Who Is Marcus Mosiah Garvey?

THE INFLUENCE OF MARCUS GARVEY PT.5

Born in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, on August 17, 1887, Marcus Garvey was the youngest of 11 children. Garvey moved to Kingston at the age of 14, found work in a printshop, and became acquainted with the abysmal living conditions of the laboring class. He quickly involved himself in social reform, participating in the first Printers' Union strike in Jamaica in 1907 and in setting up the newspaper The Watchman. Leaving the island to earn money to finance his projects, he visited Central and South America, amassing evidence that black people everywhere were victims of discrimination. He visited the Panama Canal Zone and saw the conditions under which the West Indians lived and worked. He went to Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Colombia and Venezuala. Everywhere, blacks were experiencing great hardships.

Garvey returned to Jamaica distressed at the situation in Central America, and appealed to Jamaica's colonial government to help improve the plight of West Indian workers in Central America. His appeal fell on deaf ears. Garvey also began t o lay the groundwork of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, to which he was to devote his life. Undaunted by lack of enthusiasm for his plans, Garvey left for En gland in 1912 in search of additional financial backing. While there, he met a Sudanese-Egyptian journalist, Duse Mohammed Ali. While working for Ali's publication African Times and Oriental Review, Garvey began to study the history of Africa, particularly, the exploitation of black peoples by colonial powers. He read Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery, which advocated black self-help.

In 1914 Garvey organized the Universal Negro Improvement Association and its coordinating body, the African Communities League. In 1920 the organization held its first convention in New York. The convention opened with a parade down Harlem's Lenox Avenue. That evening, before a crowd of 25,000, Garvey outlined his plan to build an African nation-state. In New York City his ideas attracted popular support, and thousands enrolled in the UNIA. He began publishing the newspaper The Negro World and toured the United States preaching black nationalism to popular audiences. His efforts were successful, and soon, the association boasted over 1,100 branches in more than 40 countries. Most of these branches were located in the United States, which had become the UNIA's base of operations. There were, however, offices in several Caribbean countries, Cuba having the most. Branches also existed in places such as Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Venezuela, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Namibia and South Africa. He also launched some ambitious business ventures, notably the Black Star Shipping Line.

In the years following the organization's first convention, the UNIA began to decline in popularity. With the Black Star Line in serious financial difficulties, Garvey promoted two new business organizations - the African Communities League and the Negro Factories Corporation. He also tried to salvage his colonization scheme by sending a delegation to appeal to the League of Nations for transfer to the UNIA of the African colonies taken from Germany during World War I.

Financial betrayal by trusted aides and a host of legal entanglements (based on charges that he had used the U.S. mail to defraud prospective investors) eventually led to Garvey's imprisonment in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for a five-year term. In 1927 his half-served sentence was commuted, and he was deported to Jamaica by order of President Calvin Coolidge.Garvey then turned his energies to Jamaican politics, campaigning on a platform of self-government, minimum wage laws, and land and judicial reform. He was soundly defeated at the polls, however, because most of his followers did not have the necessary voting qualifications.

Further Research and Study:

• Garvey's Legacy in Context: Colourism, Black Movements and African Nationalism

• "Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind." PBS documentary film.

• Marcus Garvey web site

• UNIA web site

RBGz New Afrikan Education Course Link Table:

RBG: SDL (Self Directed Learning) Black Studies Outline for Advanced Learners

The Master Keys to the Study of Ancient Kemet/Dr. Asa G. Hilliard, III

DR. YOSEF BEN-JOCHANNAN ON IMHOTEP... & more

Dr. Ben, Dr. Clarke and Dr. Van Sertima on Our Holocaust and A Maafa Timeline

Dr. Molefi Kete Asante: Foundations of Afrikan Pedagogy

Afrikan History and Culture Lessons: Our Scholars, Historians and Educators Teach

Dr. Marimba Ani On Yurugu and Afrikan Rebirth

Tony Brown's Afrocentric Education Conference...more

Dr. Chancellor Williams On "The Destruction of Black Civilization"

Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop On the Origins of Civilization

Oyotunji Village: "A Spiritual and Cultural Re-Awakening"

Dr. Carter G. Woodson On Education and Mis-Education..more

The American Indian Holocaust

Professor John Glover Jackson, "One of Our Greatest Cultural Historians"

The Science of the Moors, Dr. Ivan Sertima Lecture...and more

Racism: A History (3 Part Video and RBG Notes)

Dr. Leonard Jefferies on the Afrikan Mind and 10 Areas of conflicts with White Supremacy

Dr. Amiri Baraka On Dr. Du Bois's Double Consciousness Precept and more

A People's History Of The United States / by Howard Zinn : RBGz Audio and History Is A Weapon e-Books

Robert F. Williams: The Man They Don't Want You To Know About

"From Jim Crow to Civil Rights to Black Liberation?"

Malcolm X / Make It Plain: The Classic Documentary and A Timeline