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69315392-Black-Power-and-the-Garvey-Movement (1) (2013 - 03 - 19 00 - 04 - 23 UTC) PDF
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POUJER
mmouEmEm
THE GflRUEV
Theodore
A** M.*'
G. Vincent
i^
ffc
-J
25301
Vincent, Theodore G.
NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA (SF)
E 185.97
.G3 V5 1972
Vincent, Theodore G.
Black power and the Garvey
movement
#17500
THE LIBRARY
^>iyWCOLI^'^i: ^a[c A LI FXiRNl A
DATE DUE
1'
^^
BLACK
POWER
AND THE
GARVEY
MOVEMENT
BLACK
POWER
AND THE
GARVEY
MOVEMENT
by
Theodore G.Vincent
7(ainparts Tress
San Francisco, California
(A
Copyright
ISBN 0-87867-007-6
CONTENTS
PREFACE
1.
AN INTRODUCTION TO GARVEYISM
11
2.
31
3.
ALTERNATIVES TO GARVEYISM
49
4.
89
5.
6.
149
7.
A WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT
163
8.
DISSENSIONS
9.
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
215
25
APPENDIX
THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
OF THE NEGRO PEOPLES OF THE WORLD
257
IN ITS
PRIME
107
87
APPENDIX
2:
PROMINENT GARVEYITES
267
APPENDIX
3:
SOURCES
271
NOTES
273
INDEX
291
PREFACE
In the early
960s I wrote a weekly column for the Los Angeles
Herald Dispatch called "The Hidden Past of Afro-Americans." The
paper's editor. Pat Patterson, was a strong supporter of the late
Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, and she suggested I do some
columns on the Garveyites, the forerunners of the Muslims. I had
1
unimportant
most
significant
movement
for
black freedom.
who were
book
as reasonable
PREFACE
movement militants of the 1960s hoped to build. Construcand workable approaches to problems of black identity, eco-
type of
tive
nomic hardship,
and the need for international alliances were all there, wrapped up
in one gigantic organization. The story cried out to be told.
The errors of the Garveyites during their heyday in the 1920s
felt
many
evenings
were important.
Amy
Jacques
Garvey helped immeasurably to clarify my understanding of Garveyism. I would like to acknowledge the help of the late Professor
Robert Starobin in reviewing the manuscript, and also to thank
Professor Leon Litwack of the University of California at Berkeley,
Professor Leonard Jefferies Jr. of the Black Studies Department at
San Jose State College, and W. F. Elkins of Stanford University. My
students at the Center for Participant Education at the University of
California at Berkeley were most helpful in class discussions about
material in this book. Much of the material in the book is based on
information provided by James B. Yearwood, Harry Haywood. Ted
Poston, Rudolph B. Smith. Professor St. Clair Drake, Len Nembhard. Dr. Muriel Petioni, Alfred A. Smith, Richard B. Moore, Alfred
Lannon, Ruth Beckford, Reynold R. Felix, Herbert Hill, Lionel
Winston Greenidge, and the relatives of Evelyn R. Donawa and
Marie Duchaterlier, to all of whom I am most grateful. My thanks
are also due to Bill Taylor, curator of the Cyril Briggs Papers, and
Ann Reed of the University of California library.
10
AN
INTRODUCTION
TO GARVEYISM
THE UNIVERSAL NEGRO IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION may conup images of Marcus Garvey
jure
reviewing
in
his
African
in a
Legionnaires marching to
[sphere.
in
it
many
it
had nearly
participating in
a million
its activities.
to three times as
13
power confer-
UNIA
conventions
in their
'l
The
UNIA
War I a
coalition
that
would be
On
for nationalism
Communist
parties.
offshoots.
It
among
a plethora of splinter
groups and
UNIA came
in
the early 1920s and that the Garveyites ran against a tide of reaction,
and
in a revitalized
Ku Klux Klan
in
Historians
who have
all
become
'
America,
IRoi
in
in the
movement
set in
consciousness, which
'race
loyalty'; the
fifty years,
movement
usually
14
AN INTRODUCTION TO GARVEYISM
The
somewhat recently
insofar as four
written by
Len Nembhard's
Trials and
Triumphs of Marcus Garvey^ was published in 1940, and David
Cronon's Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association was published in 1956.* Nembhard is concerned mainly with Garveyite activities in the West
Indies. Cronon's more general history, despite the author's negative
attitude toward black nationalism, has doubtless helped to keep the
public aware of Garveyism. Cronon made a conscious attempt to
overcome the integrationist bias which pervaded the movement for
"outsiders"
in
work
still
misunder-
reflects the
it
only
in passing.
In being ignored
by scholars and
members, and
many
UNIA
has
class, de-
may
also have
Cronon perpetuated
high
the
when most
"melting pot" would solve the race problem, whose only models for
nationalism were nazism and fascism. "One may question,"
racial
Cronon commented, "whether Garvey was aware of all the connotations of either fascism or
communism, but
15
certainly his
UNIA, with
fierce
ship,
had
characteristics!'"*
visualize a
he finally concluded that Garvey's racial nationalism was the product of ignorance rather than intent.*
Obviously there are activists in the United States and abroad who
promote a black version of the views of Dale Carnegie and Norman
Vincent
Peale
and who
call
their
mind-over-matter philosophy
and equahty.
Through the Universal Negro Improvement Association there
developed the philosophical-political system of Garveyism. The
creation of international solidarity among all people of African
descent was a prime objective for Garveyites. All blacks were to be
considered brothers, although they differed from one another in
language,
religion,
structures,
societal
slogan, "Africa for the Africans," had significance for black Americans in that once Africa had been freed from colonial rule, blacks in
the United States could be given aid in their fight for equal rights,
much as the Zionists in Garvey's time sought to make in Palestine a
16
AN INTRODUCTION TO GARVEYISM
coming of Garvey there had not been a movement in
on allegiance to a
power beyond the borders of the United States. The prevailing view
was that black Americans- who in many cases had a longer history
in this country than whites-could gain the rights and privileges of
full participation in the American system. It was believed that
strong support for democratic ideals as proposed by the founding
fathers of the United States would best suit the aims of achieving
Until the
full
citizenship.
While
many
time did not see through the facade of American democracy, Garvey
did.
/
Developments
in recent years
right.
on
Avas based
development
/of a separate black society was more important than winning the
I right to participate in the American mainstream. He made this argu-
ment because
UNIA
Through the Garvey system, black Americans were provided alternative institutions to those offered by mainstream America, black or
white. Garveyites began the development of businesses, churches.
17
social organizations as
by many
well-
when
efforts.
In
their
expended
criticized
in direct
challenges to white
UNIA
built an extensive
founding
UNIA
businesses rested
crowd
in that
it
philanthropists.
movement
did
not
attract
single
18
AN INTRODUCTION TO GARVEYISM
electoral politics at
active
in
the
all.
many
others
who were
as
for
fight
official
demands,
set
down
in a Declaration
of
Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, included the right to vote,
a
fair
the judge's bench, and full freedom of press, speech, and assembly
for all.'^ The UNIA sought these basic freedoms primarily to create
and strengthen a separate black world, while groups Hke the NAACP
would utilize these freedoms primarily to create an integrated
world.
UNIA
fraternal camaraderie of
all
beyond
UNIA
etc.,
had
black struggle.
The legacy of Garvey and his followers goes beyond the many
programs they initiated. Garvey and many of his leading lieutenants
were masters of psychological warfare. Garvey tried to restore to the
black man the masculinity stolen from him during the centuries of
slavery. With his belief that even the best programs would come to
naught unless the black man overcame his "trembling fear" of white
authority, Garvey could be aggressive and purposely intemperate-as
in this challenge to the Ku KIux Klan: "They can pull off their hot
stuff in the south, but let them come north and touch Philadelphia,
New York or Chicago and there will be little left of the Ku Klux
Klan. ... Let them try and come to Harlem and they will really
have some fun."'^ In his Negro World, Garvey wrote that the colo-
19
now
or
some time
later,
even
'"
For a short time in the early 1920s, the Garveyites held together
an unprecedented black coalition which included cultural nationalists, political nationalists, opponents of organized religion (atheists,
or simply
separatists,
pacifists,
women's
reformers),
liberation
fighters,
participants in
Democratic
who wanted
to
were among the first to go. Their departure was hastened by the
development of bitter animosity between established civil rights
organizations and the UNIA. Garvey, coming from Jamaica, was not
really in tune with some of the subtle nuances of the black American situation, and by expressing a pro-black bias in chauvinistic
rhetoric he alienated many Americans who had experienced enough
racial bias from the other side to make them suspicious of any
prejudice-positive or negative. However, Garvey considered himself
an advocate of "the bigger brotherhood," in which all ethnic groups
took pride in their own identity, while maintaining respect for the
shared humanity of others. The following statement typifies
Garvey's tone and style.
What We Believe
The Universal Negro Improvement Association advocates the uniting and blending of
strong, healthy race.
It
is
all
suicide.
It
It is
It
is
Negro race
is
as
good
as
any other.
Negro women.
* He was in this
German control.
20
AN INTRODUCTION TO GARVEYISM
Fatherhood of God and the
It
Brotherhood of Man.
and political physical separation
peoples to the extent that they promote their own
ideals and civilization, with the privilege of trading and
doing business with each other. It believes in the promotion of a strong and powerful Negro nation in Africa.
It believes in the rights of all men.'^
it
of
all
to
is
it
power
is
are
association with
war of the
races. In
'^
his
tion
would
21
He sought
to motivate
nationalist
something
is
Garvey's
calls for
demands
his
'^
for self-determination
on the other,
reflect the
ambi-
Cleaver said,
in
"We
America are
colony" Eldridge
that white
people
colony
in
in
America
is
in the
Third World. Where black and white are as interrelated as they are
this
country,
groups
bility.
like the
geographically
Republic of
separate
New
Africa,
is
at
in
proposed by
best a remote possi-
nation,
as
without being
many
recent radi-
community
Many of
in
late
America'."
seriously considered.
UNIA
are
is
now
being
not today
as strange a prospect as
22
AN INTRODUCTION TO GARVEYISM
growing contingent of black American businessmen working
New York. Political
turmoil in Africa has discouraged many prospective permanent residents, but interest in emigration to the homeland appears to be
growing rather than diminishing. Political repression in the United
States has caused some exodus to Africa, and militant black Americans in Africa have been asking individual states to grant automatic
is
in
also a
He
also
and from the United States and the West Indies. The UNlA's Declaration of Rights of the Negro People states, "We declare it unjust for
any country, state or nation to enact laws tending to hinder and
obstruct the free immigration of Negroes on account of their race
and vacationing
The
UNIA
in
call
Jamaica.
for "all
23
cultural
dislike
and the
socialist
concept of
black and white political alliance. Garvey was certainly not an ex-
commandment of
as
who
in mind that economic theory was quite secondary in Garvey's philosophy, one can
see that Garvey was adamantly opposed to the economic imperialism of whites in the Third World and to the exploitation of blacks
by American black capitalists. Garvey did endorse capitalism, under
certain conditions and restrictions, but he was certainly not the
economic reactionary he was made out to be by his left-wing critics.
This
is
It
should
come
come
work
now go under
man of Marcus
offers
is
compromise with
cultural nationalism.)
dogmatists on
i
*
from
is
classes
24
AN INTRODUCTION TO GARVEYISM
requires a united front of the black bourgeoisie and the
working
To
treacherous cause. ^^
Garvey's
first
in case
it
should have
The UNIA
Negro Factories Corporation and the Black Star Line were more
cooperatives than corporations, and the proposed colony in Liberia
was to consist of family-unit farms along with five thousand-acre
cooperative farms run by the Association. "Capitalism
is
necessary
use or control of
it.
No
of the people."
^^
T.
a leader
do
We
not.
are going to
We do
as a leader,
not
but we
at the
1924
UNIA
own
race.
by
tempt for the masses of their people is great, and their only mission
is to rob and exploit the unfortunate brothers of their own race.
The Negro real-estate man in New York is the greatest devil we have
to combat."^''
Garvey was
far
wealth.
."
In Garvey's opinion,
"Modem
Until a universal
outgrowth of dissatisfied capitalistic interests.
adjustment takes place the State or nation should have the power to
.
countries or
among
are
When we
to shoot and
titled
kill
Then bring
upon the
When Garvey
State.
will.
kill.^'
26
AN INTRODUCTION TO GARVEYISM
surplus corporate profits to forestall investment abroad, he was pro-
posing state regulation of the economy, but he did not envision this
as an endorsement of socialism. Garvey declared that both capitalists
and
socialists
his black
movement
in his
Black
Man monthly,
he wrote:
"The people who make up the rank and file are of the lower and
upper working classes. They organize, they agitate and they fight
because they desire primarily to improve their economic status." In
Garvey's view, this was already an elevated status "enjoyed at the
expense of the oppressed and suppressed darker and Black races
who are ruthlessly exploited by the capitalist class in their respective
colonies. ... If the Communist or Socialist in America or England
receives $4 or I65 a day as his average wage, that $4 or I65 is the
result of the supply of the cheap raw materials of the native countries by the native populations of Africa. India and China. So to
maintain the present wage scale in America and in England the
native must be paid 2s a day and the coolies in India 3d a day. It
means therefore, that a higher wage standard of the American or
English white worker must result in a lower standard for the exploited natives in their country." Hence when white workers "in\
to use
them
Communism, they
in
." ^"
of complicity
difficult to
make
and hypocrisy;
since the white socialists of Garvey's day could not understand the
meaning of or the need for black power, they could not fathom
Garvey's economic views. Garvey, in turn, saw nothing of benefit to
the black nation in the programs of American and European leftists.
27
racist, just as
black power spokesmen today are labeled reverse racists for similar
remarks.
they attempted to set forth the practical rationale for their position.
workingmen
the labor
so considering
it
here.
We
are considering
its
usefulness as a liberal
more
if it will,
to
The Garveyite
refusal
to
leftists
was
in
most
where
were
instances
of
28
indigenous
black-led
socialist
AN INTRODUCTION TO GARVEYISM
worked with
struggles, Garveyites
examples of independent
socialists.
Today
no longer
is it
Garvey,
who
Mwalimu Marcus
UNIA up
"black power in
Nationalism
its
which Mwalimu
is
calls
Kwame Nkrumah."
no key.
Third, the African society must be organized on the
29
omy.
number is in accordance with African thinkAfrican National Socialism postulates the following
types of ownership which have their proper places in the
complete system: (a) state ownership, (b) cooperative
ownership, {c) individual ownership, (d) state and individual ownership. In all cases the aim should be to allow
the greatest
ing.
As
a part.^'
struggle,
30
TFT F
NEW NEGRO:
GARVEYITES
AND OTHERS
WORLD WAR
era of white
a close.
among
World War
I.
disaster.
civilization.
capitalists,
Militarists,
World War
despots,
was an
benevolent
This
it
started
many
eradicate
all
vestiges
in the direction
of
psychological
fail
potent white rulers had been forced to plead for black support
in
War
in
among
the course of a
debate within black society over black involvement in the war. For
many it seemed ridiculous for blacks to involve themselves in a war
to save democracy in Europe when blacks didn't have democracy at
home. One issue of the Richmond Planet, a black weekly, was
barred from the mails because it contained an article urging blacks
criticizing the
Meanwhile,
telling his
his
own expense-a
small
book
'
Writing in the
NAACP
magazine
mood
Crisis
in
of the day:
1919, W. E. B. DuBois
"We
return.
We
return
how
to fight and, as
some
for
many
a first step
toward involvement
in a
Waukegan,
Illinois."
Iso-
broke out sporadically in larger cities such as New York and Philadelphia during 1917 and 1918.^ But the days of the lynching bee
were past; white mobs invading black communities now faced wellplaced gunfire. In Chicago the death count after two weeks of warfare totaled thirty-five blacks and thirteen whites, and almost every
black victim had been killed outside the ghetto, usually going to or
from work
in a
We
nobly.
first
which segregated the black community. One Negro weekly headits report on Tulsa "Colored Rioters Poorly Armed, But Casualty List Favorable."'' These strong defenses effectively ended
large-scale invasions of black neighborhoods by white mobs. From
then on. whites would call upon their trained military, police or
National Guard to do the job.
The new militancy was mirrored in Africa and the Caribbean. In
the year following the Armistice, strikes and large demonstrations
against colonial rule were reported in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast,
South Africa, Trinidad and British Honduras, and blacks in Panama
and Costa Rica conducted a series of strikes for better working
conditions and an end to racial discrimination.* This violent response had been presaged by a revolt of black soldiers of the British
West Indian Regiment in December 1918. The uprising at Taranto,
Italy, was a protest against racist restrictions promulgated by the
British War Office. From fifty to sixty men were arrested, charged
with mutiny, and sentenced, and eight battahons-some eight thousand troops -were disarmed. Angered by differential pay for black
and white soldiers and by restrictions on advancement, members of
the Ninth Battalion of that regiment attacked their officers and
lined
35
men
personnel distributed
among other
units.'
behind
the
disturbances
in
Trinidad
and
British
Honduras the
following year. They charged that the systematic attack upon coloBelize, British Honduras, in
had been planned at Taranto and on the voyage home.
However, as no black troops from British Honduras had been
present during the Taranto rebellion, it might be more accurate to
equate their later action with a desire to "get a piece of the action"
nialists'
July 1919
in Italy.)
'
the northern
cities.
rural to
first
twenty years of
West Indians
moved back and forth across the Caribbean Basin, while close to a
hundred thousand others came to live in the United States or
Canada. Most of these migrants were displaced when U.S. investors
bought out small farmers and developed huge agricultural combines.
In Africa,
for
new urban
remained
free
all
890s.
A genera-
fell
number of civil
servants- who would define the terms of the struggle which cul36
York City the black man's landlord and his employer knew (and
less about what he did in his free time. A militant would have
had great difficulty finding a meeting place in small-town Alabama,
but buildings could be rented in New York and, in lieu of a hall,
there was always the street corner.
cared)
* * *
Changes
in social
new
who appeared
Political
disagreements
among
differences
were determined
what
not
it
social
38
who
later
became
UN
A.
Only one journal which could be described as a New Negro publication appeared until late in the war: the African Times and Orient
Review. First published in London in 1912 by the Egyptian nationalist Duse Mohammed Ali (who originated the phrase "Africa for
the Africans"), the Review advocated the study of African cultures,
independence for colonial peoples, and the building of international
business connections between Africans, Asians, and the colored
peoples of the Americas. Marcus Garvey, half a dozen of his leading
lieutenants, and numerous other New Negroes contributed articles
to the African Times. Tlie NAACP journal Crisis, founded in 1910,
did make important contributions to the development of new ideas,
but its editor. Dr. DuBois, was ostracized by New Negroes because
of his endorsement of the war; in the summer of 1918 Dr. DuBois
presented in Crisis an article entitled "Close Ranks" in which he
urged blacks to support the war effort. However, DuBois's thorough
and intelligent critiques of America's racist institutions continued to
be admired by many who decried his moderate politics.
In 1917, two socialists, A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen,
brought out the first issue of the Messenger, a monthly journal of
"scientific radicahsm." The next year saw the first pubUcation of
Garvey's Negro World, "the indispensable weekly," which by 1920
had the largest circulation of all black weekly newspapers in the
United States. In 1918 Cyril Briggs inaugurated his monthly Crusader, advocating black nationalism, Leninism and violent revolution. Two militant magazines emphasizing cultural and literary
Bridges's
William
year:
appeared
that
also
developments
Challenge and Hubert Harrison's Negro Voice. None of these journals could have been published in the South, the Caribbean, or
Africa,* and all were cited as seditious in state and federal reports
on revolutionary activity. The United States Post Office refused to
handle the July 1919 issue of Randolph's Messenger because of its
militant content-though it was not appreciably different from
other issues, this one did carry a drawing depicting a burning lynch
*
By
Indies.
39
in
many
many
self-defense of
in his
poem
"If
We Must
Die."
monsters we defy
honor us though dead!
Like men we'll face the murderous cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back.'^
In vain; then even the
Shall be constrained to
Almost
their reputations
all
through
as the leather-jacketed
nationalists (clad
naires)
the prominent
in
New Negro
street oratory, as
Malcolm
militants built
do today.*
start
who
* The man most responsible for building the tradition was Hubert H. Harrison,
"the first professor of Street Corner University." Harrison, a self-educated
immigrant from the Virgin Islands, also taught "Contemporary Civilization" at
New York University, lectured on such subjects as "Literary Lights of Yesterday and Today" for the New York Board of Education, and served as professor
of comparative religion at the Modern School, professor of embryology at the
Cosmopolitan College of Chiropractic, and instructor in English and economics
at the Harlem School of Social Science. Before the war, he had worked with the
socialists around Max Eastman and John Reed, helping to edit the Masses
magazine.
40
great
race; to
promote the
spirit
among
the
fallen
civilizing the
backward
tribes
among
the native tribes of Africa; to estaband Secondary Schools for the further
education and culture of the boys and girls of the race; to conduct a
world-wide commercial and industrial intercourse." '^
Garvey's manifesto shows that he had decided upon the general
direction of his movement by the eve of World War I; it also shows
that he still had much to learn. In a 1920 version, when Garvey
understood the meaning of "imperialism" more clearly, that word
was dropped from the part of the manifesto referring to actions of
African states. As an attack upon organized Christianity had become
a part of Garveyism, he replaced the phrase "Christian worship"
tious Christian worship
lish
with
Universities, Colleges
"spiritual
call
is
finesse
many
other black
tation,
Garvey's
first
summer of 1917,
41
launch
Harrison's
anti-war
With the
lem, that
UNIA
and other
liberation struggles,
ica as the
New Negro
community emerged
more
were significantly
literate
living
world and thus read more radical magazines and contributed more money to radical causes they were not
necessarily more radical. Harold Cruse argues that Garvey moved his
'^
headquarters to New York because of the "apathy in Jamaica."
than those
in the colonial
But people in the West Indies were not apathetic. Urbanization and
mass migration within agricultural areas had unleashed hopes of a
better world, and Jamaicans flocked to the Garvey movement: by
1920, the Association had branch divisions in every sizable town on
the island.
somewhat
ironic that
In
in
On
the
least
nominally, and
42
1918-two
By
years
Am erica -Garvey
had
New
York, but through speaking tours and the Negro World he had devel-
oped
UNIA could claim two milby the end of 1919. (The black left had also made an
impact: one out of four Harlem voters chose the Socialist ticket in
the
1920
elections.)
During the summer of 1919, numerous rallies were called to denounce the white mob actions and to raise money for the homeless
and injured. The mood of the people at these meetings was unmistakably radical. At a rally protesting the white-inspired carnage
in
the Negro of
No
hell-fire.
African
is
upon
his rights.
man.
we
mob
shall turn a
emancipation.
liberation,
blow of the Second World War. Black men shall die then and
women shall succor them, but in the end there shall be a
crowning victory for the soldiers of Ethiopia on the African battlethe
black
ground."
''
Garvey expressed
speech unnoticed
this
in the
That Harlem
itself
cultural character of
New York
City,
may
community.
43
when
the blacks
It
will
be a terrible day
."
America, then he
Amid
is
a Bolshevist."
'*
rallies
League, a
sionals
for revolution.
civil
rights
organization
meeting
44
by
French
the
Army
returning black
GI:
waged
the
his
calls to
mass meeting to
raise passage
money
for
^^
endorsement of international
communism contrasted sharply with Randolph's support for the
American Socialist Party. Briggs had discovered Marxism during the
Briggs were bitter enemies.
it
The
latter's
"Needless to say,
never went,"
commented Randolph
45
sarcastically
some
is it?
To
cheerfully sacrifice wealth, ease, luxneed be, life itself to attain for
46
Why
are
Answer: Because
in
In the early 1920s, black militants were divided over the question
of whether or not a pro-black bias was legitimate. Through 1919.
however, the few blacks who publicly objected to such a bias were
the conservative leaders of the middle and upper classes. Black
leaders especially showed their willingness to share ideas and programs in their general support of cooperative businesses as a solution
to the shortage of capital in the black economy. Briggs and his
Brotherhood promoted cooperatives; DuBois founded a Negro Cooperative League in 1919; Randolph supported the idea in the
Messenger; and even the black bourgeoisie's Robert S. Abbott,
47
outside the
UNIA.
48
ALTERNATIVES
TO GARVEYISM
BLACK POWER
NOT
new concept;
spiritual
power.
There are
many
power continuum are those who believe that the injustices of discrimination and forced segregation can be successfully challenged if
join with disadvantaged whites and reform the system
through interracial cooperation. This group has led the fight for
integration and assimilation. At one extreme are those who believe
blacks
that
who
society of their
power,
is
their goal.
51
economic
class, see
more
significant
in
must
power, and
struggle
States.
* * *
One
by
directly
class opportunities.
Robert
S.
through college and law school, came to expect other poor blacks to
find success as he
move
ALTERNATIVES
followed suit. Abbott told Southern blacks of opportunities for jobs
and schooling, of freedom from lynching and legal segregation. The
Defender carried weekly stories of lynchings, beatings and sexual
Dixie,
accompanied
shocking
photoin
by
exploitation
graphs-stories which often required bravery and creative sleuthing
from Defender reporters.
For those who came North, the Defender urged sobriety and hard
work the white, middle-class virtues. Thus a Defender cartoon strip
in 1920 chronicled the life of George Smith, who pushed a broom
all day and studied accounting at night. Each week he deposited
part of his earnings in the bank. His strong will
life's
frivolities
"*
53
with
much
line.
to a
*Such as Fred Moore's New York Age, George Harris's New York News, Carl
Murphy's Baltimore Afro-American. Car! Vann's Pittsburgh Courier, Harry W.
Smith's Cleveland Gazette, and AbhotVs Defender.
54
ALTERNATIVES
Andrew
F.
Hilyer took
C. Bishop,
estate,
Ku Klux
White
leftist
membertwo million.
declining radicalism.
The Pan-African Congress movement was conceived by the eclecDr. W. E. B. DuBois. When he sailed for France in the spring of
1919 to convene his first congress in Paris. DuBois hoped that the
tic
55
new League of
Nations.
men
in
such
permit, finally shipped out disguised as a ship's cook, and missed the
Pan-African Congress.
Once
in Paris,
refused to rent
him out
at
tions for the congress as "a race against time, for at any
moment
the
ment
To
obtain a
on
'^
can participation in colonial governments, and setting aside Germany's African possessions as a League of Nations trust. The League
incorporated
much
of this
final
demand
in
its
mandate system,
Mandate colonies
When
the
first
congress
its
ideas.*
membership communicated through correspondence; the organization lacked an official journal until World War II, when the PanIts
56
ALTERNATIVES
African movement received fresh blood from a new generation (and
from the cooperation of many older Garveyites). Congresses were
held in 1921, 1922 and 1929 (with some small conferences in the
years between) and never included more than a hundred delegates
until the tlfth congress, in 1945.
How
In contrast,
UNIA
(independent African nation" and sought to obtain a national foothold for use as a base in the struggle for self-determination.
ever,
How-
in violent
revolution.
Third, the
was, in
its
UNIA membership
57
rhetoric
Some NAACP
leaders
NAACP
opposed
national secre-
Africa,'*
to vacation
58
ALTERNATIVES
with thoughtful, constructive criticism. DuBois found "the main
Hnes" of Garvey's plans "perfectly feasible." Garvey, said DuBois,
own
way
sense,
practical."
'^
But
philosophical treatise
in
1940, DuBois
59
must unify
money, and
in
would
its political
galleys
but
and
financial resources
it
of blacks and
Thus DuBois, once champion of the NAACP as an alter-
inflame
whites. ^^
the
prevailing
liberal
coalition
denounced as a segregaby the NAACP. Finally, though he later joined the Communist Party, the DuBois of the 1930s described American communists
as "men of pitiable mental equipment." They in turn labeled
DuBois "an arch race mis-leader." ^^
DuBois's many scholarly works and criticisms deserved serious
consideration, but he was not the leader of a movement. As Robert
Poston, UNIA assistant president general, said of the fight between
Garvey and DuBois, "To the credit of Dr. DuBois [he was] not
responsible for his position. As a literary man, as a lover and maker
of books, he is great. I often look upon it as a tragedy and a crime
that this man should be trotted from the holy sanctum of books out
into the wild rush of the mob, to assume any leadership. Dr. DuBois
is not rugged enough for the task. His very soul rebels against the
thought. I firmly believe he has accepted leadership because some
few misguided people have thrust it upon him and will not take it
But this has been done, and the genial Doctor someoff him.
times feels called upon to justify himself before that public which
expects it of him, by attacking Marcus Garvey, when to do this is to
native to Garveyism, found himself in 1933
tionist
Even
own
at the height
conscience."
^'^
no
labor.
60
ALTERNATIVES
ment
class
for
laborer.
modern
world.
is
first
man
in
DuBois claimed
the mid- 920s as
formulated
it
who had
accused blacks of
scabbing but refused them entry into the unions. This essay provides
a convincing explanation of the conditions
community
grationist
leader
NAACP
LeRoy Bundy
to the
to
which
move from
UNIA.^* Darkwater
as an
economic coopera-
and
this often
As
put him
early
at
* Especially in Darkwater, Dusk of Dawn, The Ordeal of Mansart (the first part
of DuBois's trilogy The Black Flame (Mainstream; New York, 1957] ) and in
his essay in The New Negro. Significantly, DuBois's theoretical writings provide
an ideological framework for the leading contemporary black power philosopher, Harold Cruse.
61
from Garvey
through
ties
with
the
"man
in
monthly magazine
in this struggle.
the
street"
came primarily
the
Crisis,
commencement speaker
at
Throughout
this
development of the theoretical basis for action. DuBois's career reflects this dilemma. As a theorist and scholar he holds a place of
immortality in the history of black liberation, but as a political
figure in the 1920s he offered little in the way of a viable alternative
to the mass movement of Marcus Garvey.
more
Garvey
both
claimed to be militant, mass-based alternatives to the status quo.*
Randolph was a moderate throughout most of his career. Though
he fought to increase the power and self-sufficiency of black
laborers, he opposed most of the basic ideas behind independent
black power. As late as 1966, Randolph described black power as
"an unfortunate combination of words. It has overtones of black
directly a competitor of
UNIA
62
ALTERNATIVES
racism." For Randolph "this concept
is
Communists
as extremist visionaries
who mix
life, Randolph did not conform to the convenimage of a trade unionist. He was an avid reader, deeply
interested in theater, particularly Shakespeare. Randolph might have
become an academic intellectual had he been able to afford such
In his personal
tional
leisurely pursuits.
organized:
boat
line,
first
among
the waiters
fired;
on
then
then called for a walkout but without a strike fund the attempt
failed and Randolph was fired again. Undaunted, he found a job as
hotel waiter-and began to organize the Headwaiters and Sidewaiters
Society of Greater
New
class.
63
in
America," was,
itself to
be
The
historians
socialism:
"They
that in an individualistic
They held
for jobs
and
the profitable use of race prejudice to the capitalist class were incen-
removal of the motive for creatwas conditioned upon the elimination of economic
individualism and competition through social revolution." ^^ It
mattered not that Randolph had failed in three attempts to unionize
blacks, nor that membership raids by established white AFL unions
which subsequently ignored blacks-hastened two of these failures,
nor that white socialists never gave sufficient funds to these efforts.
To Randolph, the need for socialism and trade unionism was an
economic axiom.
tives to race conflict; therefore, the
The bitter results of his three organizing drives may have driven
Randolph to adopt a revolutionary position for a time. In its first
years, the Messenger\ revolutionary rhetoric had an intensity rarely
equaled in American journalism. In issue after issue, Randolph and
his associates played on themes of bitter anger and imminent cataclysmic change. For "Thanksgiving," the December \9\9 Messenger
had a prayer: "First, we are especially thankful for the Russian
Revolution,
the greatest
we
were also given for the Seattle General Strike, for the militant "New
Crowd Negro" and the waning influence of the "Old Crowd Negro,"
and finally "for the new day dawning when we can celebrate a real
thanksgiving in a world of labor, with peace and plenty for all."
The Messenger extolled the Socialist Party, the Industrial Workers
64
ALTERNATIVES
of the World and the Russian Bolsheviks. "Soviet government proceed apace!" said one mid-1919 editorial. "It bids fair to sweep over
"an
industrial
laborers."^''
IWW, denounced
the
Com-
momentous
agitator. ^^
Any
radical
in the
movement and
New York
militant
NAACP
less
Such practices
led
more
militant
blacks
to
many
than half as
AFL
conventions.
denounce the
AFL
and Randolph again had to seek support from moderates,* from civil rights leaders and, finally, from conservative
in its entirety,
blacks.
still
nists are a
Department of
Justice.
constructive, progressive,
* Including
Bagnall,
William
NAACP
Pickens,
NAACP
national
leader in Detroit.
66
field
secretary,
and
Robert
ALTERNATIVES
and the UNI A, and during 1922 and 1923 the Messenger conducted
a relentless and withering attack on Garvey-"the supreme Negro
Jamaican Jackass," "clown and imperial buffoon," "monumental
monkey" and "unquestioned fool and ignoramus."^' The UNIA's
vast following made it more difficult for Randolph to denounce
Garvey in public; at one Harlem rally, Randolph was loudly booed
when he denounced Garvey as a "little half-wit Lilliputian."'*'*
Not all of Randolph's criticisms were so scurrilous. At one of
many mass anti-Garvey meetings at Harlem's Shuffle Inn Music Hall,
Randolph urged the audience to beware Garvey's alleged empirebuilding. "People now are fighting for the creation of democracies,
not of empires. The Negroes don't want to be the victims of black
despotism any more than white despotism. One gets no more consideration from black landlords than from white landlords." Randolph suggested Garvey use his fund-raising abilities to "set about
to sell her
between producers
and the owners of the world -between capitalism and labor.'"'-'
only
line
in fact is that
67
bers,
went on
hunger
strike
and
in
in-
leaders to increase
their efforts to
blacks in a
most
significant contribution to
rather than
in
forming
* The money for starting the union -for three decades a black power base
within the AFL-was made available through the Socialist-controlled Garland
Fund to the Trade Union Committee for Organizing Negro Workers, a Socialist
Party-sponsored attempt to aid the growth of the federal unions.
68
ALTERNATIVES
1929 and 1930 and in the March on
Washington in 1941.
The Brotherhood was founded early in 1925 when a delegation of
Pullman porters asked Randolph to assist them in creating a union.
With the help of Randolph and organizer Frank Crosswaith, the
BSCP was chartered in August of 1925.'^'' But the Brotherhood was
not admitted to the AFL until 1929, and then only with segregated
"federal" status. However, the BSCP differed from other colored
federal unions in that it was not a subsidiary of a larger white
black labor conferences in
international.
The Pullman company refused to talk with the porters until the
government compelled it to do so in 1935, and the first contract
was not signed until August 25, 1937-twelve years to the day from
the formative meeting of the Brotherhood. In the intervening years
the union had overcome Pullman company efforts to form a company union and fire Brotherhood members, and attempts to foment
racial antagonism by hiring large numbers of Filipino porters to
replace blacks.
bulletins
Shall
Set
You
69
coolly
which is
and political interests.'"*^
For all his concern with labor, Randolph's greatest following
came from the activist wing of the black establishment. This group
differed from other businessmen and professionals in its impatience
with the gradual progress of blacks: whereas the typical member of
the black bourgeoisie avoided struggle and was reactionary, the
minority activist wing showed a willingness to organize and to protest racial injustice openly. This elite corps (from which DuBois
sought support for his Pan-African congresses) included intellec-
these blacks were willing to form coalitions with liberal and leftwing whites. During the past half century, while this group has
dominated black society, blacks as a group have fallen relatively
farther behind whites economically, lost much of their land and the
security that went with it, failed to gain a fair share of expanded
governmental authority, and failed to neutralize white race hatred.
What caused
these failures?
in
labor,
farming, business, or
is
wrong
civil
rights
through the New Deal. They equated separatism with escapism and
refused to acknowledge that the UNIA demanded every civil liberty
and
constitutional
safeguard
sought
by the
NAACP. A
classic
Negro
James Weldon Johnson, who served as
NAACP national secretary for a decade. Johnson defined separatism
as "the making of the race into a self-contained economic, social
and cultural unit; in a word, in the building of an imperium in
imperio"; the alternative to this lay "in the making of the race into
expression
of the
Americans: What
activist
viewpoint
Now? by
70
is
presented
in
77/6'
ALTERNATIVES
a
component
national setting
may have
American struggle
in
an inter-
American
In
community and
the
political system.
activists also
developed
allies
and
ideals,
a debilitating relationship
establishment
with reactionary
power base than friendly whites. The few blac'- mkers were at the
mercy of the larger white banking establishment, and Negro businessmen usually relied on whites for supplies and capital. Black
colleges were controlled by white philanthropy-a control which
extended to curriculum and campus activities. Black civil servants
worked for government offices run by whites, and the black press
was indirectly censored by white advertisers. But as Randolph
'
and prestige in black society. Although the activists and the reactionaries sometimes agreed (as in their rejection of Marcus Garvey),
activists usually played the role of loyal opposition criticizing the
"Old Crowd Negro" for his fear of agitation and his failure to support the struggle for unions or civil rights. The old guard seemed
NAACP. Harry
ciate, (Thandler
71
of
New
all
ties
a thriving
with the
left,
import-
Messenger,
liberals
The black
make
their
developing their
own power
Though many
indivi-
mold by circumstance.
The story of Dean William Pickens provides an
the liberal
interesting
sade
and
Pickens-the-dean
got
the
better of Pickens-the-share-
NAACP
NAACP
White,
who
72
ALTERNATIVES
cropper's son. As with
many
anti-Garvey bandwagon.*
him
last
He wrote
to
of
NAACP
and black, and I believe in America for Ameriand all colors, and I believe that any of
these Americans would be foolish to give up their citizenship here
,000-year improbability in Africa or anywhere else." ^^ In
for a
Pickens's view, "The best thing is to see how best the whites and the
blacks here can get along together." ^^ Some intellectuals with relatively few white connections chose an integrationist approach
for Africans, white
cans,
native, naturalized
because of their
ties to
Woodson wrote briefly for the Negro World just after World War I,
but needed money from the black bourgeoisie to support his
Journal of Negro History and his scholarly publications on black
people. He, too, eventually joined the crusade against Garvey.
Some
intellectuals defy such categorization. The historian, socioland anthropologist Joel A. Rogers maintained an enviable freedom. He earned his academic honors in France, where he was
elected to a number of learned associations, and taught at the
Sorbonne. Rogers was free from the usual restrictions of the black
ogist
both
him
to adopt a
more conventional
UNIA
style.
(he gave
of Garveyites) and
Messenger.
many
lectures to
contributor to Randolph's
gatherings
also
pres-
by black
liberals
On
racial
that
In
all
areas
is
myth, that
man
of achievement. Some
biological race
has
all
made unique
contribu-
the
New
73
official.
work with
Baltimore, served as
death
in
UNIA
a regular
All four
no
intelligent black
man
One
many
militants today.
nationalist organization
program favored by
first
left-wing black
first
organizations to con-
States.* Information
so
much of
admit
its
its
This
last
of the
At
least
scenes in black
People's National Party, which led the fight for Jamaican independence.
74
ALTERNATIVES
occurred in a tense climate: the local ABB had announced a
few weeks earlier that it would stop any attempt at lynching in
Tulsa-with physical force, if necessary. The threat was not an idle
one; the ABB's monthly, the Crusader, often discussed "the necessity of the use of force to get our rights." " and ABB branches held
weekly "Calisthenics Club" sessions. The Brotherhood, the Crusader
arrest
reported,
first
it
in front
man
in
of the
the riot
jail,
gang of
tried to take a
gun from him. In the ensuing scuffle the white was shot, and
was on.
The blacks "made an orderly retreat," established defensive posiwhich separated the races in Tulsa, and
repulsed repeated white charges. The governor of Oklahoma then
tions at the railroad tracks
men
riot.
Guards-
its
withdrew so the white mobs could return.^* A private plane was hired to drop dynamite bombs on the black neighborhood. Robert Abbott of the Defender, ever eager for good Dixie
atrocity photographs, outdid himself on the Tulsa riot. His newspaper carried two large photos showing entire neighborhoods leveled
by the aerial bombings and ground fire.^^ There was some consolation in this riot: the black defense action was to bear fruit for other
residents, then
The
ABB
attract
75
become
Brotherhood
official.
The
ABB
Domingo and
the
five
planned which would admit only the best and most courageous of
the race. This inner organization was to function under strict military discipline, ready to act at a moment's notice "whenever defense
ABB
agents were
army"
all business ventures into large coopproposed federation would, like "every big organization, develop certain property in the shape of buildings
farms,
etc." But these would be the "cooperative property of all members
of the organization, and administered by members elected for the
purpose. Under no circumstances should such property be operated
under corporation titles written over to a few individuals."
eratives; the
While
it
76
ALTERNATIVES
compete
in
number of
Negro workers." In the interim, "The only effective way to secure
better conditions and steady employment in America is to organize
ist
and-file
advertising offered
"Sick and
In-
^^
late 1920s.
leftists,
who
held
proponent
of
race-first
philosophy.
1912
In
the
twenty-
in
In
dents to use the economic boycott. Briggs admitted there were too
many white-owned
businesses to
make
a total
nesses.
When
Briggs
began to display
Amsterdam News,
the publisher
his
nationalist opinions in
demanded the
the
Serbs-Why Not
for Colored Nations?" Briggs noted that President Wilson called for
nothing of colonies
cost
in Africa,
The editorial
impediment he
November 19 18- with help
in
passioned three-hour
From
the
first
lecture.^''
the
ABB
socialist
views
who
One of these was Richard B. Moore, who worked with the Garveyite
John Bruce as the American agent for Duse Mohammed's African
Times and Orient Review. Brotherhood members who worked within the
UNIA
UNIA
organizer;
included
78
ALTERNATIVES
1920 Crusader. Briggs defined
Garvey movement as "friendly and constructive" rather than "destructive and malicious," and suggested
how the UNIA might best prepare for a forthcoming convention.
ABB members contributed to the development of Garveyism as
individuals and, indirectly, through the writings of Briggs and others
in the Crusader. Briggs 's "Race Catechism," cited earlier, was an
important statement of black nationalist principles. It called for
great sacrifice of life itself "if need be"-not in the name of the
working class, or of humanity, but "to attain for the race that
greatness in arms, in commerce, in art, the three combined without
Federation" for
his
criticisms
of the
fwhich
his place as a
spokesman of black
November 1919 he could still argue symnumerous nationahst ideas, including emigration:
we
are, in a hell
injustice, inequality,
ican
mobocracy."
'"'
As he wrote
ideological guidance.
later,
were derived from the enlightened attitude of the Russian Bolshetoward national minorities. ... I believed then and still believe
viks
Communists had
Party.
ialist
''^
Briggs
wasn't
in the
Messenger crowd.
79
My
interest in
communism was
who use the term so loosely, we will make the statement that
we would not for a moment hesitate to ally ourselves with any
group, if by such an alliance we could compass the liberation of our
race and the redemption of our Fatherland. A man pressed to earth
asses
human
Briggs
nature."
believed
''^
that
thorough
revolution
was necessary
for
tually
aid
concluded that
the
all
"self-preservation"
is
delineated in
Germany."
''^
Four
[will
in
seem quite able to live together without engaging in race wars, mob
violence, and the fiendish torture of human beings, which are so
freely and heartily indulged in on this side of the Rio Grande, and
which more than any other thing in contemporary American history
are the salient and identifying features of the much vaunted American civilization."
Briggs
as
80
oil
and
ALTERNATIVES
mineral wealth by American "capitalists and their junkers" who
could justify their action because Mexico was "peopled by a colored
race"
respect.''^
struggles,
when
its
to
a contract
with the
UNIA,
few
ABB members
left in
the
ABB member on
his "socialist
and
allied leanings";''*
an
November
UNIA
doing
much
know of
know of
the
Ferris,
England
the international
81
UNIA, with
official
blessing.
Unofficial
separation.
ABB
consideration
ABB."**'
Though
to
the
printed
ABB
Rose Pastor Stokes was the wife of J. C. Phelps Stokes, the socialist philanwhose foundation donated money to numerous black colleges and
universities. She was far more radical than he, but nonetheless was the wife of a
man who had helped found the anti-Garveyite NAACP. The Garveyite rejection
of Mrs. Stokes was probably influenced as much by this connection as by UNIA
opinion on communism.
thropist
82
ALTERNATIVES
turally as the
ABB-but
at least
to dictate, but in
won
the support of
many
doing.
The Garveyites broke with the ABB, then, because of the Brotherhood's extremism, not because of white Communist Party inWithout such
fluence.
although
it
a coalition, the
survived until the late 1920s. Yet Garvey also lost, as the
ABB
^^
Klan
in
is
on the Ku Klux
of the white race against the entire Negro race. Whether the Negro
race meets the issue courageously, demonstrating its essential humanity, or in cowardly surrender to the enemy, it will be war just
the same war against the Negro race. Whether other elements of the
white race will eventually be drawn into the cracker onslaught
against our rights and lives remains to be seen. History indicates its
extreme Ukelihood. The only certainties are (1) that it is war, (2)
that the white government of the United States will take no effective steps to protect us in our rights, (3) that the white North and
our so-called white friends will continue apathetic to our wrongs or
."^* Certainly not the
at best maintain a benevolent neutrality.
words of a man who has sold out to white radicals. Perhaps history
should honor Briggs for his nerve. Yet while there can be no
compromise with truth, there can surely be tact when it comes to
.
strategy.
83
ticism.
Huizwood helped
that part of
its
potential allies."*^
The program
on the
who have
is
the balance of
who would
tical
my
seek to
natural
life.
kill
who
Government.
The American Negro is warned to keep
away from communism, as it is taught in this country; he should
work, watch and wait for his own opportunity, which is largely of
tion of
his
own
doing."**
build
efforts
new
federation
culminated
in
ABB
among
large
meeting
in
New
leftists.
Its
Sanhedrin,*^ which quickly degenerated into a shouting match between moderates and radicals. By 1924 Briggs was trying to make
amends with Garvey: posing as a white man, he secretly purchased a
ship for the UNIA through his ship-broker friend Anthony
Crawford.''' But Briggs lost any chance for a rapprochement later
that same year when Brotherhood members who had infiltrated the
UNIA convention were rebuffed in their demand for a declaration
84
ALTERNATIVES
Ku Klux
of war on the
ABB
handle some of
in
Haywood, a compatriot of
World War I veteran who found Garvey too reformist,
said that leaders dropped out of the ABB because "it was wrong to
think twelve million Negroes could obtain freedom on their own,
when they were such a minority in the nation as a whole." '"
The Brotherhood itself has now been dead for nearly half a
century, but contemporary black revolutionaries have African,
Asian and Latin American models, while Briggs and his followers
had only the Soviet Union as a convincing example of successful
social revolution. This obscured the valid, revolutionary aspects of
Garveyism which the African Blood Brotherhood had helped to
its
Briggs and a
create.*
* * *
'
One
UNIA
stands out
beyond
all
others-the
commonly known
branches
Abyssinians
of 1920,
as the
came
first
when
Washington,
Detroit,
in
and
D.C.,
New
York,'^
their leader,
the
summer
which
in the heart
charred remains.
Two
seek reinforcements
policeman
who remained
Redding could
white sailor
ignite
who
it,
tried
to
remove
revolvers.
a
second
One
flag
left
to
black
before
An
we
* Years after Ben Burrell had joined (then left) the communist movement,
Garveyites continued to sing his Universal Ethiopian Anthem (see appendix 1).
85
St.
Louis race
^'
Jonas formed
leader.
izer
*In the opinion of Garveyite John Bruce, Jonas was "a confessed British spy,
working among Negroes in this country to stir up trouble." In a Negro World
editorial Bruce concluded, "We always suspected him of being a spy, and he
was kicked out of one of our meetings in Liberty Hall for this reason." '*
86
ALTERNATIVES
thought Jonas out of place
is
hidden
in the hearts
of
many
black American.
never
made
public. ^s
87
THE
ORIGINS
OF THE UNIA
THE FIVE YEARS from its founding in 1914 through the end of
UNI A became a dominant force among blacks in the
IN
1919, the
Marcus Garvey
visited
and worked
in nearly a
dozen countries on
many of
his
myths and prepared them to develop original ideas and proUNIA leader had become disillusioned about the
possibility of working through accepted channels: journalists who
had been fired for telling the truth, ministers excommunicated for
attempting to reform the church, politicians who had tried in vain
to work through traditional processes all joined the movement.
racial
Garvey had
racial
the
at first
espoused the
liberal
movement
to achieve
91
inter-
its
this perspective.
Although Marcus Garvey was a man of unique talent, his background was in many ways similar to the backgrounds of many of his
followers. An outline of Garvey's early life is therefore informative,
not only because it helps explain an important historic figure, but
also because it shows the experiences which influenced others to
join him. Garvey was born, the youngest of eleven children, in the
small coastal town of St. Ann's Bay on the island of Jamaica,
August 17, 1887. He was said to be descended from the Maroons,
who had governed a virtually independent black nation in the mountains of Jamaica from 1664 to 1795, and who remain a distinct
group to this day. Their glory lives in the minds and hearts of black
Jamaicans and Garvey carried their spirit beyond his island to the
entire world of colored peoples. Perhaps because of his Maroon
heritage, he was always proud of his full-blooded blackness.'
During Garvey's youth, around the turn of the century, many
large sugar plantations were being shifted to banana cultivation,
which required relatively few workers. Thousands of jobless Jamaicans became contract laborers on new plantations in the coastal
areas of Central America: some forty thousand migrated to Cuba
alone, and thousands more emigrated to the United States.^
St. Ann's Bay felt the squeeze. Garvey abandoned his formal
education at fourteen and took a job in the printing trade with a
relative in Kingston. His family could only afford to send him
through the few years of education provided in the Jamaican public
schools, but the headmaster, impressed with Garvey's grasp of world
events and his artistic abilities, had been tutoring him without
charge. The young Garvey's artistic and social interests echoed those
of his father, a skilled stonemason whose sizable private library and
broad general knowledge won him community respect.*
In Kingston, young Garvey learned the printing trade and
* According to his widow, Garvey's personality is best reflected in a picture
of the young Marcus hiking into the lonely mountains of Jamaica to sit for
hours looking out to sea, meditating on visions of greatness for his people.
Others close to Garvey describe him as alternating between delivering extemporaneous speeches and being lost in deep contemplation.
92
ORIGINS
watched through
OFTHEUNIA
unem-
their leader.
The employers
carried
may have
left
man."-'
Yet Garvey was only beginning to interpret the workers' oppresBetween 1910 and 1911. Garvey traveled and
worked in Panama. Nicaragua, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela and
Ecuador and observed injustice based on color in each country.
These experiences influenced his later emphasis on an international
sion in terms of color.
Mohammed
hue.
land,
93
The
rule.
Mohammed
it
led
revoto
On
on
The monthly magazine was started in 1912 with funds Mohamreceived from the sale of his lengthy history of late nineteenth-century Egypt, In the Land of the Pharaohs. In this volume
med had
government
Mohammed
built
upon Egyptian
political
and
social tradi-
am
mode
identified
expedite
In
the
its
interment,"'' he wrote.
Land of
months
after the
1882
uprising.
Mohammed
94
few
describes well-attended
at the
non-Mohammedan
tic
Among
the
council "comprised
all
Mohammed,
the
Pasha Arabi, a
man
of the Prophet."
of the "peasant
"^
Mohammed
class
it
may
aside
is
so
be universally applied to
all
his social
and
political
views to
have Europeans,
it
is
logical
articles
among
Mohammed
himself was
in
The
American
short-lived
socialist
weekly Appeal
to
He could
Reason because
it
95
is
because
pret
them
as a call to action.
Marcus Garvey learned from Mohammed and, in turn, contributed to some early issues of the African Times, as did a broad
range of black leaders and future UNIA officials. In one article,
Garvey ventured "that there will soon be a turning point in the
history of the West Indies, and that people who inhabit that portion
of the Western Hemisphere will be the instruments of uniting a
scattered Race, who before the close of many centuries will found
an empire on which the sun shall shine as ceaseless as it shines on
'^
the Empire of the North today."
A frequent contributor to Mohammed's journal was William
Ferris, a college professor and later a leading UNIA official. Ferris
foresaw an end to "the arrogance and presumption of the AngloSaxon, who was indebted to the Jews for his religion, to the Ethiopians, Egyptians and Greeks for his philosophy and theology, to
and much
the Romans for his law and colonial administration
from India in philosophy." '"
Among the many who were moved by such statements was the
young African George O. Marke. Marke had gone to Oxford from a
missionary school in Sierra Leone and returned to his homeland to
work in the civil service, eventually to be discharged for his mili.
96
theUNIA.'^
James B. Yearwood was another future
by
Mohammed's magazine. An
UNIA
itinerant
leader influenced
laborer
and part-time
school teacher from the British West Indies, he had helped dig the
Panama
Canal.
Some
his
children.
On
Panama; he
Yearwood became
a leader
among
blacks inter-
Coast.'**
97
his journal,
associated with
Moham-
his
correspondence.*
Garvey
from
read
first
Booker
Washington's autobiography.
T.
Mohammed
in
Up
London. Though he
Washington's conservatism, he then believed the autobiography symbolized the aspirations of the race. Years later Garvey
later rejected
could
doom if
...
and
his
kingdom? Where
is
declared,
men of
'I
will
help
make
and
his
ambas-
big affairs?'
August
all
his
1,
Conservation
Association
UNIA.t
The new organization issued
it had no definite program. Its
trial and error. In the UNIA's
a general
tactics
first
the
fBy 1917
98
title,
and
little
hope of dealing
fruitfully with
London Times
UNIA
carried a
in the
war
effort. ^^
do something to help
in
promoting
we
among
Locally,
are suffering
ourselves,
skinned Negroes.
John Bruce has sketched Garvey as a new arrival in America: "I was
among the first American Negroes on whom he called. He was a
little, sawed-off hammered down black man, with determination
written all over his face, and an engaging smile that caught you and
.Mr. Garvey is a rapid-fire
compelled you to listen to his story.
.
speaker (and
when he
delivers a speech]
two stenographers
are
list
of "our leading
99
men
in
New York
and
who
him."^'
UNIA message to
America-not that Garvey himself was idle: by the summer of 1917
he had lectured in Boston, Atlanta, Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Detroit, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Louiscities
People
like
felt
assist
masses.
^^
two years
UNIA
two divisive
The first fight
involved Duse Mohammed, who, in a letter to one of Garvey's
opponents, made serious charges against Garvey's character. The
letter was read at a meeting of the New York Association and
started a power struggle which resulted in the loss of all but fifty
members.^'' Contributing to their fight in 1917 was the fact that
In its first
splits
in
America, the
new
faced
organizations.
100
recently
rebuilt
following.
(Duncan
renamed
later
his
Garvey held
^*
much
movement
growth a
consequence of the race wars of 1919. In the spring of that year,
Garvey followed his earlier nationwide tour with a whirlwind excursion through thirty-eight states, issuing calls for racial unity through
one great organization the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Events had clarified his ideas, sharpened his oratory and enhanced his appeal. The many hours he had spent in his youth studying the speeches and techniques of great orators of the past were
soared into the hundreds of thousands, with
of
this
now
the appeal of a
man
all
who would
listen.
One reason
for the
amazing success of
this tour
was unexpected:
owned steamships
back to
their
homeland.
way
cities.
to coordinate black
com-
mercial enterprises throughout the world, but his listeners found the
UNIA
office
his tour
ended
When
Garvey moved hastily, and the Black Star Line was incorporated
under the laws of the State of Delaware in May of 1919. Shares in
the company sold at five dollars each (in an attempt to keep it a
joint venture of the race,
hundred
no
individual could
shares).
101
own more
than two
charters
money
ey for their
them:
own
Amy
article. In localities
where
I their
%
much-needed
uplift in status
and pay
women
for
all
pointed the
engaged
102
UNIA
way
to a
housework
was its police
in
ment.
1920 the organization created an international leadership comtwo dozen titled offices, and in 1922 the Noble Order
of the Knights of the Nile was created to honor leaders of the race
both in and out of the movement. During 1919 the UNIA began to
buy and rent property for what would become cooperative grocery
stores, restaurants, laundries, garment factories, dress shops, a greeting card company, a millinery, a phonograph record company and a
publishing house. Most of these businesses were made part of the
Negro Factories Corporation, an economic cooperative whose directors were elected annually at UNIA conventions.
In
prising nearly
all
No mere
its first
share in the Black Star Line gave the black American, at least vicar-
103
In
large
part,
aimed
autonomous
at reconciling
black unity. The ultimate goal was the liberation of black nationals
country in the world. "The difference between the UniNegro Improvement Association and other movements of this
country," wrote Garvey, ".
is that the Universal Negro Improvement Association seeks independence of government, while the
other organizations seek to make the Negro a secondary part of
existing governments."^' However, the Garveyites did see the need
to become involved in electoral politics but on behalf of a group of
blacks ignored by other black organizations. As one Garveyite wrote
in the Negro World: "The NAACP appeals to the Beau Brummel,
Lord Chesterfield, kid-gloved, silk stocking, creased-trousered.
in every
versal
UNIA
appeals to the
"^^
appeals to the 'Hoi Polloi.'
In short, Garveyite politics was for the black masses those who
/had labored on slave plantations-while traditional politics was the
"house Negroes" who had worked within and
/ province of the
around the master's house, and enjoyed better clothing and lodging,
I
and often a close (if stilted) relationship with the master. During
Reconstruction, the house Negroes had been grudgingly allowed to
I
hold political office and push for minimal reforms. But the field
Negroes sought the revolutionary "forty acres and a mule." In the
1890s, when most Negro politicians held fast to Republicanism, the
"field Negroes" had organized their own Colored Farmers Alliance
I
and joined the militant Populist Party. And in 1919, while the black
bourgeoisie rallied around the NAACP, the black masses fiocked to
104
sive
money
many new
105
THE
GARVEY
MOVEMENT
IN ITS
PRIME
UNIA
Dr.
included
fair
among
its
fifty-seven
York.
The
UNIA
selecting subjects
to
number of
rules,
and
affairs to build
1919.
key
of
role, taking
call
work of
its
New York
to their ports
UNIA
gatherings.
groups
in
delegates.
The UNIA
also
enlarged
the
J.
D.
Gordon,
New
York.^
PRIME
IN ITS
Recruiting in
Africa
proved extremely
difficult.
The French-
language edition of the Negro World had been banned in the French
colonies soon after
its first
appearance; prohibition
in British
West
who attempted
Nevertheless,
movement
closely. Garveyites
from
Sierra
Leone
UNIA
UNIA
mayor of Monrovia,
at
one
UNIA
convention
illustrates
quota system
allowed precisely one-half of one Liberian to enter the United States
in July of 1921. Only the most strenuous protest convinced officials
this was insane.^ (African representation at the conventions may
have been more impressive than the official lists show, since many
African UNIA members were forced to use false names and work
difficulty
in
finding
African
clandestinely.)''
Ill
delegates:
the
UNI A convention
delegates
movement, and-especially
1920-a
in
William
in the
Delegates poured
into
Harlem
all
sentatives.'"
list
of griev-
and was to elect international officers. Special commitwere to report on such subjects as "The Negro and Business
Opportunities" and "The Negro in Electoral Politics." The convention was scheduled to run the entire month of August (the pattern
for succeeding conventions), including two full weeks for deliberations on the Declaration of Rights and the Constitution, with each
delegate given fifteen minutes to present ideas for the Declaration.
Evenings were given over to speeches by various luminaries and to
musical and other artistic presentations.
for the race
tees
112
IN ITS
PRIME
members of
their race.
discusBritain
"We
man
in it."
many UNIA
divisions,
geographical lines
were drawn and each area was given one vote. This method distributed two hundred voting units among the two thousand official
delegates. More than five thousand Garveyites participated in the
convention
in
unofficial representatives.*
three
alike.
113
new songs of
tlio
"Down
Dead and Buried," "Join the Fight for Freedom," and "Africa Must
Be Free." Two marchers at the head of the Woman's Auxiliary bore a
large banner marked "God Give Us Real Men!" (TTie feminist movement of the 1920s drew strong support from Garveyite women.) As
one participant remembered it: "Hundreds of thousands of people
and watched the parade from windows (for which
took part
many had to pay) and sidewalks. Tlie onlookers could not help but
catch the spirit of the occasion; they clapped, waved flags and
Here indeed were New Negroes on
cheered themselves hoarse.
.
eyes to achieve
The
first
it."
'"
excitement reached
way
until
we
win.
.
We
will
begin by fram-
United States means that every white American should shed his
blood to defend that Constitution. The Constitution of the Negro
race will mean that every Negro will shed his blood to defend his
114
is
for the
One man
in the
We
IN ITS
PRIME
audience yelled
we mean
it;
at the
"Wherever
is
shall
be for
it."
"No more
go, whether
find that
no room
am
it
told this
for a nigger.
be
is
The
"Grandfather
eligible to vote
115
UNIA
declaration
is
now
last
its
its
twelve
fifty-four
its
political separatism,
of the
representative
the professions.
The
tives
first
demand
reads, in part:
of the Negro peoples of the world, invoking aid of the just and
all
citizens,
Number
fifty-two adds:
"We demand
that
in all
human
tion wherever
treaty agreements.
Demand
that
many
blacks would
become
in-
116
four
within
of the Declaration of
demands
that
black
PRIME
IN ITS
communities
in
white countries be
to the concept of
black nationalism the idea of a parallel struggle for separatism protected under the law.
reads:
"We
protest
commented
editorial
mon on
the Mount.
ness applicable to
Amendment
men
to the United
Ser-
everywhere.
It is
UNIA wanted
Tlie
social institutions
And
for blacks
demands
as the aliens."
Some of
two
mon
the
demands
man
Demand number
man as a com-
and given to
is
it
now
right that
all
such things
is
equally uncompromising:
"We
believe
all
men
should
live
peace one with the other, but when races and nations provoke the
ire of other races and nations by attempting to infringe upon their
in
117
war becomes
inevitable,
in
any way to
free
"We
condemn
strongly
or secret
we
place
would be allowed
in free Africa,
be stopped.
UNIA
speech
a cynical
and
fascistic side,
universally
determination of
all
for
all
men"
(point
twenty-five);
"the
self-
dom
men
to
justice;
but
calls
in the
rights
on
"all
name of
we claim
nationalism
UNIA
in
in
inter-
Africa
(e.g.,
118
IN ITS
PRIME
in effect.
The
call
Caribbean as to the
UNIA
cities
And
the
Improvement Association, and a ringing answer to critics who disUNIA as merely a "Back to Africa" movement. The
Negro World analyzed the declaration under five banner headlines
which provide a capsule view of the way Garveyites were expected
to relate to the complex manifesto. The lead headline ran: "Declaration of Independence of the Negro Race"; the second, "The Negro
Emancipates Himself and Has Become Really Free"; the third, "All
Negroes to Obey Declaration of Rights and Not to Allow Any Other
Race to Infringe upon Same"; the fourth, "31st of August Each
Year an International Holiday for the Race"; and the tlfth, "No
Negro Will Go to War Except with the Approval of the World
Leader of the Race."^ Historians who have discussed the Garvey
missed the
movement have
paid
little
it
it
entirely.
social,
[socialist.
who
and inspiration
in the
achievement of the Garveyites of 1920. Their program fixed, Garveyites set about electing an international leadership, including a
the
many honorary
titles
119
in
UNIA
UNIA's reputation, the two top offices in the hierarchy were the
only two that could be considered "honorary." The position of
potentate- "titular head of
all
world"-was
Mayor Gabriel Johnson of
(The UNIA hoped to make Liberia
black people of the
may
in rank -deputy
potentate-went to George O. Marke, the Oxford-trained civil servant from Sierra Leone, who would work many years for the UNIA,
offi-
throughout the many UNIA conventions in fact, the first convention was unable to fill many minor offices because no one had
obtained the needed two-thirds majority. Opponents of the UNIA
called Garvey a dictator, but these battles for office belie this
assumption -for instance, Garvey himself nominated attorney
Vernal Williams "assistant president general" in 1920, but the
120
IN ITS
PRIME
tion fund drives. Brooks turned much of his work over to James
Yearwood. claiming the job was impossible for one man. The
UNIA's banker was High Chancellor Clifford Bourne of Guatemala.
Lady Henrietta Vinton Davis held the office of international organizer for a decade. Other offices included surgeon general, a post
regularly given to a medical doctor, who would manage UNIA
health and death benefits, and ministers of industries and of labor to
dominant
who
McGuire,
figure
chaired
the
is
most avaricious of
races.
Not
content with Europe, they took part of Asia and Africa. Then they
came over here and took America from the red man, and because he
would not work for them, they brought members of our race from
Africa. They call us the white man's burden, and I hope that the
burden will keep him down until we get back to our homeland. We
don't want anything from the white man except what is ours by
divine right. The white people say they want humility from the
Negro, but what they really seek is servility. We must go as missionaries among the whites, and teach them the everlasting brotherhood
of man."^" Early in 1922 McGuire founded the African Orthodox
Church, an attempt to develop
himself ordained as
first
his assistant
He had
bishop.
the
work of
in the
American
West Indies- South and Central America, and the post of leader of
the western province of the West Indies. Captain E. L. Gaines served
as minister
training
many
of legions for
UNIA
drill
years, traveling
units.
homeland
commissioner,
registrar
UNIA
diplomat and
general,
121
its
officers
tioned as do
for
potentate,
UNIA was
members
served as
offices
To
sell
UNIA
were
affairs
UNIA
company
officials.
Star's
line's
affairs
at
more
And
membership meetings of an economic cooperative than those of a capitalist corporation. The rule
forbidding any individual to own more than two hundred of the
five-dollar shares did give a semblance of membership control, and
like
122
IN ITS
PRIME
five
much
Though no
fallen us."
large profits
paid.^''
questioning
among many
in
a season for
Garveyites.
*
UNIA
conventions
at their conventions.
It is
as revels
of merry-
"soul"
UNIA
con-
who
in political struggle.
J.
for the
had played with the James Reese Europe military band, which with
its avant-garde music had created a sensation in France during the
war. Ford's UNIA band performed at fund-raising events around the
country, as well as at the conventions.
Outside musical celebrities and talented
regularly
at
the
conventions.
members appeared
"As you
enter,
your
first
impression
flags;
is
is
names of various
was
theme
the
^^
And many
noses.
the
Negro,
ment,
etc.
debate.
Day
how
trivial: at
the annual
Women's
124
PRIME
IN ITS
UNIA women
vigorously protested
"A
bold state-
and
law.
still
of emigration to Africa. After years of discusworld-wide black political party, the 1924 convention
about
sion
money
for
and other-
issues in
make
opposed them
for black
in the
two
areas.
enthusiastic
Indian revolt
against
Britain
(later
Man of
Sorrows: (2)
The Canonization of the Virgin Mary as a Negress: (3) The Idealization of God as a Holy Spirit without physical form, but a Creature
of
125
motherland Africa."
Industrial growth covered: "(1) The development of Liberia,
Abyssinia and Haiti as independent Black nations, and other countries where Negroes form a majority of the population, i.e., Jamaica,
Barbados, Trinidad, British Guiana, British Honduras, and other
Islands of the West Indies and Africa. (2) Ways and means of adjusting the race problem of the Southern States of the United States of
America to the satisfaction of all concerned. (3) Ways and means of
correctly educating white people to the needs and desires of the
Negro race."
Negro race as
principles
that
laying
down
the
and
to the real meaning of society,
should guide those who are desirous of becoming socially distinctive. (2) Creating an atmosphere around the young generation of the
Social topics: "(1) Discussing the educating of the
On commerce:
them
all
Negro com-
exchange business enterprises in all Negro communities. (3) Encouramong and between Negroes of commercial and indus-
aging travel
trial
professions."
Education: "(1) Discussing the formulation of a code of education especially for Negroes. (2) The censoring of all literature placed
in the
own
ideals."
Amending
126
IN ITS
Improvement Association
as
PRIME
found necessary. (2)
Improvement
Association."
And under
tion of a closer
objects of the
Ku Klux
and
of the white race as they affect the Negro. (4) Discussing the progress
of a white Canada,
An
especially as such
problems
Negroes
to
them of
now
being exercised by
^^
^weekly Negro
127
UNIA membership
card.-*^
Edicts prohibiting the Negro World often helped rally support for
now
some time
or
"
later,
even
the world
if all
is
smuggled the paper into the colony, but the governor would not lift
the ban-a grievance which contributed to the uprising at Belize in
July 1919. This revolt caused $100,000 in damage, and a British
to put
it
down when
proved uninterested
in
maintaining the
in
from the Daily Worker ("U.S. Capitalists Have New Way to Free
Ethiopia Slaves;" "Are the Philippines a Chinese Problem?"; "SaccoVanzetti
Petitions
Signed").
Tlie
editors
subscribed
to
papers
around the world, and often re-used material from the Gold Coast
Leader, Gold Coast Times, Belize, Honduras, Independent, Panama
*
at
The October 22, 1921, edition, for example, carried stories on new divisions
Moron in the Camagiiey province of Cuba, and at New Bern, Connecticut. It
account of
UNIA
organizing
in
Syracuse,
New
York.
'
IN ITS
PRIME
Abantu Batho
Rand
Daily
One H. H. Weed,
for
crisis
many
Mohammed
Ali.
One of
who had
started
parents.
129
Amy
with
editor-in-chief of the
Women
and
Negro World, he
members of the staff. In its last years the UNIA weekly was edited
by Hucheswar G. Mugdal, who came to the United States from
,Hubli, India, by way of Trinidad.''^
Women played a significant role in the growth of the Universal
Negro Improvement Association. They enjoyed equal status with
men at conventions and in divisions, and participated freely in the
debates and voting. True, women attended their own group meetings and each branch had a "lady president" to handle "those departments of the organization over which she may be able to exercise better control than the male president." But the recognition of
femininity, the special clubs, etc., did not create sexual apartheid in
UNIA
the
as
it
did in
many
The international organizer Henrietta Vinton Davis ("Lady Vinton") was one of the few women to hold a key position in any
major political organization at that time. Beyond this, the UNIA's
progressive stand earned support from leading women in all walks of
life.
Ledia Walker, daughter of the inventor of the nation's leading hairstraightening process-was an ardent Garvey backer. Charlotta
Bass,
later
an important
political
figure
in
California,
and the
for a
buildings in
New York
City,
assistant president
130
own
Back-to-Africa
Madame M.
in
the
mid- 1930s.
IN ITS
Assistant
PRIME
international
organizer
in
a position in
the International, and her full value has never been recognized.
The
editorials.'*'*
Amy
Jacques was
woman
nique of turning their small talk into political debates. She found
most men would disappear when a woman competed as an intellectual equal, but Garvey accepted her terms. Amy Jacques and Marcus
Garvey were drawn together in her respect for his creative genius
and his admiration for her intellectual prowess. Early in 1922 they
were married.
Garvey had broken with his first wife. Amy Ashwood. because,
according to Amy Jacques, the first Mrs. Garvey offered him diversion rather than assistance.* The two Mrs. Garveys held contrasting
views of the role of the rebellious female. For example, both
worked for the radical Peoples National Party of Jamaica in the
1940s- Amy Jacques editing the party newspaper and Amy Ash-
wood running
involvement
in politics represented a
Amy
Jacques'
Amy
* Though newspaper accounts and letters strongly suggest the first Mrs. Garvey
was without principle, Herbert Hill, who worked closely with both women in
the Jamaican PNP, believes Amy Ashwood to have been a sincere black mili-
131
politics as
one way to
live
capacity;
parties
made suggestions for the "larger usewomen." Reports of women freeing themselves from male
bondage in Africa and Asia often appeared. One told of the "liberadevelop their individuality or
fulness of
"Egyptian
* Few Garveyites established such rapport with their leader, who was generally
considered to be unpredictable. James Yearwood, UNIA secretary general,
relates a typical scene in the Association offices in which he and Garvey were
quietly sifting through paperwork when suddenly Garvey jumped up and began
to expound on some new idea that Yearwood had never heard before.''*
132
household and
is
IN ITS
promote "natural"
PRIME
The Garveyites
didn't go
what
uniforms worn by
not carry advertisements for bleaching creams. The only line of hair
straighteners advertised
UNIA
The
adopt
new
like
many
others,
was under-
was increasingly challenged by secular realities: it offered few conproblems of urban life and was
no
longer the
sought to
demned
make
community's only
social
center.
The Garveyites
dictatorial
ministers
who
bullied
the
title
were from
the lower ranks of black church hierarchies. Of some two hundred
black ministers listed in Xht Negro Yearbook throughout the 1920s,
only
all
Churchmovement could
African Orthodox
in
the
The
* Ledia Walker, whose product served so many black women who wished to be
white and accepted, was herself a dark-skinned child of poverty-until her
mother discovered the process which would make her rich. Frantic promotion
of the hair straightener drove the elder Madame Walker to an early grave in
1919. At the funeral, the bereaved daughter announced she was donating
$5,000 to the NAACP campaign for a federal anti-lynch law. The A'e^ro World
promptly criticized the young heiress, suggesting her money could be better
used as part of a UNIA "fund for the purpose of purchasing a house in which
poor colored persons about to be evicted by autocratic landlords might receive
shelter." '9 Madame Walker, who could have taken this as an affront, turned
instead toward the UNIA, and soon became one of its few wealthy black
supporters.
133
For many Garveyites, the UNIA itself was a religion and Marcus
Garvey "the Black Moses." William Ferris, speaking of the spiritual
doldrums into which the black man had fallen, commented, "Then
in the spring of 1918 Marcus Garvey appeared upon the scene like
John the Baptist." The Reverend R. R. Porter, writing in the Negro
World, described Garveyism as a religion: "I do not know whether
or not Marcus Garvey
world
new
is
aware of the
fact that
he has. ... To
me
true Garveyism
which is sane, practical, inspiring and satisfying." As
with any devout believer, a true Garveyite "holds fast to that which
he believes is best Garveyism. ... He is true to himself, others and
his religion through the right understanding of One God, One Aim,
One Destiny [the UNIA motto] he shall enjoy life and live abundantly in the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, and know that Africa
"
shall once more become the land of the Good, Strong, and Wise."
Garvey himself, though raised in a Roman Catholic family, rarely
attended mass or confession; his funeral ceremony was presided over
by religious representatives of several denominations. The UNIA
is
religion; nevertheless,
a religion
leadership included a
people, but
the
number of
organization's
segment of black society most addicted to religion. For these members the UNIA had its own clericalism. Thus even the bitterly antichurch Samuel Haynes, president of the Pittsburgh division, found
himself leading the singing of hymns at weekly meetings.
In Garveyite theology, blacks were the chosen people of God.
"We are somewhat like the Hebrews. Like them we have left our
native land and have no place to go," said Bishop McGuire. "
Garveyites often noted their similarities with Zionists. The Jewish
people could have Palestine, "why not the Negroes another Palestine
in Africa?" ran an argument presented at the 1922 UNIA convention. (The Yiddish press, in turn, showed interest in the Garveyites
and sent reporters to UNIA conventions.) A sizable minority of New
York Garveyites were black Jews-some six hundred marched in a
special contingent of the 1922 convention parade, and Rabbi
J. Arnold
Ford, the Association's musical director, had adopted
Judaism long before he joined the Garvey movement, bringing most
134
IN ITS
PRIME
of his Beth B'nai congregation with him. Ford had hoped Judaism
would be adopted as the official Garveyite religion: instead, the
African Orthodox Church founded by Bishop McGuire in 1921
became the nearest thing to an official UNIA denomination.
McGuire had himself ordained bishop of the new faith by an archbishop in the Greek Orthodox Church; this, McGuire said, gave him
apostolic succession through Ignatius Peter III, the 26th successor
of St. Peter as Bishop and Patriarch of Antioch, making his church
purer and more "orthodox" than that of the Roman Catholics or
the Protestant denominations of America.^''
For McGuire this was the climax to a unique personal odyssey.
The tall, deep-voiced, dark-hued prelate had come to New York
from his native Antigua before the turn of the century. He preached
primarily in Negro churches of the basically white Episcopal denomination, but also gave visiting sermons before white congregations
which on one occasion included J. P. Morgan. In 1903 McGuire
moved to Arkansas to proselytize among the poor. There he ran into
the ugliness of Jim Crow and also into Bishop Montgomery Brown.
Tliis white communist preacher of revolution and brotherhood,
"Bad Bishop Brown. "doubtless contributed to McGuire 's militancy,
but the latter's radicalism was to take a different course. When
Brown was denounced by organized religion, McGuire concluded that
the white Christian denominations in America were too infested
with racism to benefit the black man. In 1919 McGuire returned to
New York, hoping to be appointed bishop to Liberia. When the post
was given to a white man. McGuire turned to Garveyism.^^ Next to
Garvey himself. Reverend McGuire was the UNIA official most
quoted in the white press and the man most often identified by
outsiders who referred to radicalism in the Garvey movement.
On the question of God's identity. McGuire held the position that
"God is not a Negro: a spirit is nothing physical. But in one's
prayers one must vision someone to listen, and we can think only of
someone in human form. I had the picture in my mind of a white
God. Now came the picture of a black God." Again, in a somewhat
different context, McGuire noted, "If God is a father of all He must
have had black blood in His veins, and Jesus must have had black
blood in His veins. So it is proper for the dark race to conceive of
their spiritual Saviour as a Negro." *^ On one occasion the bishop
predicted that Christ would have to live in Harlem should He visit
1
135
New York
"because
all
live
here in Harlem."^''
people with swarthy complexions and tightly curled hair. This, combined with biblical references to the Saviour's "feet of polished
brass" and "hair of lamb's wool," convinced the researchers that
Christ did indeed have significant African features.
less scholarly.
Standing under a
black
children."^*
America into
Garveyites
who showed
the
it
was the
way ahead.
By 1924, the African Orthodox church had twenty-one congregawith two thousand five hundred communicants, spread
tions,
throughout the United States and into Canada, Trinidad, Cuba, and
Haiti. ^'^ The church remained an important institution in Harlem
the
own
doctrine."
136
'^
The Garvey
ladies brigade,
1924
i::r':iii
>
._:
'ii
penitcMiliai}
circa i9Jt>
UNIA
protest parade,
924
The Yarmouth, first ship of the Black Star Line. In 1920 the Yarmouth
teams of UNIA recruiters around the Caribbean.
carried
a.
Negro Peoples of the World in its September 1 1 1920, issue. The Negro
World was the most widely circulated black weekly of its time. To th^
,
includes books by
is
a suggested reading
list
for
UNIA
supporters|
Spencer, and
ft.
c.
Rabbi
J.
in
New
his congregation
York, during
TMt
miifU
n.
3litOF
to
AUOUTTOFEACHYEAK AM
>
Uvt7 IW,
K*
Vvit.
Uud
ud
No< to
IN TCRMATIONAL
Willi tia
Annl
<if
ABow Any
OtW
or
acKn
in<tW
"W
>1^ ika
dt
anar Ml
taaiar M>.
i^aWM
1*4 IMM b
te
a nw
iCD^
^cuuurow
Koce{;;;;j^
7^ *{ "^ *
h
unuiai0.
'
d Itiiaai l il O *
n^ M y*f >
wiet^ kji.
vmvExsAt
mnAHAK
Hubert
Harrison,
the
"first
William Ferris,
UNI A
assistant
the
St.
Ann's Bay
in
Opposite: The remains of the black business district (above) and the
wealthiest black residential area (below) of Tulsa after the riots of
1921. Both areas were burned by white rioters; the Chicago Defender
reported they were also
bombed from
the
air.
1927.
PERSONALITIES
AND
MOTIVATIONS
memberships, or the number-two or three times as great of nonUNIA, a sizable turnover within
branches affected the count, and during the Association's strongest
paying followers as well? In the
1919 to 1925. there were probably half again as many memmemberships at any one time. An analysis of
UNIA fund-raising contribution lists. Negro World "News of Divisions" reports, and outside press reports indicates the organization
had about four hundred thousand active dues-paying members. But
considering the turnover and the many poor blacks who moved in
and out of the movement as their funds and time would allow, the
UNIA probably had gr.mp fVi ree-quart ers of a mil lion members
during the early 1920s. Even after member^ftip B{?^an to dechne. the
UNIA attracted many new recruits, including some second generation Garveyites. Certainly well over a million black people were
official UNIA members at one time or another; counting non-paying
followers, two to three million people were in and around the movement and its activities. At its peak the Association could draw upon
two hundred fifty thousand working members in more than four
hundred United States divisions. Garveyite strongholds in the
Caribbean and Latin America had roughly one hundred twenty
thousand members. Surprisingly, divisions in Canada and Nova
Scotia-areas with very small black populations had some five thousand members. The UNIA's numerical strength in Africa is more
difficult to estimate. Driven underground, African Garveyites found
it dangerous to mail reports; those which did arrive at UNIA headquarters had often been censored by colonial authorities. Despite
years,
151
worked
civil
servants, and
The remaining
their political
reflected in nationalities of
some seventy-
at
activity.
similar diversity
is
were from the West Indies (including fifteen from Jamaica and five from French-speaking areas), eight
from Africa, and one from India via the West Indies. Afro-Americans whose birthplace could be discovered came mostly from the
South (fifteen of nineteen). But, as we have noted, many Garveyite
leaders were world travelers, and their places of national origin were
of secondary importance.*
five leading Garveyites: thirty-six
J.
D.
Gordon was
tempted to
World War
in California and helped found the Los Angeles UNIA. He served as assistant
president general in 1920-21, and later as president of the Los Angeles division.
Negro World columnist Samuel Haynes, who hailed from British Honduras,
served as a soldier in Mesopotamia, then returned to the West Indies and was
UNIA head in British Honduras during the Belize uprising of 1919 before
coming to America, where he headed the Pittsburgh division for some ten years.
before settling
in his native
Jamaica.'
152
ism.
Those who had not traveled learned the larger vision of race unity
from those who had seen the light, particularly from Marcus Garvey.
James H. Robinson, long-time Garveyite, told of how he came to
join the movement; "Marcus Garvey captured the imagination of
thousands because he personified the possibility of the fulfillment
of a dream latent in the heart of every Negro. I remember as a lad in
Cleveland, Ohio, during the hungry days of 1921, standing on Central Avenue, watching a parade one Sunday afternoon when thouof Garvey Legionnaires, resplendent in their uniforms,
marched by. When Garvey rode by in his plumed hat, I got an
emotional lift which swept me up above the poverty and the prejudice by which my life was limited."^
sands
UNIA
after Garvey's
there?'
that
lady turned to
Marcus Garvey
is
me and
in
said.
'Man
alive,
don't you
know
may
person.' 'Shucks,'
said,
'I
as well see
153
finding an echo in
my
When
heart.
knew
my
my
sacred obligations to
my
Creator,
am
to
fellow
Many of
convinced that
his followers
it
is
down
ringing
man
is
who
for centuries.
The
cry has
come
agonies our people have suffered during their slavery and since their
I cannot stop him even if I would."" The quality
of Garvey 's oratory was a constant topic: "My voice is great since
emancipation. ...
my
tonsils
moods
at Liberty Hall,"
convention,
Lionel
154
UNIA when
he was hired on one of the Black Star Line steamships. Smith later
became a prominent organizer for John L. Lewis's United Mine
illegal
leader
in
School,
J.
way to a position of
prominence among the lawyers of his city, black or white. UNIA
assistant counsel general Wilford Smith came to the organization
system. Through the years Norris fought his
assembly seat
in a
Harlem
a state
district.^
of the local
NAACP
advertisements
in
telling
East
St.
Louis, IlUnois,
of job possibilities
in
is
typical. In 1916,
numbers of blacks to East St. Louis. These ads had been placed by
the white owners of factories being struck by white workers mostly
poor immigrants frorh Europe who resented the incoming blacks
and refused to allow them into the unions. The blacks were then
offered jobs as scabs. As DuBois described the situation, "The
Negroes had no intention of undercutting the gains of the white
laborers, but they were determined to win a measure of security for
their own." ' Bundy was forced to take a stand, and he denounced
the white workers for not allowing blacks into the trade unions.
Bundy moved
a leader in the
UNIA.
school
in
in
Plummer attended
Omaha,
high school in
155
making him the first black employed in the Omaha civil service.
Around 1910, he joined the Reform Republicans, and two years
later served as assistant sergeant-at-arms
GOP. He
civil
UNIA
NERL was a
organization which
money
the Garveyites.
He remained UNIA
fit
late twenties
with
in
when
legal strategy
he was
and
GOP national
committeeman.'^
Political interests
to the
UNIA-
had been
instilled
fired as president
by
their father,
of principles.'^
The
UNIA
who
felt at
home
in fra-
* Robert Poston's connection with the party of Woodrow Wilson seems rather
odd. Poston had been a student at Princeton in 1909 when Wilson became
president there and promulgated campus rules segregating blacks. Poston led an
unsuccessful protest against these rulings and was forced to leave Princeton.
Very few blacks enrolled in the university from the time Poston quit until the
early 1960s.
157
a leading
UNIA
official.
UNIA
activity in Africa.
little is
role
known
of
how
of African notables
is
similarly clouded as
UNIA. These
many
risked losing
in
support of
More
nationalist Casely
Hay ford,
Africa.''
Duse
1920s,
Mohammed
reprinting
Ali
many
158
Mohammed's work by
UNIA
Mohammed
left in
hierarchy, although
leaders
carried
political
for
was probably of
920s.
We
have already
noted the work of Hubert Harrison and John "Grit" Bruce, Rabbi
Ford's involvement with jazz, and Augusta Savage's sculpture.
Beyond
this,
culture
letter
derision
Mohammed's
t Local UNIA leaders Freeman Martin of St. Louis, Arthur Gray of Oakland,
California, Charlotta Bass of Los Angeles, A. Bain Alves and J. Denniston of
Jamaica, and J. R. Ralph Casimir of Trinidad involved their divisions in trade
159
him
Guggenheim grant.
of Harlem Renaissance
A number
figures
New
noted that the philosophy of Garveyism, with its emphasis on interchange between Afro-Americans and Africans, helped generate the
spirit behind the Renaissance. Among outsiders who contributed to
the Negro World were the NAACP's William Pickens (before his
break with
Garvey), historian
Though
it
attracted
I.
Carter G.
Woodson,
essayist
many
artists
UNIA
received
the United
Dr.
States.
(J.
col-
160
J.
in civil rights
R. L. Diggs had
worked
struggles in Maryland;
in
in
the Niagara
and
J.
movement and
C. St. Clair
Drake was a
UNIA. Drake
had worked with civil rights leader William Monroe Trotter and had
accompanied him to Washington for the historic meeting between
Trotter and President Woodrow Wilson, which ended in a shouting
match, hi 1919 Drake was a member of the Committee for the
Defense of the Right to Organize, which had been set up to investigate alleged mistreatment of workers in the violent Pittsburgh
steel strike of that year.^''
War
period,
Indian
which convinced him to join the UNIA. While in his native land he
became concerned over the plight of his countrymen and impressed
with their display of devotion for Garvey. He had always considered
himself a man of the world and had developed an interest in Africa
while attending Virginia Theological Seminary in the years just prior
to the World War.* But it took a visit to his homeland to see the
connection between all black people, and the relevance of Garvey's
internationalism. J. C. St. Clair Drake's son. the noted Africanist
St. Clair
Drake, co-author of Black Metropolis, considers the
Garveyism of his father a major motivation for his career as a black
scholar.
^^
161
WORLDWIDE
MOVEMENT
THE
RESPONDED
UNIA
to
the
UNIA
it
free to
interpretations of Garveyism
among
tions, as
it
contrast, the
UNIA
took
suppressed. In
American South, neither receiving nor asking cooperafrom other blacks or from whites. In Central America the
Association worked mainly to improve conditions for immigrant
farm laborers and to promote international ties among black people,
while Garveyites in major U.S. industrial centers had the primary
responsibility for raising money and working toward the long-range
goal of economic self-sufficiency for the race.
Setting the pace for hundreds of smaller divisions within the
United States were the Garveyite strongholds in New York. Philadelphia. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati. Detroit, and Chicago.
These seven cities accounted for one hundred thousand UNIA
lently racist
tion
165
to
purchase
enterprises.
its
own
The many
divisions.
ful.
Significantly, there
size
or another
in
virtually every city in the northern United States; for instance, there
were
at least half a
The seven
dozen divisions
in
Kansas alone.'
to present
all
Garveyites with
graphs of
with
UNIA
a picture
UNIA
who was
conventions and
in
the supreme
executive
council. While
economy.
166
A WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT
The concept of nationhood lay behind many practices of big city
All employees belonged to the UNIA civil service; divisions even had civil service commissions to examine job applicants.
Some positions carried monetary rewards; others entailed service in
the branch police force, as youth group leaders, or in some other
service function. The Liberty Halls provided virtually all the members' social needs, from weddings to funerals-the latter prepaid
under the Association's death benefit plan. There was also an Association court system. Members with a poor work record, or given to
divisions.
wife-beating,
before
tried
page photograph
in
drew five to ten thousand members. A fullNegro World for December 17, 1921,
the
UNIA
In the
Members had
less
money
led a
more tenuous
existence.
next to impossible
The
UNIA
the
existence
in
many
areas,
in
the thirteen
many
gaps.
branches
in
reveal
Birmingham, Montgomery, or any other town in the state. Missison the other hand, appears often, with reports from Natchez,
Biloxi, Jackson, Vicksburg, and sometimes from smaller towns
Sumner. Malvanes. Mound Bayou. Yancey, and Fayettesville. Active
divisions sent news from Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville, but
none came from Memphis or elsewhere in heavily black areas of
western Tennessee. Divisions reported from many large and small
towns in Florida, but in all of Georgia only Atlanta and Savannah
sippi,
167
mention the NAACP, much less the UNIA. The more daring Atlanta
Independent and Savannah Tribune printed news of the NAACP but
ignored Garveyites except for the most damning slanders: the
Tribune published a fantastic account Unking Garvey with the mailing of a human hand to A. Philip Randolph.^
With the ever-present threat of lynching on the one hand, and a
black "leadership" which had abdicated its responsibilities on the
other, the
mob by
who
New
We
Garvey
at the
On
another occasion.
door to the
hall to
New
168
A WORLDWIDE
MOVEMENT
eventually convinced
race pride
fight
UNIA
reluctance to
the
In
UNIA
divisions developed in
Los
Watts,
remained strong into the late twenties when the movement elsewhere was in decline. The movement's international leadership benefited from the services of many West Coast blacks in important
positions,* and during the early twenties the Los Angeles UNIA was
one of the biggest money-raisers in the Association.
On the West Coast, the schism between Garveyites and conservative middle-class blacks was slow to develop. This was still "the Wild
West," where the conventional wisdom was suspect and new ideas
were the norm rather than the exception. Moreover, the small size
of black communities helped bring together individuals of all
classes building a church or club, for example, required cooperation between well-to-do and poor blacks. In Los Angeles and Oakland, newspapers run by local NAACP officials willingly carried
UNIA advertisements and published news items favorable to the
Association.^ This rarely happened in the East and was unknown in
the Deep South. In Los Angeles, the UNIA and NAACP used the
same church
for meetings,
and early
in
where the
UNIA
and
NAACP
In
Los
UNIA, though
Los Angeles
UNIA
co-president
also
J.
1920s.
169
president
much
in that city.
of the tension
suffer themselves to
become
Late in
Thompson and
movement demanding parole
in
the
release.
Thompson printed
UNIA members
to distribute
community.'^
man.'^
in
California
attrib-
utable in part to the fact that most black ghettoes in the state were
adjacent to
munities
in
A WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT
nationalist pride
may
make
ethnic
West made the most of the few black residents-in Honolulu, for
a visiting sailor carrying copies of the Negro World started
a UNIA division which even received contributions from a number
example,
In Latin
in
movement was
slightly
less
It is
UNIA
in
Domingo, and
powerful
Guatemala, Honduras,
The
Marines."*
'^
The strongest
which had half
UNIA
a
among
in the trade
body
in
which the
British
chose a
members of
ential
the religious
circles,
including influ-
ex-
mayor of
never
Kingston.'"'
waned enough
When Garvey
British
movement openly.
in
Fruit
Company.
171
become
high percent-
age of Jamaicans were out of work, and those with jobs worked
under abominable conditions. In addition, an especially volatile election campaign was taking place. Despite the overwhelming support
of the people in his district, A. Bain Alves, leader of the Jamaican
Federation of Labor and a prominent Garveyite, had no chance of
winning a seat in the colonial legislature because only one Jamaican
Ward Theatre
in
is
men and
What was
and demanding their rights.
The whole world was organizing itself. I
have been made to understand that Jamaica is made up of cowards.
Fellows are afraid to talk because they are afraid to die! Were you
afraid to die in France and Flanders? Talk wherever you are! Talk
understand there is a trembling fear
for your constitutional rights!
in Jamaica. Trembling for what? God Almighty created you as men;
Are you afraid of men? I
as men you live, as men you shall die.
would like to see a man who dared make me afraid. You men of
Jamaica, you want backbone! Take out the weak bones you have
and put in backbone. Don't let anybody cow you. You have your
constitutional rights. Demand them! Englishmen in England demand
where are clamoring
for
demand
their consti-
UNIA
In the
United States,
it
172
A WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT
and Trinidad, class struggle was considered a very important part of
the fight, and Garvey encouraged building trade unions and eco-
nomic cooperatives,
[Representation.
In
mum
more adequate
political
^*
membership.
In the
within
them to beg
by bigots
their
organizations run
way
memberships composed
for
participation in
in the
all
some
objectivity.
serfs.
the
Still,
all
conditions with
UNIA
The
UNIA
in
Trinidad,
for
oil companies
were just beginning to exploit the island and, with the collusion of
the colonial government, small landholders were pressured to sell
of their
tion.
companies. Those
who
Discontent
late in
erly
oil
among
173
and the government responded by prohibiting the importaNegro World in Trinidad and Tobago, and by
barring
driven
from Trinidad
United
States.
later
became
leaders in
^-^
the
Many of
UNIA
those
in
officials
the
were
Not
surprisingly,
the
92
Garvey promised
his
that "at least one of the largest ships" of the Black Star Line
would
soon come for them. He also told Panamanians "to prepare for the
pilgrimage to Africa." ^^ There is no record of Garvey having made
similar direct promises in the United States. This seems fitting: if
any group deserved priority on the return to Africa, it would be
immigrant laborers in places like Costa Rica and Panama who had
almost no hope for material or political betterment. Blacks in the
United States were better off materially, and-though conditions
were bad in Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados-black citizens could at
least look forward to eventual control of their own countries.
While the Back-to-Africa plan had great appeal, it was not the
UNIA's only attraction in the Caribbean. The organization continued to draw allegiance long after the demise of the Black Star
Line. Nor could the UNIA's talents at political agitation have had
174
A WORLDWIDE
much
MOVEMENT
immigrants
lived.
In Haiti, for
were driven into exile, and in Santo Domingo UNIA leaders were
Beyond this, few
arrested and membership lists confiscated.^^
people, immigrant or otherwise, had political rights in the banana
republics of Central America. Yet despite all political restrictions,
the UNIA flourished among the most oppressed group in the CaribIf any single factor held them to Garveymust have been the sense of identity with a world-wide
movement. Thus Garvey, speaking to rural sugar plantation workers
in Jamaica, drew prolonged applause when he described the UNIA
as "a gigantic world-wide movement of Negroes endeavoring to draw
into one mighty whole the four hundred million Negroes scattered
all over the world, to link up the Negroes of the West Indies, South
and Central America, and Negroes everywhere for the purpose of
establishing a Government to be owned, controlled and dominated
ism,
it
by Negroes."^'
The UNIA's internationalism was probably its most appealing
quality in British Honduras as well. Editorials written there and
reprinted in the Negro World show that the UNIA in British Honduras built its following on cultural issues and the promotion of
solidarity between black people in the Americas and Africa.^* In
that multi-racial country-with Indians, blacks, a scattering of
whites and Chinese, and many people with mixed heritage the
Association earned a respectability unmatched in any other colonized country during the 1920s, and at least two divisions remained
active into the 1930s. Elsewhere in the Caribbean, the press covered
of
a threat: in a highly
mixed
society, a
made
UNIA
UNIA was
the Garveyites
175
in Africa,
labor; in
Dahomey
were active
In
was
it
in Senegal,
Dakar, Senegal, a
life
UNIA
the Cameroons.
1920 (by
offices, confiscated its records and deported four refrom neighboring Sierra Leone. ^
The UNIA was involved in the struggles to free Africa through
leaders who worked primarily within other organizations. A leader
of independence struggles in French Equatorial Africa, Felix Eboue,
was Garvey's close associate for many years, and Caribbean UNIA
groups served as his hosts on a tour there just before World War
II.* ^' In the early 1920s Garvey was in touch with labor leaders in
Kenya and with Abd-el-Krim, the rebel leader in Spanish
Morocco. ^^ Casely Hayford, the Ghanaian barrister and UNIA delegate, tried to bridge the gap between the Garveyites and DuBois's
Pan-African Congress movement, in which he was also involved. (As
early as 1918, Hayford had organized a West African National Congress which drew together professional and middle-class elements in
British West Africa.) ^^ Prince Kojo Tavalou of French West Africa
became the leading African in the UNIA after he was elected
potentate in 1924, and the Garveyites were formally or informally
connected with the West African Student Union and the Paris-based
Comite de Defense de la Race Negre.^'' In British West Africa there
was a sizable UNIA contingent in Sierra Leone, with other divisions
raided
its
cruiters
Born in the French West Indies, Eboue had been sent to central Africa in the
1920s as a colonial official. It was French policy to declare all colonial subjects
citizens of France, and to select a few natives for responsible positions in the
lower ranks of colonial administration. This lent an appearance of substance to
the largely mythical equality of overseas and continental French citizenship.
*
176
A WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT
Gambia, the Gold Coast and Nigeria. Although the British authorsuppressed the Negro World, the UNIA received favorable
coverage in the Gold Coast and Nigeria through the Gold Coast
Times, the Gold Coast Leader and the Lagos Weekly Record.^^ In
the Union of South Africa there were UNIA divisions in Cape Town,
Natal, and Johannesburg, and UNIA members worked within the
African National Congress of South Africa, the most representative
in
ities
An
active
UNIA
in
London
its
goals.
of revolution.
movement
largely
and the
tions,
UNIA
was
rarely able to
was
important
in
spreading
the
idea
of independent
African
UNIA was
Labor-but the UNIA's immeThe Garveyites' primary contribution to colonial Africa was the articulation of
their long-range internationalist and Pan-African goals-goals which
became imbedded in the minds of many younger Africans who
would lead mass-based independence movements after World War II.
active in the Nigerian Federation of
diate effect
upon
UNIA
immediate base
in a free
German
to
it
success.
locked Abyssinia, though they did set up a division there. The country was represented at the 1922 UNIA convention, and an Ethiopian
nobleman came
supported
Ethiopian
presence of northerners in
its
ranks).
One
178
A WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT
opponents of the ruling party: among them were Arthur BarHoward both former Liberian presidents. Supreme
Court Chief Justice James J. Dossen, and Chaplain of the Legislature
R. Van Richards, all from the Americo-Liberian group; and H. Too
tant
clay and D. E.
in the
manner
To
illustrate the
class distinction
179
I.
in
'It
is
He answered
that
it
was
UNIA, not
"'
all
Americo-Liberians were so
for
it
was with
business projects."
Liberia
its
industrial,
facility
legally
agricultural
and
''^
UNIA managed
1920
until
to maintain the
much
He noted
that "the British and French have enquired from our representatives
in
America about
it
180
atti-
A WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT
Liberian Government towards the Universal Negro
Improvement Association." The debt-ridden Liberian government
was in a dehcate position vis-a-vis the European powers, and Barclay
tude of the
not always
is
them what we
we only
We
tell
think;
tell
Liberia.
Cyril Henry and his team had been instructed to "start work
immediately-putting up new buildings and starting farms, etc.." but
within
The
America
accomplishments were so minimal that
to lack of funds.
Henry wrote to
its
New York
UNIA
in
could not
documented. Long
Van
after the
UNIA
collapsed in Liberia.
Dongba
Richards,
peonage,
nous codifications of national law. Dossen had also served as president of Liberia College, where he reportedly "made many contribu-
to
the
some
five
politics.
181
gates
The
facilities for
medi-
personnel
Liberians.'*''
Then
official signing
of papers on both
become
a reality.
i
In the first
of
a series
A WORLDWIDE
series
MOVEMENT
of disappointments over promised funds for Liberian developreceived. He concluded, "Up to the day of
my
despite
tors
months,
the risks
all
coupled with stringent efforts to break down the caste system and
raise productivity, would have provided an answer and an influx of
productive,
skilled
President King sold his country to the highest bidder: the Firestone
wars against the Ashanti, Zulu, and Basuto). King had misGarvey completely -consenting to negotiate with the Poston
in their
led
rubber
potential
through
reports
first
learned of the
published
by
the
UNIA!"
In
with Firestone-sent
UNIA
settlement.
Word of
UNIA
the deal
convention
came
in
in
New
York.
183
damn
every
white
man
is
is
giving the Negro." Tlie delegates were ready for war, and Garvey
calm them by pointing out that rash action could easily ruin
movement/^ It was not hard to sympathize with the Garveyites. The white editor of the New York Evening Bulletin commented, "The gang now controlling Liberia oppose Garvey's entried to
the
their
own game
will
ous or menacing
in that belief?"
Is
^^
trusteeship:
UN A
I
still
when
cultivated land,
tories,
with
less
tropical
areas-the
184
A WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT
UN A
I
document
detailing the
many
The Garveyites
were not allowed to present their petitions directly, but the Persian
delegate proved a willing ally and the League did hear the Garvey
requests. Instead of acting upon (or even debating) them, the
League became embroiled in a procedural discussion, and eventually
decided "that
all
nationals
who had
them
Adam
France." Over the years, the Garveyites also petitioned the British
government and the kings of England and Spain. In 1922 they tried
to interest the president and the United States Senate in the Backto- Africa idea, and once even cabled the pope.^'' This series of futile
excursions into polite diplomacy embittered Marcus Garvey, and in
later years he turned to more militant means for African liberation.
failure to obtain a foothold in Africa damaged both the
prestige of the UNIA and the morale of its members. Though the
Garvey movement in the United States was strong in terms of financial resources and membership, with a black population of only ten
per cent in a nation of racists it could not continue to function
without some sort of foreign base. Identity with a power beyond
the borders of the United States had given American Garveyites the
strength to face their predicament squarely and to insist upon
power. The resurgence of the idea of black power in the 1960s, as
most of Africa became independent, is no coincidence. Renewed
pride in an African heritage and the hope of assistance from Africa
have been important catalysts in this latter-day movement. This aid
from the Third World has been largely psychological, and in the
power of Third World public opinion upon America. Garveyites
longed for such aid, and from Marcus Garvey's innumerable references to the potential power "of four hundred million Negroes of
the world," one might conclude that black internationalism was
what Garveyism was all about.
/The
185
DISSENSIONS
AND THE
DECLINE
OF GARVEYISM
Garvey movement. Whites outlawed the movement in their colonies, bought off Liberia, and narrowly circumscribed UNIA activities in the United States. While Garveyism was in
some places suppressed by colonial edict, in other areas it was subdued by the more modern techniques of neo-colonialism. The neocolonialists manipulated various racial and national groups through
puppet regimes and encouraged power struggles within oppressed
minorities in their own lands. Today there are only a few outright
colonies remaining. Thus the most relevant lessons for the present in
Garvey's downfall may be discovered by examining the UNIA's
black opposition and the debilitating factionalism within the UNIA
itself. Not all of this opposition was destructive by design; some of
it including most of the internal turmoil involved legitimate differences over tactics in the anti-imperialist struggle. But it is the nature
of the neo-colonialists to pit one well-intentioned faction of the
oppressed against another for the colonialists' own benefit.
the collapse of the
in the
promise of
money
all
real
labor unions,
all
political parties,
189
A
BLACK POWER AND THE GARVEY MOVEMENT
black institutions, and for
was
hit
with
financial
and
legal
critics.
UN
condemn
the Garvey-
with the
ment
reeled in horror
to explain the
UNIA
It is
actually
went to Atlanta
to the Klan.
No
public statement
widow, Garvey
was a separatist organization seeking a home in Africa, that it opposed miscegenation or
any social contact between the races, and that it had no desire to
take over America.^ (The two evidently failed to reach any significant agreement, as the assistant testified against Garvey at his mail
was issued
fraud
trial
UNIA
we have
UNIA-
tist
position, and
New
190
DISSENSIONS
AND DECLINE
William
Ferris.
The
NAACP's
William
Pickens,
receive a
"Wherein
title
I
of nobility
in the
Order of the
UNIA
personal
convention to
191
radical
image by staying
at
ABB
it
socialists
and refusing to
and the Brotherhood joined forces with the anti-Garvey pubof the New York Age, Fred R. Moore. It would have been
hard to find a more stolid black conservative north of the MasonDixon line. An early organizer for Booker T. Washington's National
Negro Business League, Moore had been Washington's hand-picked
assistant to T. Thomas Fortune on the Age, and took control of the
paper when Fortune went into semi-retirement prior to joining the
staff of the Negro World in the early 1920s. Moore had opposed
every expression of militancy since the war, but in 1922 his newsBriggs
lisher
'^
opinion.
"We
are
not
a true representative
man Garvey
in electing
himself
192
DISSENSIONS
AND DECLINE
problems were
people's
"first,
European and American capitalists as will assure progressive indusagricultural and commercial development upon a basis advantageous to both white capitalists and Africans alike. But the question
naturally arises, why white capitalists? The answer is the question:
trial,
'What
None.
other
.
capitalist.
capitalists
are
there
available
for
the
task?'
man, get out of Africa! and presto! it is all over." Elsewhere in the
pamphlet Manoedi states: "That Africans are not the most intelligent people in the world I readily admit. Nor is Mr. Garvey. True,
they are not always capable of protecting their interests. Nor are
any of the weaker peoples, white or black, yellow or brown."
Manoedi wanted Africans to preserve native law and custom and
create "an international African Commission whose purpose shall be
to hear all grievances of the Africans."^ Cyril Briggs sponsored
Manoedi, not only to fight Garvey. but also in the hope of gaining
greater respectability for the African Blood Brotherhood. This, in
turn, was part of Briggs's attempt to build a new black federation
composed of moderates and liberals, a substitute for the UNIA.
Manoedi's presence only emphasized the fact that the black establishment had nothing to offer, and that its position necessitated
selling out to whites.
The development of conservative attitudes among leftists opposing the UNIA was displayed in the October 1922 Messenger, in
which Randolph brought up a law-and-order issue. He quoted from
the UNIA Constitution. Article 5, Section 3-which concerned official receptions for dignitaries. "No one shall be received by the
Potentate and his consort who has been convicted of crime or
193
committed
in the interest
He overlooked
criminality.
to
this as
an open invitation
is
a difference
common
anti-
summer and on
into
social behavior.
The
1923.
was
UNIA. The
critics
Lilliputian" and
They found
officials
later
all
politics
former
at
the
we
ask
is
a fair
chance
in the fields
of
his
high
for
whites,
condemning
"light-colored
Negroes"
who
deride the idea of nationhood in Africa and "resent the fact that a
Black Negro
is
a leader."''
The
irate
ABB
man
far as to
passing as a Negro.
black. '^
194
DISSENSIONS
Chicago Defender and Robert
AND DECLINE
S.
'*^
Garvey.
Though
did
retain
movement than
a strong undercurrent
year. This
UNIA,
to
taper off.
before.
those
who
still
195
Many
Garveyites believed
new approach
or
spread suspicion of
new
fiscal
among Black
corruption
for the
On
won
treachery.'''
UNIA
were engaged
in a
196
DISSENSIONS
officers
AND DECLINE
When
the reorganization
names of
number
won-but without
Two
to Sherrill, and he
troublesome local
issues,
but
without
much
success.
Dixie delegates
who had
who had watched all three. One man, witness to a lynching in Oklahoma, described the lyncher as temporarily insane and concluded,
"There is but one way to stop him, and that is by meeting a destructive force with organized force, by fighting fire with fire." Some
delegates suggested the
UNIA
197
And
is
to keep
had acted to
in his state
but
it
During the
last
week of
on
was a most
UNIA
number of
divisions.
arms over
reports of Black Star Line corruption. The International had first
sent Minister of Legions E. L. Gaines to quiet things down, but he
had only antagonized the local leadership further. Noah Thompson
and Charlotta Bass broke away and formed their own Pacific Coast
Negro Improvement Association, taking four-fifths of the membership with them.^^ Eason was then dispatched to Los Angeles, where
he heard complaints not only of Black Star Line corruption, but
concerning UNIA neglect of local issues and problems, as well. At
one public meeting, Thompson told Eason, "Do something here on
the Pacific Coast and you will do more, yea ten thousand times
more, to redeem Africa than you could by buying shares in Garvey
ships, which very truly are ships that pass in the mist."^^ Eason was
apparently sober enough to be quite effective with Thompson: the
Pacific Coast Association was disbanded, and Tliompson and Mrs.
Bass returned to the UNIA-revitalizing, for a time, one of the big
money-making divisions.^" Eason's West Coast experience doubtless
helped him decide to challenge the International in 1922. At his
trial he was defended by Assistant Counsel General J. Austin Norris,
division, for
who
in
argued that Eason was loyal to the movement, but his pleas
were unsuccessful -Eason was expelled. Norris was soon afterward
severely censured for making anti-UNIA statements during the
198
trial,
Enraged
at
^'
attacks were
his
especially
could remember about his three years with the movement. The
how
New
power-mad
Garvey had secretly paid a New York white newspaper $250 to
announce that the "Honorable Marcus Garvey, the greatest Negro
a story
from Eason
telling
the
."
Eason ne-
new
UNIA he
returned to Philadelphia to
* Of the major black weeklies, the Afro-American gave the most objective and
balanced reporting on the UNIA and its related organizations.
199
in the streets
trying to
kill
Eason.^^
Garvey sent
demanding speedy
allegedly
list
of
illegal-
* The signers included businessmen Harry Pace and John E. Nail, William
Pickens and Robert W. Bagnall of the NAACP, newspaper publishers Robert S.
Harris,
and Dr.
Julia P.
200
AND DECLINE
DISSENSIONS
movement. The
initial
It
by actions taken
months immediately
in the
trial:
(1
agents,
seized
a raid
on the
supposedly
files
New
in
Orleans
UNIA
office, in
which government
and membership
lists
UNIA
members;^''
(2) a raid on a New York meeting, with the arrest of eight UNIA
members, including the minister of industries and head of the Negro
Factories Corporation, Thomas Anderson, on the charge of inciting
to riot;^^
(3) the arrest in
UNIA membership
Line stock
illegally:^''
all
files in
the
trial),
offices (al-
including
all
the
International
and
all
associated
businesses;
correspondence,
membership lists, and mailing lists for the Negro World and the new
daily Negro Times. None of these records was ever returned to the
UNIA except the newspaper mailing lists-and these only after court
action.^''
httle
knowl-
made innumerable
errors in pro-
the
trial
progressed,
it
became
among
of
visiting
Jamaica
who
in 1921).
The
testified to the
value of the
"more
intent
every
it,
if he might get in
exchange the knowledge that he was somebody, that he meant
something in the world, he would gladly do it.
The Black Star
.
money but
it
was
a gain in soul."
^^
victims but
all
upon which
Garvey
because
had
identified
Why
himself
with
the
Most
UNIA
from
Association.'*'
against the
who
jail
in
saving them-
UNIA
202
DISSENSIONS
AND DECLINE
the lack of concrete evidence of fraud. Garvey and the lawyers for
his
have
Garvey showed that Prentice was not employed by the BSL at that
time, the mail clerk admitted that prosecutor Mattuck had schooled
him as to dates. Cargill stated emphatically that part of his job was
the delivery of mail to the College Station post office, but under
Garvey's cross-examination Cargill was unable to state the location
of this post office, and with further probing from Garvey
admitted having been provided the name of the post office by a
police inspector."*^
maximum
five-year
penalty though,
as the
jail.
Imme-
had taken on
a beehive appearance.
Literally
hundreds of
building."
this
203
machinery to
its
creditors.""
the Cleveland division, resigned after that chapter spht into violent
Death, too, hurt the Garveyites severely in the year after the
J.
trial,
Honduras.
Had
the
UNIA
show of strength
factionalism, the
at
in
movement continued
to broaden
its activities
in
the late 1920s. After the Eason episode, Garvey and his remaining
tion in
cal
union
fifteen million
shall
community
will
of the race
in that
Union
assist
shall
it
have
its
Each country or
if
the
can section.
If
at the disposal
of the Ameri-
of the Negroes
Union."
^'
In the
United States,
of involvement
in
much of the
electoral
politics.
Before
this,
UNIA
political
fairly
The announcement of
convention.
205
made toward
its
UNIA, namely,
the
a
is
that of
UNIA
soil. II.
Moved,
that
it
shall
be
and atrocities alleged to be perpetrated upon the members of the Negro race
by the Ku Klux Klan or any other organization.""* This was a far
cry from the indecision shown at the 1922 convention -even though
to protect against the brutalities
who
the
on continued
all
UNIA
Had
the Garveyites
won
the (at
realized.
The
On
the heels of the loss of Liberia, Garvey lost his court appeal.
He was
future.
jailed
On
returning to
206
DISSENSIONS
AND DECLINE
Tombs
prison,
207
How
can separatism
far
base in Africa
grow with practice. In his oratory and his writings, Marcus Garvey sketched an outline of a new humanist philosophy to which black people could relate. The UNIA with its lively
press, open conventions, and broad international representationmight have developed into a workable implementer of this ideology,
but no such development was possible when the organization was
so ideology could
widely suppressed,
its
leader jailed,
its
its
UNIA. UNIA
were building
a non-existent inter-
the early
to the
930s
Communist
UNIA members
in
who
con-
attracted
escape
to
Garvey always looked toward the day when black militants, oper*
The
final / is capitalized
208
DISSENSIONS
ating
from
a free Africa,
AND DECLINE
michael have done in recent years. The vast majority of the Garvey-
civil rights,
demanded
tions as
the Klan," said one delegate from Seattle; another, from Mobile,
Alabama, claimed. "The Klan is a help to this movement by increasmembership, by making the black man think of Africa." J. J.
Peters of Qiicago questioned the need for any resolutions, and
reminded delegates of the black liberals' futile fight for a federal
anti-lynch law, and of the NAACP's failure to get even La Toilette's
Progressive Party to come out against the Klan. "When the other
fellow holds the marbles and has control." said Peters, "the best
thing to do is to get into friendly relations with him if you can. I
don't mean to condone the Klan for the wrong things it has done.
ing the
209
A
BLACK POWER AND THE GARVEY MOVEMENT
But after a while when we have got our
we can
battleships
them
tell
to go to hell." D. M.
many Southern
Florida,
place where
am
living. ...
we ought
don't say
to endorse an
is
cowardly." ^^
Debates such as these did not stem from clearly defined factions.
Some formally recognized division of opinion could have helped
reconcile the
only differences
in
who
really
argued
UN
away from
the
Association
in
1929 because
it
appeared to be
UNIA
in
some
situations
by "unrealistic visionaries." As the CommuWorker put it, "Garvey Movement Bows to Ku Klux
The Klan debates helped convince Briggs to drop the
Daily
Klan."
^^
"You
sir,
210
We
knowledge that
We want to know what
us through the
is
DISSENSIONS
AND DECLINE
in
the
in
wrote of "the hall ringing with belligerent speeches implying a determination to form a world wide organization for stirring up all the
colonial peoples of the world to revolt against all imperialist governments." They reported the wild reception which greeted Garvey's
announcement that Turkish armies had roundly defeated a British
expeditionary force in the Near East, as well as Garvey's "scathing
attack" on "the capitalist class of Negroes whose only concern is to
rob and exploit the unfortunate of their own race." ^* But the Daily
Klan."
5^
The trouble over an official position toward the Klan was only
one example of the difficulties with the UNIA's leadership. As
president general, Garvey had to mediate ideological disputes, direct
the use of Association funds, and perform a host of similar tasks.
211
was
UNIA
not
won without
followers
by acting
as a
When
many of
his
a revolutionary
Few
Amy
Jacques could,
because she showed him respect and was tough enough to talk back
by
first
after.^'
movement during
UNIA
his
records contributed
to this.
When
fifteen
many of
those
who
UNIA
leaders
who
left
former leading
looked
it
it
in the
the
stood
like
for.
an
Yet
philosophy of
movement
did so
Some were
ethnic backgrounds, a
blacks
felt
vital
212
AND DECLINE
DISSENSIONS
lose
no opportunity
to
show
Moore
the Age,
in
Americans of their
adding,
"They
own
American
steadfastly refuse to
become
(Moore was
Even though
the race!"^^
movement
in
know what
tell
you
that
if
And
The
is fit
is
killed in
from childhood is jimcrowed, lynched, kicked about, cursed and made to conduct himself
as an inferior until he has not grit enough left to be a leader. The
West Indian Negro, on the other hand, from the cradle up develops a
certain independence and self-reliance that the American Negro
never has the courage to exercise. The British government is bound
to allow the development of some initiative among individual
the American environment. Here the Negro
is
course, those
who
way
213
own
Of
people
but even
develop."*"
Jamaica there
psychology that
and self-reHance to
analysis was unquestionably poor politics-
at that, in
some
permits
men of independent
Sherrill's
is
a different
spirit
who
ing the past three decades, Garveyites and ex-Garveyites have been
emphasis on local independence struggles would have to take precedence over considerations of international unity, if possible without
destroying the unity of the UNIA. In this vein, the Negro World
of the late 1920s produced elaborate analyses of the weakness of
Unfortunately, this
troubled
new
sophistication
UNIA.
214
came too
TWILIGHT
ACHIEVEMENTS
alive
UNIA
in
membership was
nition that
still
little
of
this
if
new
its
large, this
was
a necessary step
and
UNIA
a recog-
broad programs on
its
own.'
first
William
Garvey
in disfavor
with
all
sides,
A much more
hostile
native of Antigua
217
educational
fitted
them
New York
Using his
position,
in
winning
jailed leader.
loyalist delegates
marched out of
own
convention
in
declared, "Garvey
is
the
Commonwealth
him
is
the reac-
tionary Uncle
Negro World
the doors shut, but they were driven off by a rebel group of Black
Cross nurses. The rebels argued they were a legitimate majority with
"true
UNIA
the
won
leader
of
UNIA
became something of
title
UNIA
Unincorporated.
The
rebels'
organization
who were
movement.
Garvey expected on his release from jail to unite the masses
through personal contact. But this was not to be: in December 1927
Garvey was taken from his cell to New Orleans and put aboard a
ship headed for Panama. He had been pardoned by President
Coolidge perhaps because the Negro Political Union had campaigned for Coolidge. The president had issued an unconditional
pardon, but U.S. immigration authorities managed to effect
Garvey's deportation, with debatable legality. The government used
a law which stipulated that an alien convicted of a felony within five
years of his arrival in the United States could be deported. As
Garvey's lawyers pointed out to no avail, he had been in this country more than six years prior to his conviction."
In New Orleans hundreds of Garveyites came to witness Garvey's
forced departure, and many were moved to tears. From the deck of
still
the ship, Garvey thanked his followers for their confidence in his
leadership and promised that the movement's best and most produc-
218
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
tive years lay
"To
ahead.
the millions of
members of
the Universal
came
to
organi-
Garveyite leadership.*
new
nationalist
as
and
religious separatist
with
it.
come
cities
Garveyism
itself
great
many
and
on voting,
and other inequities, left no alternative but autonomous development, and blacks in these areas continued to express their needs for self-determination through the
UNIA. The Negro World, and later a new monthly magazine, Z^/acA:
Man, reported more than two hundred of these rural divisions well
social
legal discrimination,
ment
220
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
quit (or were expelled) for ideological reasons: Reverend Eason and
J.
Austin Norris,
who formed
their
own
and
became
socialists
who joined
organization;
Assistant
President
General
J.
D. Gordon,
who
re-
Johnson,
reconsideration
UNIA was
is,
con-
rare.
people
reject the
When
the
considered
important
in
their
"Former Garveyites
are
221
now
bitterly
enrolled
in
in
the Negro
the
Moorish
Incorporated faction in
organization.
stand on
mentsin
the late
its
New York;
later
UNIA
1960s the
AOC
still
had
tions.'^
Most of the
six
year.
in
1934 and, under the name Elijah Muhammad, had some ten thousand Black Muslim followers by 1940. Fard's group was an offshoot
of the Moorish American Science Temple of Noble Drew Ali,
formed in 1913; it remained an insignificant sect until large numbers
of Garveyites joined in the late 1920s. At its height, in 1929, the
group had ten thousand members in its Chicago temple, and smaller
congregations in Pittsburgh and Detroit."* Muhammad acknowledged these connections in recruiting for the Muslims: "I have
always had a very high opinion of both the late Noble Drew Ali and
222
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
Marcus Garvey and admired their courage in helping our people (the
and appreciated their work. Both of these men
were fine Muslims. The followers of Noble Drew Ali and Marcus
Garvey should now follow me and cooperate with us in our work
so-called Negroes)
because
started."
we
are
only trying to
finish
*'
Noble Drew Ali taught his followers that they were descendants
of the once-proud Moorish Empire of North Africa, an Islamic state,
and gave them Moorish names to replace the slave names given by
the white man. Like Garvey, he insisted the black American must
have a nation, but Ali held that North America was but an extension
of the true African homeland. Morocco, and that
should be built in America. As his
leadership developed, and on
Moorish nation
movement grew,
March
15.
a contest for
chief rival was shot and stabbed in the organization's offices. Ali was
arrested and charged with
few
weeks
later
zation.
its
later
Muhammad),
separate
MusHms hoped
state
somewhere
all
Depression,
223
much
some
money. But even though they shower status and prestige upon
members who find success in business, individuals are still expected
to share their profits with the group. Working-class members participate in cooperatively owned business enterprises, with all profits
going to the group (since 1958, to pay health and death benefits for
members).^"
The
spirit
a less bellig-
erent form in Father Divine's communitarian Heavens, which attracted thousands of ex-Garveyites during the Depression decade.*
Where the Muslims preached worship of the true God, Allah. Divine
in fact, was God. Where the Muslims foresaw a long struggle to achieve a new world, Father Divine announced that the new world was here, with him. Muhammad
announced that this was the time for the "end of the wicked," but
and
During
heart
full
Good
Health,
Good
Appetite,
Good
Will
the late thirties and early forties there was correspondence between
224
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
give you joy and peace. ... 1 am your happiness
Whatever you need, let my spirit do it. ... I
am your joy.
command and demand anything desire.
God in the midst of
you is mighty to save. am here, there and everywhere. Dial in and
you shall find me. Aren't you glad?" And his followers responded,
and
225
many
life."
Father Divine's ability to provide food, housing, spiritual guidance and jobs prepared the faithful for his conception of society
which poet Claude McKay described as: "(1 ) no sex; (2) no race; (3)
was
opposed
cess
money
entirely.
New
goods for
in political
little
in
or social struggles.
To
make token
and parades in Harlem called by other
organizations fighting for better housing and jobs.
appearances
in a
few
rallies
through
its
large ex-Garveyite
226
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
reluctant to join a
of race, and
ment
move-
Two movements
in Africa
book of
Revelations.
God
in the
"seven
By immersing themselves
identifi-
They conceptualized
this
they had
made
a qualitative leap
from
in
227
famDy of
active
grown
workers and another 50,000 had never had a steady job.^" Thus the
Rastafarl had some reason to declare life in Jamaica untenable. To
force the issue of emigration, they refused to accept permanent
employment when
on the grounds that jobs for a few prowho had to continue without a
means of livelihood. They also showed disdain for the existing system by wearing ragged clothing with pride and adopting a distinctive
hair style: long, braided ringlets which the men grew to shoulder
offered,
make
and over the past thirty years police have repeatedly harassed and
assaulted Rasta men on the streets of Kingston, raided their religious
services and closed their communal farms on the pretext of looking
for ganja. But the movement has continued to grow, most recently
with the addition of "dropouts" from the Jamaican upper classes,
and there are now probably more than twenty thousand Rastafarl
on the
island.
especially Jamaican
call
its activities.
In
the United
States,
it
Garveyites
who
still
sought repatriation
port to a
bill
by
which would
228
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
and no friend of the black man, but the many who
man and another found no
reason to reject Bilbo's help if he was willing to aid the Back-tohis generation,
saw
little
Africa cause.
Miss
tures
Gordon launched
plan.
number of
signers to
two
months
million.) In 1939,
some
three hundred of
down
Most never
began breaking
in
the
United States now. Whites should remain white and blacks should
ran afoul of the authorities, this time for advocating the cause of the
is
oppressive
for
blacks:
New York
229
relief
rolls
for
October 1933
employment
1931
own
many
And,
as
of white shop-owners.
D.C., the
New Negro
(which included
many
Movement
in
the
many movements
included the
Tlie rival
UNIA
Incorporated also
this display
230
if
of black power
led to the
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
in
manu-
and
Horace Cayton credit the Giicago campaign with two thousand
jobs.^'' Arguments over tactics and religion lost Hamid most of his
campaign workers and he moved to New York late in 1931. His
relations with the Garveyites were never good, as he objected to
their "pacifist approach." as he termed it.
These movements were often far from peaceful: recurrent outbreaks of violence marked the Qiicago campaign; police jailed
picketers in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia; and the movement
was severely intimidated in the Deep South.^* At first, the boycotts
Jr.
had a working-class flair, with militant leaders who, like Sufi Hamid,
were close to the grass roots and hostile toward whites. Hamid was
accused of threatening racist shop owners with physical reprisals,
and in New York he was called the "Harlem Hitler" for referring to
the "kike," "wop." or "dago" owner of a particular establishment.^^ Bishop Kiowa Costanie in Baltimore and street-comer
orator Arthur Reid of the African Patriotic League in New York
were both accused of being racist demagogues. "If we can solve our
economic problem, then to hell with the white man-and that is
exactly what we propose to do." said Lionel Francis, who led the
UNIA Incorporated boycott movement in New York."" These
actions were often almost leaderless and loosely organized as was
one conducted in Brooklyn by a group of housewives and black
veterans.""
Those
who promoted
Only
a handful
their advertisers,
the very
By the
late 1930s,
NAACP
the
them with
full force.
They decided
grill
new
232
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
nationalist
Communists
New
Communist venture
young generation of black
Moscow
in
*Some black communists (Campbell, for one) resigned in protest; others, including most of those from the old ABB, dropped out of leading positions
when the change occurred.^s
233
N. Nasanov.
It
as impractical.)
ties in
own
Haywood
was
The Black
Belt
it
called,
possible.^"
The program did draw support: while the Party had a mere two
dozen black members in 1927, by the late 1930s there were between eight and ten thousand black Communists, and many more
became members for a short time early in the Depression.^' Thus
the Communist party included blacks in a proportion-ten per
cent comparable to their presence in the society at large. In the
North, the Communists gained support in two ways: by disarming
nationalists with arguments that the Party had adopted their program and by pointing to Communist-led civil rights struggles as signs
of interest in blacks which would be directed toward nationalist
ends as soon as Communist activity got a foothold in the South.
The Communists never obtained their foothold in the South,
despite an intensive effort. A tenant farmers union in Arkansas and
234
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
Alabama did
union
in
steps
munity action.
Harry Haywood himself was assigned to the South. In 1932, he
was organizing in Memphis, where blacks were being murdered at a
rate of almost one a day by "Boss " Crump's police. Haywood and a
white comrade convinced witnesses to one of these murders that
they should testify in an unofficial "trial" in a black church. The
police were "convicted"
NAACP and
^-^
ists"
were trying
was
white Party
a legitimate
Commu-
A good many
Haywood
man
235
would not be
"Marxism nowhere
racial.
he wrote. "Race as
a social
He
Of
course.
levels,
Communist organizers in
spoke with two voices: among blacks, they
black followers.
some
ten thousand
among
among
the
In
dized time after time by white workers' fear of black power. The
Communists' response was not only to assure whites that communism did not mean independent black power, but also to refuse
to blacks. In Alabama, for example, after sharecroppers and
power
,their
at,
"miscegenationism," but they were, in effect, also asking for independent power, since most union members were black and an auton-
236
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
omous white
local
would have
New
new
The
delay-was to "liquiorganizers were asked to work
little
chance of succeeding.^*
two
Its
years'
^"^
it
but
often
displayed
to
rampant
be
racial
fighting
discrimination the
discrimination
against
But
businessmen and landowners controlled key agencies in the South,
and Communist challenges to this control proved unsuccessful,
except in the National Youth Administration. In time, the whole
blacks,
while
power.
conversion to
ite of 1929."
Communism
of a militant.
Campbell had participated in a number of CP-sponsored unemployment demonstrations and had been arrested several times for his
militancy. "These experiences firmly convinced him that he could
only serve the Negro masses by helping to build a fighting alliance of
Negro and white workers against their common enemy. Whereupon
It
was
one sense, Communists had manipulated the black struggle, but to a far
CPUSA had been manipulated by its liberal allies-a fact
Communists themselves acknowledged in the forties, when it was too late to do
anything about it.
* In
237
of
wages.
Communists
When
the
would send one of her children to "get the Reds." Within minutes, a
small army of men would have gathered on the sidewalk. As the
sheriffs assistants carried the furniture out. the "Reds" would carry
it back inside.^"
These actions were not always peaceful: on one
occasion, more than five thousand marched from a Communist
Chicago when they heard of an attempt to evict a
woman. Police, seeing the crowd, panicked and
started shooting into the crowd. Three of the protesters were killed,
and in the subsequent scuffle two policemen were badly injured. As
a consequence, the Municipal Court temporarily suspended the service of eviction warrants an expensive victory.^'
street rally in
seventy-two-year-old
Despite all their feverish activity in the black community. Communists refused to endorse the "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work"
more
in
one
work of an
textile factory
opposed the entry of any blacks into their union. Blacks in the
community were asking not only admission to the union, but also
238
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
guaranteed
fair
com-
fair
omitted, because he felt this was the only way to save the union.^-'
But miUtants in the North were not about to accept such a com-
promise.
Com-
when
Cyril
Avenue Bus Company, which ran through the black community but
employed only whites, his Harlem Liberator pictured black and
white "comrades" picketing bus company offices in an obvious
attempt to show a "respectable" boycott and to discredit more
nationalistic actions. In the late thirties the Harlem CP cooperated
with the respectable Coordinating Committee of Adam Clayton
Powell; Communists also managed to integrate a boycott in Boston.
Elsewhere in the country. Party members followed official policy
and consistently opposed the jobs campaigns.^^
Communists also opposed the widespread cooperative movement
among blacks as "petit-bourgeois." The biggest of the cooperatives,
the Colored Merchants Association, was indeed an organization of
black businessmen, created by the National Negro Business League,
which was dedicated to the conservative principles of its founder,
Booker T. Washington. The CMA was nonetheless one expression of
black power. It attempted to pool the resources of black retailers
across the nation so they could purchase merchandise at a lower
price, and virtually every black organization supported it.*"^ Blacks
initiated smaller independent cooperatives in all parts of the country, especially early in the
Depression.
dale"
^"^
and had been founded by blacks from the lower middle class.
Cooperatives were still being formed in the late thirties, but the
ship,
239
lost
strength as
New
Deal agencies.
Federal
sirable
in
some of
the largest
cities.
1944:
Tribune, in
240
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
constitute a majority, in any tropical belt of the globe."'"' During
World War
more
II,
as
in the
in
1935.
He
later
moved
worked with Charlotta Bass on her California Eagle and then with
the ardent black nationalist Pat Patterson on her paper the Los
Angeles Herald Dispatch one of the first weeklies to carry Elijah
Muhammad's editorial column. Harry Haywood, who went off to
fight in the Spanish Civil War, returned in 1938 to find that the CP
had "liquidated" many of his pet projects in the South. He left the
leadership, and quit the Party altogether in the mid-fifties.'- Grace
Campbell, former African Blood Brotherhood member and a Communist leader in Harlem during the early 1930s, quit in 1938. along
with ex-Garveyite Louis Campbell. The two (unrelated) Campbells
objected to the Party's insistence on having whites in leadership
241
their
colonial
in the
Africa.
Communist
activity in Africa
Kwame
in
in the
in interracial
organ-
of the
New
make
knew
When
racists
would
own
ends.
work within
did
and
interracial
interracial organizations. In
organizations
In Jamaica, the
UNIA
came together
242
demanded
virtually
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
issues,
including:
(1)
modicum of
school in the capital town of each parish; (13) a pubhc library in the
243
picture
tourist
who
said
we ask ourselves was the world differThe answer to this question as it relates to
Marcus Garvey places him in the company of the Great. ... So great
were the goals he set for his race that small minds criticized, and
little men laughed. Laughed as they always have at every new idea
or venture. Some called him a fool. Others branded him a charlatan
and buffoon; while the more charitable called him a dreamer. Too
the individual and his work,
244
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
men
dream.
Little did
instantly placed
him
in the
in calling
build-
work by terming
Garvey
it
dreamer, they
''"'
The work and philosophy of Marcus Garvey have left their mark
on the black world in many ways. An ever-growing awareness of the
Garveyite tradition is reflected in the numerous approaches to black
nationalism and black power. Garvey did more than anyone else in
this century to stimulate race pride and confidence among the black
masses. The black writer Roi Ottley noted during the 1940s that in
stimulating race consciousness the Garveyites were developing the
"ethical standard by which most things are measured and interpreted."''^ This was the standard of race first and other considerations later. Although his critics denied it, Garvey proved that for
blacks "chauvinistic nationalism" was not racism; and that a fierce
pride and spirit of defiance need not destroy the beauty and
compassion in "The Souls of Black Folk."
Tlie black historian John Hope Franklin has called the Garvey
movement "the first and only real mass movement among Negroes
in
historians
have
ignored
the
significance
of
this
and other
fact.
developed pride
in
They
how
it
fail
UNIA
and
artistic
permanently put an end to the myth of the docile Negro, but they
neglect to acknowledge that it was the UNIA which broadened and
institutionalized this militancy in black society. Franklin and most
other historians have failed to even consider the possibility that
Tom Mboya,
245
Uganda's
illegally
the
Congo (Leopoldville),
Nnamdi Azikiwe, the
is
African liberation."*^
And
first
in
Garveyites in
London and
in the
many
future
Nation-building
in
itself
246
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
task have been evident in the tragedy of the
Congo
in the early
1960s, in the Nigeria-Biafra conflict, and in nearly a score of military coups in the
Marcus Garvey
In Jamaica,
Jr.
new
They
are also a
a charlatan, a
theorists held
addition there
is
is
by almost
all
who do
almost always a hazily defined concept. However, as these prejubroken down, the ideology and tactics of Marcus Garvey
dices are
will
may
in
building
alternative
Even
is
in
identities
to
the
melting pot.
it
is
blacks,
who
While
in
hippies
movement
who were
London anarchist
among the poor white
slums of Stepney. "We have set up offices in
England recently
NOTE ON
RESEARCHING
A
BLACK RADICALISM
A
word
been
most
difficult to get
It
is
is
has always
print, especially
made
it
make
the
Garvey movement,
by Garveyites have been printed with UNIA funds, most of
them in limited editions. Today there are re-issues available of
Philosophy and Opinions and of Garvey and Garveyism. Other
works that should be re-issued are Garvey's Tragedy of White Injustice and Selections from the Poetic Meditations of Marcus Garvey;
Rabbi J. Arnold Ford's Universal Ethiopian Hymnal, printed by his
black Jewish congregation: and Zebedee Green's Why I Am Dissatisfied, published in Pittsburgh in 1922 by a short-lived UNIA printing
company set up by George Weston. A re-issue of Len Nembhard's
Trials and Triumphs of Marcus Garvey would be a valuable aid to
to enter the publishing field. In the case of the
writings
New
Deal,
and
of
that period.
Schomburg
me
librarian, told
they
fell
off
someone decided
they were ruined, and so this precious collection was burned.)*
While I was in Jamaica, Mrs. Amy Jacques Garvey showed me
some letters from a friend in London, Richard Hart. Hart had been
the back of the truck and were scattered about:
UNIA
in
activities in
UNIA
Proceedings of the
in sizable
files
UNIA
file.^
whom
UNIA
records,
in
an abandoned building
membership
None of
uncovered
officials.
lists,
in
trial,
UNIA
and were
records was
late
1920s
Since this writing, the Schomburg has replenished its file back to 1923, and
1921-22 papers has been located at the Philadelphia UNIA.
a file of
252
From
nets.
all
researchers at
in a
number of
old
some time
in the future
who owns
when
it is
made
the collection
is
file
cabi-
boon
to
available.
At
being taken to
court.
Community
originally discovered
by members of the
problem. The
find,
but a
Schomburg
files
were stolen
at
the
the
gunpoint
The
issue
Harlem-and
should have control over the material. City officials have tried to
legitimize their claim by enlisting the support of Dr. Kenneth Clark,
a
man
at
now
in
New
York.
In
Schomburg library is
librarian Ernest Kaiser, an editor of Freedomways magazine, which
has generally opposed black nationalism. Asked about the availability of the Schomburg segment of the find. Kaiser responded,
"The collection is very controversial." When he was asked to elabocharge of that part of the collection
rate,
he
said.
in the
in a similar
lection of Paul
stipulation
The home of
Amy
Jacques Garvey
is
UNIA
correspondence, some of
UNIA, and
a large
file
253
number of photographs of
Yarmouth. From
this collection
it
is
On
UNIA.
the viewer of this collection receives the impression that the Garveyites
were interested
in
attire,
is
fiddle
group
is
Rabbi
is
"A Group of Harlem Black Jews."* The capman in the picture holding the bass
Arnold Ford, UNIA musical director, and that the
captioned,
Of
the
radical magazines
there are few copies anywhere today, with the exception of Ran-
dolph's Messenger.
compiled
by
Socialists.
right-wing
UNIA.
little
of
this
type of material
254
is
Drew
Moors, the ABB, or other nationahst movements. Ail organizaand Mrs. Garvey has a collection
in bits
UNIA
NAACP
In
to
press
leadership.
He brought out
the
first
twentieth-century publication of
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. But his plans for other
works were questioned by his Communist comrades who wanted to
control which books would be published. Moore dissolved his
company
in
Communist
Party.*
255
in
DuBois sent
in his
manuscript
critical
of the
New
Deal.^ This
Tlie
was
nationaHstic period for DuBois, and he did pubhsh one treatise with
re-issuing of
many
earlier writers,
who
The researcher
'
A number
will
still
alive,
soon be gone.
of
Moors, members of the African Blood Brotherhood, and other radicals. Their stories should be recorded, not only because they can
help us understand the problems and tasks of blackness, but also
because these people deserve to be remembered as individuals. To
hold black nationalism or black power views
against the conventional
256
APPENDIX 1
THE DECLARATION
OF RIGHTS OF THE
NEGRO PEOPLES OF THE WORLD
The following declaration was drafted and adopted at the 920
convention in New York. The declaration was signed by 122
convention delegates. Some fifty signers went on to take leading
roles in the affairs of the Association: their names are noted by an
asterisk in the list of prominent Garveyites in Appendix 2.
1
UNIA
UNIA
Branch.
PREAMBLE
Be it Resolved, That the Negro people of the world, through their
chosen representatives in convention assembled in Liberty Hall, in
the City of New York and United States of America, from August
to August 31. in the year of our Lord, one thousand nine hundred
and twenty, protest against the wrongs and injustices they are
suffering at the hands of their white brethren, and state what they
1
We
the future.
complain:
L That nowhere
257
common
rights
We
inns of the world for no other reason than our race and color.
II.
In certain parts
trial
is
of crime, but are lynched and burned by mobs, and such brutal and
inhuman treatment
is
women.
treated in
IV.
most instances
In
like slaves.
in
some
states
in certain parts
Our children
shorter terms than white children and the public school funds are
We
many
instances
258
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
and a leper among the races of men, no matter what the characand attainments of the Black man may be.
IX. In the British and other West Indian Islands and colonies,
Negroes are secretly and cunningly discriminated against, and denied
those fuller rights of government to which white citizens are appointed, nominated and elected.
X. That our people in those parts are forced to work for lower
cast
ter
good
many
civilized tastes
in condi-
members of our
race
before the courts of law in the respective islands and colonies are of
such nature as to create disgust and disrespect for the white man's
sense of justice.
XII. Against
all
all
protest,
we demand and
insist
on the
Be it known to all men that whereas, all men are created equal
and entitled to the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and because of this we, the duly elected representatives of the
Negro peoples of the world, invoking the aid of the just and Almighty God do declare all men women and children of our blood
throughout the world free citizens, and do claim them as free citi1
we
all
Negroes.
That
we
are
now
legally ours,
we
believe
that as a race
and
believe in the
right that
all
human
beings.
259
We
among
community
own
representatives to represent
may
such institutions as
them
in legislatures, courts
of law, or
com-
munity.
5.
We
before
assert
the Negro
that
such denial
by the
is
may be
denied him on account of his race or color
all
is
entire
is
body of Negroes.
jury.
7.
We
believe that
We
We
believe that
is
We
believe
all
men
interpreted to
1
We
12.
common human
tolerate
any
respect,
insults that
and
may be
Negroes, and
capital
mean
entitled to
no way
demand
that the
"N."
We
means
to pro-
of color.
13.
We
believe in the
the world, and by the principle of Europe for the Europeans and
Asia for the Asiatics,
we
also
demand
260
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
in the inherent right of the Negro to possess himof Africa, and that his possession of same shall not be regarded
as an infringement on any claim or purchase made by any race or
self
nation.
15. We strongly condemn the cupidity of those nations of the
world who, by open aggression or secret schemes, have seized the
territories and inexhaustible natural wealth of Africa, and we place
on record our most solemn determination to reclaim the treasures
and possession of the vast continent of our forefathers.
16.
but
We
when
believe
men
all
should
live in
races and
ire
race.
20.
We
veyances,
political privileges
discrimination,
power
21.
against
We
all
lynchings and
in
pubhc con-
limitations of
will exert
such.
upon
Negro
like offense, as
261
We
industries
24.
we
declare
it
and labor
We
inhuman and
in
believe in
in various parts
to
employ
all
available
means
call
to prevent
such suppression.
25.
26.
We demand
We
to our
33.
We
vigorously
protest
agents
other races.
34.
We
declare
it
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
37.
We
Negro
40.
race.
Biirrell
and Ford)
As storm cloud
at night
suddenly gathers
When swords
For us
When
are thrust
led
by the
outward to gleam;
be glorious
red, black
and green.
Chorus:
Of
II
Who smote
thee
etc.
Ill
to
Thy
sages
By Thee
be broken.
our dear fatherland.
And Heav'n
bless
etc.
munities in which they reside, for no other reason than their race
and color.
43. We call upon the various governments of the world to accept
and acknowledge Negro representatives who shall be sent to the said
governments to represent the general welfare of the Negro peoples
of the world.
44.
We
them,
in the
the rights
47.
We
alien race
we
men
all
in battle for
an
cheerfully accord to
all
without
first
264
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
Negro people of the world, except
in
matter of national
self-
defense.
48.
ing
We
demand
alien
the aliens.
49.
We demand
Negro children
in
schools
with
We demand
all
51.
free
We
declare
for
the
absolute
all
peoples.
52.
We demand
proper recognition
human
We
We want
all
men
to
by
know we
all
shall
Negroes.
with our
lives,
These rights we believe to be justly ours and proper for the protection of the Negro race at large, and because of this belief, we,
on
names
as a guarantee
265
APPENDIX
PROMINENT
GARVEYITES
The following
with their
UNIA
is
an alphabetical
positions.
J. J.
Qiarlotta
Bass,
journalist;
lady
president
of
the
Los
Angeles
division;
USA.
recruiting; Jamaica.
Burrows,
assistant
division
president
general;
Negro
World
columnist.
USA.
USA.
Arnold
Adrian
S.
Daily,
USA.
UNIA; laborer;
S.
Indies
Trinidad.
Madame M.
L. T.
DeMena,
Dominica.
J.
Marie
Duchaterlier,*
official
in
the
domestic
worker; Haiti.
USA.
West
Haiti
UNIA;
Haiti.
EH
New York
Indies.
USA.
Garcia, auditor general and Black Star Line official; clerk; Haiti.
Arthur
S.
columnist; businessman;
UNIA
USA.
USA.
268
PROMINENT GARVEYITES
Lionel Greenidge.*
Division of the
UNIA;
electrician; Barbados.
R.
West
division and
Indies.
UNIA
choir: musician;
USA.
civil
rights
USA.
Morter; businessman; British Honduras.
ter;
USA.
physician;
Trinidad.
USA.
269
Liberia.
USA.
Rudolph Smith,* leader of the West hidies UNIA; journalist and
minister; Guyana.
Soloman Smith, official in the Cuban and Jamaican UNIA; laborer;
Jamaica.
Wilford E. Smith,* assistant counsel general; attorney;
USA.
Dahomey.
Thomas,* head of the Panama UNIA; attorney; Panama.
Norton G. Thomas, assistant president general and Negro World
official; laborer.
Tobitt,*
leader
of the
Andrew
270
APPENDIX 3
SOURCES
The following newspapers and magazines carried information on
the UNIA and related organizations. They are arranged roughly in
order of their value as source materials. The magazines with continual coverage of black militancy are listed by name only. Those
with isolated contributions are
issues.
An
listed
available.
NEWSPAPERS
Negro World: New York Age; Baltimore Afro-American: New
York World (the most informative of white newspapers); Chicago
Defender: Pittsburgh Courier: Voice of Freedom:* Kingston,
Jamaica, Daily Gleaner: New York Daily Worker (exceptional coverage of the 1924
New York
UNIA
Inter-state Tattler:
Washington Bee:
New York
Amster-
Philadelphia
New York
Abeng
(late
1960s);
New York
People's
lanta
Independent:
Columbia,
(circa
MAGAZINES
Black Man (circa 1930); Negro Churchman:* Crusader:* African
Times and Orient Review, also titled African and Orient Review:
271
Messenger
Crisis;
Communist Party
Organizer.
November 1956);
mer 1968).
Much of
book
is
in the
Schomburg Collection of
St.,
New
York,
New
the
New York
York.
The
UNIA
Mona
collection
as
in
the
Jamaican
Institute,
Kingston,
Jamaica.
Angeles, California.
272
St.
Andrew's
Place,
Los
NOTES
AN INTRODUCTION TO GARVEYISM
DuBois, Souls of Black Folk (Blue Heron Press edition;
W. E.
1953), p. 13.
Roi Ottley, New World
B.
New
York,
p. 81.
Amy
Madison, 1955).
Ibid., p. 221.
Ibid., p. 199.
Ibid., p.
10
222.
Albert B. Cleage
1968), pp. 11-12.
12
Jr.,
New
York,
vol. 1, p. 19.
273
vol. 2, pp.
135-
.
.
NOTES TO PAGES
13
14
9-35
17
18
vol.
p. 3
20 Eldridge Cleaver, "Minister of Information Black Paper" (pamphlet published by the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense; Oakland, Calif., 1968).
21 Philosophy and Opinions, vol. 2, p. 140.
22 Negro World, 16 Aug. 1924.
23 Speech by Stokely Carmichael at the Black Panther Party rally in celebration of Huey P. Newton's birthday, Oakland, California, 7 Feb. 1 968.
24 Philosophy and Opinions, vol. 2, p. 72.
25 Ibid., vol. l,p. 41.
26 BaltimoTe Afro-American, 12 Aug. 1921.
27 Daily Worker, 12 Aug. 1924.
28 Philosophy and Opinions, vol. 2, p. 72.
29 Marcus Garvey, The Tragedy of White Injustice and Selections from the
Poetic Meditations of Marcus Garvey (published by Amy Jacques Garvey;
New York, 1927).
30 Black Man, July-Aug. 1936. This monthly magazine was pubHshed irregularly during the 1930s by Marcus Garvey; the first six issues were published under the name Blackman.
31 Philosophy and Opinions, vol. 2, p. 69.
32 Negro World, 25 June 1927.
33 Blackman, Dec. 1969. This monthly magazine has been published in Kingston, Jamaica, since 1969 by the African Nationalist Union; Marcus Garvey
1
Jr., editor.
2
3
4
5
2 June, 1917.
Chicago Defender, 2 Aug. 1919; Washington Bee, 2 Aug. 1919. Note also
the map of casualties in the Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The
Negro in Chicago (University of Chicago Press; Chicago, 1922).
7 Washington Bee, 21 June 1921.
274
NOTES TO PAGES
8
35-52
in Colonial Africa (Frederick MuUer; Lon1956), pp. 124-25. For background information see W. F. Elkins,
"The Influence of Marcus Garvey on Africa: a British Report of 1922,"
Science and Society. Summer 968; W. F. Elkins, "Black Power in the West
Indies: the Trinidad Longshoremen's Strike of \9\9" Science and Society,
don,
Winter 1969; W. F. Elkins, "A Source of Black Nationalism in the Caribbean," Science and 5oc/V/v, Spring 1970; W. F. Elkins, "The Suppression of
the Negro World in the British West Indies," MS prepared fox Science and
Society. See also Robert G. Weisbord, "Marcus Garvey, Pan-Negroist, the
View from Whitehall," Race (London), April 1970.
9 W. F. Elkins, "A Source of Black Nationalism in the Caribbean."
10 Ibid.
1
The picture is reprinted on the first page of "Revolutionary Radicalism, a
Report of the Joint Committee of New York Investigating Seditious Activities" (J. B. Lyon; Albany, New York, 1920), vol. 2.
12 Claude McKay, Harlem Shadows (Harcourt, Brace; New York, 1922), p.
53. This poem was first published in the Liberator, later in the Messenger
and other magazines.
13 The manifesto is quoted in full in Cronon, Black Moses, p. 17.
14 Cronon, Black Moses, p. 41; Cyril V. Briggs, "Notes for an Autobiography," Cyril Briggs Papers.
15 BaMimoxQ Afro-American, 30 June 1917.
16 Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (Morrow; New York,
1967), p. 119.
17 Negro World, 11 Oct. 1919.
18 Chicago Defender, 2 Aug. 1919; Washington Bee, 2 Aug. 19 19; Pittsburgh
Courier quoted in John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom (Knopf;
New York, 1956), p. 477.
19 New York Times, 28 July 1919.
20 The origins of Randolph's title are discussed in Arna Bontemps, "The Most
Dangerous Negro in America," in Negro Digest, Sept. 1961
21 See Mitchell A. Palmer, "Radicalism and Sedition among the Negroes as
Reflected in their Publications," report of the United States Department of
Justice, vol. 12 of Senate Documents, no. 153, 66th Congress, 1st Session,
1919, pp. 161-187. Also the Lusk Committee Report, "Revolutionary
RadicaUsm, A Report of the Joint Legislative Comm'fttee of New York
Investigating Seditious Activities," vol. 2.
22 Messenger, Aug. 1922.
23 Messenger, Dec. 1919.
24 Republished from Crusader in Negro Yearbook, 1918-1919 (Negro Yearbook Publishing Company; Tuskegee, Alabama, 1919); there is a mention
of a catechism in Briggs, "Notes for an Autobiography."
ALTERNATIVES TO GARVEYISM
For biographical information on Abbott, see Richard Bardolph, A^ef ro Vanguard (Vintage; New York, 1961), pp. 192-94; also see Metz T. P. Lochard,
"Phylon Profile XII: Robert S. Abbott, 'Race Leader,' " Phylon, second
quarter 1947, pp. 124-28.
275
NOTES TO PAGES
53-65
International Publishers;
25
26
27
In Herbert Aptheker,
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Allen,
104.
Press edition;
28
29
30
31
32
33
Documentary History of
New York,
276
Ibid.
35
36
37
38
39
40
Messenger.
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
Spero
&
i3in.
\9\8\May-June 1919.
in the
Chicago Defender, 29
July 1922.
65
277
NOTES TO PAGES
78-87
73
74
sity,
1947), p. 18.
79 Crusader, Nov. 1921; interview with Harry Haywood, June 1966; Garvey
and Garveyism, pp. 64-65; New York World, 20 Aug. 1921.
80 Crusader, Nov. 1921.
81
Ibid.
82
83
84
Cyril Briggs to
85
Papers.
86
87 Communist Review (London), April 1922.
88 Philosophy and Opinions, vol. 2, pp. 333-34.
89 Cyril Briggs to Theodore Draper, 17 March 1958; interview with Harry
Haywood, June 1 966; interview with Richard B. Moore, May 968.
90 Interview with Harry Haywood, June 1966; Briggs, "Notes for an Auto1
91
92
93
94
95
96
biography."
Interview with Harry Haywood, June 1966.
Chicago Defender, 22 Jan. 1921; Chicago Commission on Race Relations,
The Negro in Chicago, pp. 59-64.
Chicago Defender, 20 June 1 920; 3 July 1 920.
Chicago Defender, 15 Jan. 1921.
Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago, pp. 59-64.
MS for Negro World articles in the John Bruce Papers, Schomburg Collection.
278
Alabama).
Cionon, Black Moses, p. 14.
4 African Times and Orient Review, July 1921.
5 Duse Mohammed, In the Land of the Pharaohs (Stanley Paul; London,
1911) pp. 1-3.
3
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
105-10,66, 121-22.
121-22.
African Times and Orient Review, Sept. 1913.
Ibid., Oct. 1913.
African and Orient Review, May 1920-the African Times and Orient
Review was renamed in 1920.
Duse Mohammed, In the Land of the Pharaohs, p. 5.
African Times and Orient Review, Oct. 1913.
African and Orient Review, June 1920.
Interview with Rudolph Smith, July 1969.
Interview with James B. Yearwood, Aug. 1969; Negro World, 12 June
1920.
Interview with Rudolph Smith, July 1969.
See the John Bruce Papers, in the Schomburg Collection, New York.
Interviews with Rudolph Smith, July 1969; James B. Yearwood, Aug.
1969; and Richard B. Moore, Sept. 1968; African Times and Orient
Review, Sept. 1913; Sept. 1917; Oct. 1917; Oct. \9U; African and Orient
Review, June 1920; Dec. 1920; Negro World, 15 April 1933.
Ibid., pp.
Ibid., pp.
279
NOTES TO PAGES
32 Negro World,
7,
33
Jan. 1921
2
3
4
5
6
7
04-1 25
A fro -American
Jan.
1921.
IN ITS
PRIME
official delegates.
New
York Times, 18 Aug. 1920; for the initial proposal of the Black House
New York Times, 18 Aug. 1919.
Biographical sketch of Bishop McGuire in the New York World, 3 Aug.
see the
10
1924.
New York
New York
1 920; 7 Aug.
920.
28 Aug. 1920.
California Eagle, 24 Dec. \92\; Messenger, March 1923.
Garvey and Garveyism, p. 46; also see Cronon, Black Moses, pp. 63-64.
New York Times, 4 Aug. 1920; New York World, 5 Aug. 1920.
New York World, 5 Aug. 1920.
New York World, 4 Aug. 1920; 5 Aug. 1920.
New York /l^e, 21 Aug. 1920.
Pittsburgh Courier, 22 March 1930; Philosophy and Opinions, vol. 2 pp.
135-43.
20 Negro World, 11 Sept. 1920; reprinted m Independent. 26 Feb. 1921. The
Baltimore Afro-American, 20 Aug. 1920, also emphasized the refusal-to-
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
World, 4 Aug.
/Ige.
UNIA
declaration.
of UNIA officers was carried in the New York Age, 4 Sept. 1 920.
Interview with James B. Yearwood, Aug. 1969.
Baltimore /4/ra-/lmem'a/7, 27 Aug. 1920.
New York World, 27 Aug. 1920.
Philosophy and Opinions, vol. 2, pp. 278-79; New York Age, 19Aug. 1922.
Cronon, Black Moses, p. 59.
list
22
23
24
25
26
27 Ibid., p. 59
28 %dL\t\moTe Afro-American, 15 Sept. 1922.
29 "Menu: First Annual Court Reception, Sat. August 27, 1921,"
Garvey Papers; interview with Amy Jacques Garvey, July 19(i9.
30 New York World, 22 Aug. 1922.
31
Interview with
Amy
280
19(i9.
in
the
NOTES TO PAGES
125-155
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
New York
World, 3 Aug. 1924. The 1968 World Almanac listed the African
Orthodox Church as having 24 congregations and 6,000 members.
60 New York World, 26 Aug. 1922.
On CyrD Henry
"Maloney"
Interview
7
8
p. 75.
237-39.
New York
281
NOTES TO PAGES
9
10
11
New York
W.
E. B.
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
155-168
St.
Louis July
2.
1917 (World;
Who's Who of the Colored Race, 1915; interview with James B. Yearwood,
Aug. 1969.
Who's Who of the Colored Race, 1915; interview with Ted Poston. July
1967; New \ork Age, 26 May 1923; Who's Who in Colored America, i927.
Who's Who of the Colored Race, 1915; interview with Ted Poston, July
1967.
Interview with Ted Poston, July 1967.
Messenger, Dec. 1922; Feb. \923; Negro World, 1 Aug. 1926.
See Christian A. Lokko, Parkra via Accra, Gold Coast, to Marcus Garvey,
12 Aug. 1922, John Bruce Papers, Schomburg Collection.
Interview with Amy Jacques Garvey, March 1970.
Claude McKay, Harlem: Negro Metropolis, pp. 168-69; Roi Ottley, A^ew
World A-Coming (World, Cleveland, 1943), p. 1\\ Negro World, 4 June
1927.
John Bruce to Florence Bruce, 2 Jan. 1924; Casely Hayford, Seccondee,
Gold Coast, to John Bruce, 24 Nov. 1923, John Bruce Papers.
Interview with Amy Jacques Garvey, July 1969.
New York /Ige, 19 Aug. 1922.
Chic&go Defender, 6 Jan. 1923.
"Maloney" to John Bruce, 3 Jan. 1923, John Bruce Papers, Schomburg
Collection.
25
Daily Worker, 9 Aug. 1924; 11 Aug. 1924; 12 Aug. 1924; interview with
Charlotta Bass, Forty Years, Memoirs from the
Charlotta Bass, Nov. 1 96
Pages of a Newspaper (Charlotta Bass; Los Angeles, 1960), p. 198; interview with Len Nembhard, July 1969; Kingston Gleaner, 15 Dec. 1919; 26
March 1921; 14 June 1921; Crusader. Feb. 1921; Nov. \92l; Negro World,
25 July 1931; 1 Aug. 1931.
Garvey and Garveyism, p. \6A\Negro World, 24 July 1926; 25 June 1927;
1
26
27
28
10 Aug. 1927.
Interview with St. Clair Drake, Aug. 1970.
Ibid.;
Shepperson and
Price,
29
A WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT
Estimates of the sizes of the divisions were obtained from statements about
the number of members and from references to the size of weekly meetings
in the Negro World and other newspapers and periodicals.
2 Negro World, 5 June 1920; 12 June 1920; 22 Oct. 1921; 17 Dec. 1921; 24
April 1924.
3 Negro World. 22 Oct. 1921.
4 Passport regulations are set out in the UNIA Constitution and Book of
Laws, copy in the Garvey Papers.
5
Savannah rr/Aune, 14 Sept. 1922.
6 Baltimore y4/ro-i4mer/cfln, 23 March 1923.
1
282
NOTES TO PAGES
Interview with
See,
10
1
13
14
1
Amy
169-177
16
17
18
19
20
21
12
March
1921.
Discussions with Charlotta Bass, Nov. 1961 Charlotta Bass, Forty Years.
California Eagle, 28 May 1 92 1 8 Oct. 1921.
California Eagle. 8 Jan. 1921.
;
America," p. 18.
22 Amy Jacques Garvey, "Black Power in America," p. 18.
23 W. F. Elkins, "Influence of Marcus Garvey on Africa"; interview with
Muriel Petioni, Aug. 969.
24 Negro World, 1 2 June 920.
25 Kingston Gleaner, 8 June 1921; 10 May 1921. The Gleaner covered
Garveyite activity throughout the Caribbean.
26 Crusader, Jan. 1921, Nov. 1921.
27 Kingston Gleaner, 4 April 1921.
28 See the Negro World, 1926-28 passim.
29 Handbook of British Honduras, 1925 (The West Indian Committee,
London).
30 George Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism?, p. 96; W. F. Elkins,
"Influence of Marcus Garvey in Africa"; Robert Weisbord, "Marcus
Garvey, Pan-Negroist"; Richard Hart to Amy Jacques Garvey, 6 March
1969, Garvey Papers.
31 Interview with Amy Jacques Garvey, July 1969; Amy Jacques Garvey to
W. E. B. DuBois. 24 April 1944; Sidney Young to Amy Jacques Garvey, 12
April 1944, both in the Garvey Papers.
32 Roi Ottley, New World A-Coming, (World; Cleveland, New York, 963), p.
1 6\^dAi\moxt Afro-American, 16 Sept. 1921.
33 Interview with Amy Jacques Garvey, July 1969. John Bruce's evaluation of
Hayford's work is in an undated MS in the John Bruce Papers, Schomburg
1
Collection.
283
NOTES TO PAGES
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
177-190
Dr. Burnhani and the UNIA see Negro World. 25 June 1924; 14 Aug.
1926; on Johnson and the UNIA see Negro World. 30 April 1927.
For Garvey and the African labor movement see Thomas Hodgkin, TVar/o^alism in Colonial Africa (MuUer; London, 1956), pp. 101-2; A. A. AdioMoses to Amy Jacques Garvey, 9 Jan. 1946, Garvey Papers; for the AOC in
Uganda see Robert Rotberg, A Political History of Tropical Africa (Harcourt Brace & World; New York, 1965), pp. 340-41.
Interview with Rudolph Smith, July 1969.
See former UNIA member Stanley A. Davis's This is Liberia (William
Frederick; New York, 1953), p. 1 17; Charles Henry Huherich. Political and
Legislative Historv (Central Book; New York, 1947), vol. 2, pp. 819, 871,
1207-10.
Philosophy and Opinions, vol. 2, pp. 399-405.
Edwin Barclay to UNIA, 14 June 1920, reprinted in Philosophy and
Opinions, vol. 2, p. 365.
Ibid., p. 366.
Quoted in Cronon, Black Moses, pp. 125-26; for examples of the manner
in which the British authorities kept watch on the Liberian UNIA, see
Robert G. Weisbord, "Marcus Garvey, Pan-Negroist."
Cronon, Black Moses, ^. \26.
Garvey and Garvey ism, p. 147; Huherich, Political and Legislative History,
vol. 2, pp. 869, 871-72, 986, 1 207-10; Nathaniel Richardson, L/ftena Pc^r
and Present (Diplomatic Press; London, 1959), pp. 283, 287. On the political career of Gabriel Johnson see C. L. Simpson, The Symbol of Liberia
(Diplomatic Press; London, n.d.) pp. 155-56.
Pittsburgh Courier, 8 Aug. \924, Philosophy and Opinions, vol. 2, pp. 371,
375.
New York Age, 22 March 1924; Pittsburgh Courier, 22 March 1924; 3 May
1924.
As reported in Philosophy and Opinions, vol. 2, p. 379.
Pittsburgh Coner, 3 May 1924.
New York Age, 23 Aug. 1924; also see Baltimore Afro-American, 11 May
1923.
Garvey and Garveyism, p. 144.
Pittsburgh Cowner, 5 Sept. 1924.
New York Evening Bulletin, 24 Aug. 1924, quoted in Garvey and Garveyism, pp. 146-47.
Interview with Amy Jacques Garvey, July 1969; Garvey and Garveyism, p.
ld>\^2i\i\more Afro-American, 11 Aug. 1922.
New York World, 31 Aug. 1922; Baltimore /l/ro-/lmer/ca^, 11 Aug. 1922;
Cronon, Black Moses, p. 148. For a historical account of the delegation see
Negro World, 1 1 June 1932.
Cronon, Black Moses, p. XAB^Negro World, 16 Aug. 1924; Washington fief,
Dec. \92\;^2Ai\more Afro-American, 25 Nov. 1921 Pittsburgh Cowr/er,
I
23 Nov. 1923.
On
York, 1948).
284
NOTES TO PAGES
Amy
190-201
New York
Age, 22 July
Interview with
1922.
Ibid.
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30.
31
Briggs's lawsuit
is
285
62
63
64 Ibid.
65 Negro World. 28 July 1928;
in
the
New York
TWILIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS
Amy
Interview with
286
NOTES TO PAGES
220-228
lists in
12
13
14
15
16
17
Ulysses Poston arranged to have a history of the UNIA in the United States
written by Marcus Garvey published serially in the Pittsburgh Courier of
1930-interview with Ted Poston. Sept. 1967.
UNIA flyers of 1932 and 1937, Garvey Papers; the Negro World, 3 July
1926: 7 May 1927; Voice of Freedom, 15 May 1945. The latter was a
short-lived Garveyite newspaper based in New York.
Negro World, \S April 1933; a similar analysis by Haynes from the Negro
World, 6 May 1933, is reprinted in Garvev and Garvevism, p. 213.
World Almanac, 1968.
Pittsburgh Courier, 7 Aug. 1926; interview with Amy Jacques Garvey, July
1969.
Interview with Amy Jacques Garvey, July 1969; also see Amy Jacques
25
26
27
Interview with
Quoted
in
287
36
37
38
39
New York
MS
Schomburg
olis,
in
the
Collection; Claude
pp. 198-200.
43
44
45
46
pp.
288
Jan. 1932.
67
68
II,
"Rochdale Cooperatives among Negroes," Phylon, first
quarter 1940.
See Gunnar Myrdal, America Dilemma, for an extensive analysis of the
John Hope
New
70
71
May
1945.
289
George Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism?, p. 304; Drake and Cayton, Black Metropolis, p. 752; Thomas Hodgkin, Nationalism in Colonial
Africa (Muller; London, 1956), pp. 101-2. The role of the African Orthodox Church in Uganda is discussed in Robert Rotberg, A Political History
of Tropical Africa (Harcourt Brace & World; New York, 1965), pp. 34041.
2
3
4
5
6
7
10
Richard Hart to Amy Jacques Garvey, 6 March 1969, in the Garvey Papers.
Robert G. Weisbord, "Marcus Garvey, Pan-Negroist; the View from
Whitehall," Race (London), April 1970.
Interview with Amy Jacques Garvey, July 1969; interview with Alfred A.
Smith, Aug. 1969.
Interview with Ernest Kaiser, May 1970; telephone interview with Bernice
Sims, May 1970.
Allon Schoener, editor, Harlem on My Mind, 1900-1968 (Random House;
New York, 1968), p. 105; Amy Jacques Garvey to the author, 29 July
1970.
Harlem on My Mind, p. 91.
Langston Hughes, The Big Sea (Hill and Wang; New York, 1963), pp.
235-37.
Interview with Richard B. Moore, May 1968.
Address by Herbert Aptheker at the University of California, Berkeley, 1
Feb. 1965.
Personal recollections of the author, whose family was close to the Killens
family during the early 1950s.
In
290
INDEX
Abantu Batho (South
Abeng (Jamaica), 228
Abbott,
Robert
S..
Africa), 129
Abd-el-Krim, 176
Abyssinians (Star Order of Ethiopia
and Ethiopian Missionaries to
Abvssinia), 55, 85-87. 254
Adams. J. J., 152. 184, 185
230,239
Afro-American Liberty League, 78
Agbebe, Akinbama, 97
Agricultural Adjustment Administra-
AFL-CIO, 63
"Africa
for
the
Africans"
(slogan),
16,39, 116
African, 241
The African Abroad. 125, 129, 159
African and Orient Review. See African Times and Orient Review.
African Blood Brotherhood, 24, 55,
255-56; and Communist party,
233-34, 241; and cooperatives
74-85,87
240
Noble Drew (Timothy Drew),
208, 222-23, 254-55
Alves, A. Bain, 159, 172
American Colonization Society, 178
American Federation of Labor, 66,
68, 239
American Negro Academy, 65
And Then We Heard the Thunder,
256
Anderson. Louis B., 169
Anderson, Marian, 124
Anderson, Thomas, 201
Appeal to Reason, 95
tion,
Ali,
224
African National Congress, 58, 177,
241
African National Socialism, 29-30
African Orthodox Church, 29,121,
133-137, 177, 222
African Patriotic League, 231
"Back
to Africa"
movement,
185,227
200
291
Amy
16, 22,
INDEX
Baltimore
Afro-American,
199, 203,255
Barclay, Arthur, 179
Barclay, Edwin, 180-181
Bass, Charlotta, 56, 130,
54,
72,
159, 170,
198
Beckford, Ruth, 132-133
Belize Independent. 128, 175
Belize, Honduras, uprising of 1919,
35-36, 128, 152, 175
Bellegarde, J., 56
Bennett, Lerone, 54
Betts, E. S. Beoku, 98
Bible Tract Society, 133
Bilbo, Theodore, 228-29
Binaisa, Godfrey, 246
Bishop, Reverend Hutchins C, 55
Black Belt Republic, 233-35, 241-42
Black Bourgeoisie, 168
Black Cross Nurses, 102-3, 113
Black Establishment, 52-55
"Black House," 112, 120
Black Man, 27-28, 220, 227, 243,
246, 253
Black Metropolis, 1 6 1 246
Black Moses: The Story of Marcus
Garvey and the Universal Negro
,
Improvement Association, 1 19
Black Muslims. See Nation of Islam.
Black Panther Party, 14, 23, 40
Black power, 13-14, 16, 18, 23, 29,
51-52, 55, 61-63, 68, 72, 94, 105,
230, 247
Black Star Line, 13, 18, 25,81, 12122, 152, 155, 166, 174, 196, 198,
206; founding of, 101-4; trial of
officers,
Black
200-203
Steamship
Star
Burnham,W.
Bustamante,
Sir
177
85
Alexander, 244
Camdare, M., 56
Campbell, Grace, 213
Campbell, Louis, 155, 233, 237, 241
Caranda, Dongba C, 179, 181
Cargill, Schuyler,
203
44
128,
192,
195,
Circle for
Company,
Negro War
Committee
Relief,
for
55
Fair
253
71
Bolsheviks, 44, 46, 65, 79-80, 82
Cleage. Albert
I.,
Ill
Bridges, William,
39
84,
239, 241,242
Briggs, William H.,
87
Play,
230
196,
231
Chicago Whip. 231
Chilembwe, John, 161
Citizens
206-7
A.,
Jr..
17
209
Coleman, Dr. Julia P.. 200
Colored American Review, 77-78, 80
Colored Clerks Circle, 230
Colored Farmers Alliance, 104
Colored Merchants Association, 55,
239
Colson, William, 44-45
Columbia Southern Indicator, 168
Cleaver, Eldridge, 22, 136,
292
INDEX
Comite de Defense de
la
Race Negre,
176
Committee
Coolidge. Calvin. 2
Cooperative movement, 47, 76, 86,
166, 239
Coptic Church. 136
Costanie. Bishop Kiowa, 231
Costanie movement, 230, 231
Craigen, J. A., 206
Crawford. Anthony. 78, 84
Creese, George, 1 1
Crichlow, Cyril, 180
Crisis. 34, 39. 58. 62, 123. 128. 191.
255
Cronon.
Dusk of Dawn.
E.
221
Crosswaith. Frank. 62, 69, 71
Crusader. 39. 45-47, 71, 75, 78-81,
87, 171
Crusader News Service, 1 92
Cruse. Harold. 42, 61
Cullen, Countee, 72
Eastman. Max. 40
Eboue, Felix, 1 76, 246
Ellegor, Frances. 204
Pacific movement,
228-29
Ethiopia Unbound, 97
Europe, James Reese, 123
Ethiopian
227,
Davis,
analysis of,
DeMena. M.
115-119
L. T.. 131.
206
Denniston. J., 1 59
Detroit Contender, 129, 157
de Valera, Eamon, 114, 1 25
Diagne. Blaise, 56
Diggs, J. R. L.,74. 160-61. 204
Divine. Father, 208, 222, 224-27
Divine Righteous Government platform, 226
Fire,
255
Firestone
Fletcher, Ben, 62
293
INDEX
Ford, Ben, 62
Ford, Rabbi J. Arnold, 97, 123,
134-35, 152, 159, 222, 251
Ford, James W., 62, 232,254
Fortune, T. Thomas, 129, 157, 192
Fowler, John W., 169
Francis, Lionel, 231
Francis, Napoleon, 175
224
198
Garcia,
240-41,246
Garvey and Garveyism. 15, 251
Garvey, Marcus Jr. (Mwalimu Marcus
Garvey), 29-30, 247
Garvey, Marcus Mosiah, 46-47, 55.
71-72, 74, 85, 153, 157, 166,
175, 184-85, 196, 213, 222, 247;
and Africa, 20-21, 57-58; and
Amy Ashwood Garvey, 131-32;
and Amy Jacques Garvey, 131-32;
and A. Philip Randolph, 44-45,
66-67, 191-92; approach to the
168-69; atAmerican
South,
tempted assassination of, 190; as
"Black Moses," 15, 134; on black
power, 18, 94; assessments of,
15-16, 21, 59, 66-67, 81, 92. 99,
191-94, 197, 217, 222-23, 24446, 248; as Black Star Line offi22-23, 200-203; on brothercial,
hood, 20, 22; death of, 91, 244;
deportation from the U.S. of,
218-19; compared with DuBois,
57-62, 246; and Duse Mohammed,
39, 93-96; early life of, 91-93;
economic views of, 24-29; on emigration, 23; founds UNIA. 40-41.
98-99; and Gandhi, 125; on im-
Ku Klux
on
26-27;
Jamaicans,
Klan, 19,
190-91, 196-97, 205-6, 209-11;
and the Masons, 158; on the
NAACP, 1 94; on race riots, 43; on
race war, 21-22; on religion, 13334; on separatism, 17; on socialism
and communism, 24-29, 84, 19495, 209; temperament of, 92, 212;
at UNIA conventions, 112, 114,
196-97, 210-11; on UNIA Constitution and Bill of Rights. 114-16;
on Booker T. Washington, 25-26,
perialism,
209
German
Gibson,
J.
D.,
20
220
Gordon, Dr.
J.
28,
77
D.,
110,
152,
169,
221
Hamid,
Sufi
Abdule
(Bishop
Con-
shankin), 230-32
Harris,
Abram,
Harlem
Harlem
Harlem
Harlem
294
64. 72
INDEX
Harlem Renaissance, 62, 159-60, 255
Harlem Shadows. 60
Harris, George W., 54, 200
Harrison, Hubert H., 39, 40. 74, 78,
James
A.,
169
212-14
Hayes. Roland, 24
Hayford, Casely. 81, 97. 158. 176.
177
Haynes, Samuel, 58, 74, 129, 134.
152,206, 221-22, 241
Haywood, Harry, 74, 234-36, 2411
42
Headwaiters and Sidewaiters Society
of Greater New York, 63-64
Henry. Cyril. 110. 152. 180-81
Hill, Ken, 244
Hilyer, Andrew F., 55
Hodgkin.Thomas. 246
Holsey, Albon, 55
Hoover, Herbert, 214
Hotel Messenger, 64
Houston. Marie Barrier. 124. 241
Howard, D.
Industrial
Kilroe,
230
Industrial
Thomas, 229
Bongo, 228
Jernigan, W. H.. 56
Jet, 62
Johannesburg Sfar, 129
Johnson, Adrian, 194, 221, 241
Johnson. Emmanuel. 177
Johnson, Gabriel, 98, 111, 120, 158,
178, 180, 182-83, 204
Johnson, James Weldon, 58. 65, 70Jere,
King, A. L.,
62.65-66.83
Integration, 15, 24, 45, 51, 60, 116-
242
League
Ku Klux
International
of
232
Darker
190-91,
Peoples, 45
219; in Caribbean
UNIA, 175-76; in Declaration of
Rights, 118-120; versus regionalism in the Garvey movement,
161,
177,
208-9,212
Interstate Tattler. See
New York
In-
ter-state Tattler.
208
241
295
2,
120, 153,
INDEX
Moorish American Science Temple,
206,
Liberty
167,
Liberty
120,
208,222-23,230, 254
Morgan,
J. P.,
135
220, 229
182, 183,218,219
University, 160
Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, The, 255
Abraham, 229
Lincoln, C. Eric, 240
Linton, J. A., 246
Nail,
Lincoln,
McConney, Prince
Alfred,
McGavick, Oscar, 87
McGuire, Bishop George Alexander,
29, 74, 112, 121, 134-36, 177,
205-6,209-11,213, 241
McKay, Claude, 40, 72, 129, 160,
226
Mack, Julian (Judge), 201-2
Madison Square Garden, 43, 109,
114-15
Mair, Ernest E., 28, 74, 157
John
E.,
200
vancement
(NAACP),
232,235-37
National
112, 156
National Maritime Union, 155
National Negro Business League, 5455, 168, 192, 239
National Negro Congress, 242
National Negro Labor Congress, 63
National Youth Administration, 237
70
Negro Cooperative League, 47
Negro Factories Corporation, 18, 25,
103, 152, 166, 201
Negro PoHtical Union, 125-26, 2056, 210, 218
Negro Times, 129, 201, 252
Negro Voice, 39
Negro World, 17, 19, 21, 28, 43, 45.
58, 72, 74, 78, 81, 97,
113. 116-17, 119, 134,
175-76, 192, 194-95,
201, 203. 214, 218,
255
296
104. Ill,
151, 167,
197, 200219, 231;
INDEX
27-33: collections of,
252-55; founding of, 39-40: personnel of, 129-30, 157-60
Negro Yearbook. 79. 98, 133
analysis of,
Nembhard, Len,
15, 251
New
Challenge. 255
New
27
Peace Movement of Ethiopia, 227
People's National Party (of Jamaica),
131,221
251, 255-60
New Masses.
1 29
Negro," 34-47, 64
New Negro. The. 60-61, 160
New Negro Alliance, 230, 232
New Negro Opinion. 232
New York Age. 54. 190, 192, 199,
"New
213
11, 79,
231
221
157.
221
New York Times, 114, 195
New York World, 113, 196
Niagara Movement, 59
Nigerian Federation of Labor, 177
200
Negro Improvement
Association, 198. 208
Padmore, George, 56, 241-42, 246
Palmer, Mitchell, 254
Pan-African Congress movement, 55Pace, Harry, 53-54,71,
Pacific
58,
Coast
70, 82,
183-84, 209-
in
Their Pub-
254
109,
Rastafarl, 208,
Star.
29
Paramount Records, 54
227-28
Reed, John. 40
Redding. Grover Cleveland. 85-87
Reid. Arthur, 231-32
Republic of New Africa, 14, 22
"Revolutionary Radicalism: A Re-
241
Panama Daily
J. J..
Rand
Owen, Chandler,
194, 199,200
Reverend
10
54
Richmond
297
Planet.
34
INDEX
Thompson, Orlando, 200, 202-3
Toote, Fred, 218
Trade Union Committee for Organiz-
248
Tragedy of White Injustice, The, and
Selections from the Poetic Meditations of Marcus Garvey, 15, 25 1
Trials
64
20-21, 70,
93-95, 190,219, 222
Sherrill, WUliam, 153, 184, 195, 197,
210, 213-14, 217, 241, 244-45
Shepperson, George, 246
Shuffle Inn Music Hall, 67
Separatism,
14,
16-17,
Sims, R. T., 62
Smith, Alfred A., 155
Smith, Alfred E., 214, 219
Smith, Harry, 54
Smith, Rudolph, 39, 97, 221, 232,
Tuskegee
Marcus
Institute,
55
166,248
83, 191, 193-94, 209; branch divisions of, 109, 165-85; in Canada,
110-11, 151, 165; in Central
71-72,79, 237
Spaulding, C. C, 66
Star Order of Ethiopia and Ethiopian
Abyssinia.
of
to
Triumphs
241
Smith, Wilford, 155
Socialism, 14, 41, 43, 45, 63-64, 95,
Missionaries
and
Garvey, 15,251
Tropic Death, 160
Trotter, William Monroe, 44, 56, 59,
71, 112, 156, 161
Tulsa, Oklahoma, riot of 1921, 74-75
See
Abyssinians.
Sterhng, Spero D., 64
Steady, I. G., 160
Stephens, Theodore, 97, 175
Stewart, Gabriel, 39, 152
Stokes, J. C. Phelps, 82
Stokes, Rose Pastor, 81-82
You
Can't
Work"
movement,
177,206
of,
18,
Third International, 14
Third World, 28-29, 33, 42-43, 57
Thomas, Norman, 68
Thompson, Noah, 169-70, 198
politics,
214,
298
18-20,
112,
120,
210,
INDEX
opian Pacific movement, 228; factionalism in, 189-200, 202, 20814, 217-18; and Father Divine
Peace Mission, 208, 225-27; first
102,
19,
218
Up from
Slavery, 98
Urban League, 169-70, 236
Who's Who
Colored America, 74
25 1
Wilhams, Robert, 209
Williams, Vernal, 120, 220, 241
Wilson, George, 222
Why
in
Am Dissatisfied,
184
Pancho, 80
299
Theodore G. Vincent received his M.A. from the Univerof CaHfomia at Berkeley, where he taught black studies
sity
in
the
Maya Angelou on
the "Black, Blues, Black" series for NationEducation Television and has written a radio series for the
Pacifica Foundation on the origins of black power. He is
currently completing his doctorate at UCLA, where he lives
with his wife and daughter.
Theodore Vincent is also the author of Voices of a Black
Nation: Political Journalism in the Harlem Renaissance (San
Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1972), foreword by Robert
Chrisman, editor of The Black Scholar.
al
THe;
GflRUEV mOUEmEIIT
Vincent is at his perceptive best detatJing the explosive men
and events of the 1 920s ... a fine and important work.
journal of Negro History
...
the
nearly
first
two decades
movemeot 'ip
document as
it
useful
on both counts.
E.
David Cronon
nating to read.
^
.
also by
Theodore Vincent
Stephen Torgdff
The Guardian
T^amparts Tress
Harlem Renaissance
Trade distribution by
ISBN 0-87867-037-8
Order no.
RP
0378