Marcus Garvey.
A precurseur.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., National Hero of Jamaica (August 17, 1887 – June 10, 1940), was a publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, Black nationalist, orator, black separatist, and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL).[1] Garvey was born in St. Ann's Bay, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica to Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Sr., a mason, and Sarah Jane Richards, a domestic worker and farmer. Of his eleven siblings, only Garvey and his sister, Indiana, reached maturity. Garvey's father was known to have a large library, and it was from his father that he gained his love for reading. [2]
Garvey is the first out of seven National heroes of Jamaica.
Garvey is best remembered as an important proponent of the Back-to-Africa movement, which encouraged those of African descent to return to their ancestral homelands.[3] This movement would eventually inspire other movements, ranging from the Nation of Islam, to the Rastafari movement, which proclaims Garvey to be a prophet. Garvey said he wanted those of African ancestry to "redeem" Africa and for the European colonial powers to leave it.
Sometime in the year 1900 Garvey entered into an apprenticeship with his godfather Alfred Burrowes. Like his father, Mr. Burrowes had an extensive library of which Garvey made good use.
Near the age of fourteen, Garvey left St. Ann's Bay for Kingston where he found employment as a compositor in the printery of P.A. Benjamin Limited. He was a master printer and foreman at Benjamin when, in November of 1907, he was elected the vice-president of the Kingston Union. Upon joining a strike by printers in late 1908 he was fired from his position. 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. 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 entitled 'La Nacionale' in 1911. Later that year, he moved to Colón, Panama where he edited a tri-weekly before returning to Jamaica in 1912.
After years of working in the Caribbean, Garvey left Jamaica to spend 1912 and 1913 in London. There 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.
The UNIA-ACL
During his travels, Garvey had become convinced that uniting Blacks was the only way to improve their condition, and so he departed England on June 14, 1914 aboard the S.S. Trent, reaching Jamaica on July 15, 1914. Five days later the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and African Communities League (ACL) was formed. Amy Ashwood, who would later be Garvey's first wife, was among the founders. As the group's first President-General, his 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".
According to Garvey, the name of the organization was the result of a conversation he had with a West Indian traveling to the Caribbean with his Basuto wife. During their discussion he "further learned of the horrors of native life in Africa". Following much reflection the following day and night on what he had learned "the vision and thought came" to him to "name the organization the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities (Imperial) League".
After corresponding with Booker T. Washington, Garvey arrived in the U.S. aboard the S.S. Tallac on March 23, 1916, for a lecture tour and to raise funds for establishment of a school in Jamaica modeled after Washington's Tuskegee Institute. Unfortunately, Washington had died in 1915 before Garvey reached the U.S., but he did visit Tuskegee and afterward, he visited a number of Black leaders. After moving to New York he found work in his usual trade as a printer by day, and 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, and so on May 9, 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 of 1917 he and thirteen others formed the first UNIA division outside Jamaica and began advancing ideas promoting social, political, and economic freedom for Blacks. On July 2, the East St. Louis riots broke out. On July 8, Garvey delivered an address, entitled "The Conspiracy of the East St. Louis Riots," at Lafayette Hall in Harlem. During the speech he declared that the riot was "one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind." By October, rancor amongst the ranks of the UNIA had begun to set in. A split occurred in the Harlem division with Garvey enlisted to become the head of the division; although he still 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 August 17, 1918, publication of the widely distributed Negro World newspaper began. Garvey worked for it as editor for free up until November 1920. By June of 1919 the membership of the organization had grown to over two million.
On June 27, 1919, the Black Star Line (named after the successful White Star Line) of Delaware, was incorporated by the members of the UNIA with Garvey as President. By September it had obtained its first ship. Much fanfare surrounded the inspection of the S.S. Yarmouth and its rechristening as the S.S. Frederick Douglass on September 14, 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 without any resolution, Garvey wrote an editorial on Kilroe's activities for the Negro World. After having been arrested, and indicted for criminal libel in relation to the article, charges were dismissed when Garvey published a retraction.
While in his Harlem office at 56 West 156th Street on October 14, 1919, Garvey received a visit from a man by the name of George Tyler. Tyler told him that Kilroe "had sent him" to get Garvey. Tyler then pulled a .38-calibre 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 Tyler apparently committed suicide by jumping from the third tier of Harlem jail while he was being taken to his arraignment.
By August 1920, the UNIA claimed 4 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 August 1 to hear Garvey speak.
Another venture of his 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.
Convinced that Blacks should have a permanent homeland in Africa, Garvey sought to develop Liberia. "Our success educationally, industrially and politically is based upon the protection of a nation founded by ourselves. And the nation can be nowhere else but in Africa."
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. Interestingly, in response to suggestions that he wanted to take all Americans of African ancestry back to Africa, he once proclaimed, "I have no desire to take all black people back to Africa; there are blacks who are no good here and will likewise be no good there."
Garvey has been credited with creating the biggest movement of people of African descent. At its zenith, the UNIA claimed over a million members. 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 ever.