.html

Further reading

Works by Marcus Garvey

  • The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Edited by Amy Jacques Garvey. 412 pages. Majority Press; Centennial edition, 1 November 1986. ISBN 0-912469-24-2. Avery edition. ISBN 0-405-01873-8.
  • Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy by Marcus Garvey. Edited by Tony Martin. Foreword by Hon. Charles L. James, president- general, Universal Negro Improvement Association. 212 pages. Majority Press, 1 March 1986. ISBN 0-912469-19-6.
  • The Poetical Works of Marcus Garvey. Compiled and edited by Tony Martin. 123 pages. Majority Press, 1 June 1983. ISBN 0-912469-02-1.
  • Hill, Robert A., editor. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Vols. I-VII, IX. University of California Press, ca. 1983- (ongoing). 1146 pages. University of California Press, 1 May 1991. ISBN 0-520-07208-1.
  • Hill, Robert A., editor. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers: Africa for the Africans 1921-1922. 740 pages. University of California Press, 1 February 1996. ISBN 0-520-20211-2.

Books

  • Burkett, Randall K. Garveyism as a Religious Movement: The Institutionalization of a Black Civil Religion. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press and American Theological Library Association, 1978.
  • Campbell, Horace. Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1987.
  • Clarke, John Henrik, editor. Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa. With assistance from Amy Jacques Garvey. New York: Vintage Books, 1974.
  • Cronon, Edmund David. Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1955, reprinted 1969 and 2007.
  • Garvey, Amy Jacques, Garvey and Garveyism. London: Collier-MacMillan, 1963, 1968.
  • Grant, Colin. Negro with a Hat, The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey and his Dream of Mother Africa., London: Jonathan Cape, 2008.
  • Hill, Robert A., editor. Marcus Garvey, Life and Lessons: A Centennial Companion to the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
  • Hill, Robert A. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Vols. I–VII, IX. University of California Press, ca. 1983– (ongoing).
  • James, Winston. Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America. London: Verso, 1998.
  • Kornweibel Jr., Theodore. Seeing Red: Federal Campaigns Against Black Militancy 1919-1925. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998.
  • Lemelle, Sidney, and Robin D. G. Kelley. Imagining Home: Class, Culture, and Nationalism in the African Diaspora. London: Verso, 1994.
  • Lewis, Rupert. Marcus Garvey: Anti-Colonial Champion. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1988.
  • Lewis, Rupert, and Bryan, Patrick, eds. Garvey: His Work and Impact. Mona, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1988.
  • Lewis, Rupert, and Maureen Warner-Lewis. Garvey: Africa, Europe, The Americas. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1986, 1994.
  • Manoedi, M. Korete. Garvey and Africa. New York: New York Age Press, 1922.
  • Martin, Tony. Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggle of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976.
  • Martin, Tony. Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts, and the Harlem Renaissance. Dover, Mass.: Majority Press, 1983.
  • Martin, Tony. African Fundamentalism: A Literary and Cultural Anthology of Garvey's Harlem Renaissance. Dover, Mass.: Majority Press, 1983, 1991.
  • Martin, Tony. Marcus Garvey: Hero. Dover, Mass.: Majority Press, 1983.
  • Martin, Tony. The Pan-African Connection: From Slavery to Garvey and Beyond. Dover, Mass.: Majority Press, 1983.
  • Martin, Tony. The Poetical Works of Marcus Garvey. Dover, Mass.: Majority Press, 1983.
  • Smith-Irvin, Jeannette. Marcus Garvey's Footsoldiers of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1989.
  • Solomon, Mark. The Cry Was Unity: Communists and African-Americans, 1917–1936. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998.
  • Stein, Judith. The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986.
  • Tolbert, Emory J. The UNIA and Black Los Angeles. Los Angeles: Center of Afro-American Studies, University of California, 1980.
  • Vincent, Theodore. Black Power and the Garvey Movement. Berkeley, Calif.: Ramparts Press, 1971.

External links

Search Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Marcus Garvey
Search Wikiquote Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Marcus Garvey
v • d • e
Pan-Africanism
Proponents
Location of Africa
Concepts
Organizations

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 
Learn More
Musical Shark Attack (1976 Album by I-Roy)
Black Paths of Leadership (1986 History Film)
Burning Spear: Live in Paris (1988 Music Film)

When was marcus garvey deported to Jamaica? Read answer...
When was marcus garvey born? Read answer...
Was marcus garvey a slave? Read answer...

Help us answer these
What is marcus garvey religion and why?
What was marcus garvey program 1920s?
What were marcus's garveys goals?

Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:

 

Copyrights:

Who2 Biography. Copyright © 1998-2008 by Who2, LLC. All rights reserved. See the Marcus Garvey biography from Who2.  Read more
African American Literature. The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Black Biography. Contemporary Black Biography. Copyright © 2006 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
US History Companion. The Reader's Companion to American History, Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors, published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
History Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.  Read more
Quotes By. Copyright © 2008 QuotationsBook.com. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Marcus Garvey".  Read more