By Robert N. Taylor
Marcus Mosiah Garvey came to the United States from Jamaica in 1916 after a series of letters between himself and legendary black leader Booker T. Washington. He was virtually penniless and by the time he arrived, Washington had died. But with no money and no benefactor, Garvey still set out on a mission to build the largest black mass movement in the history of the Western hemisphere. Amazingly, he succeeded.
Indeed, by the early 1920’s, Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association – UNIA – had over 1,000 chapters spread throughout the United States and 40 other countries. His organization was not only the largest black-controlled group in the world, it also owned everything from bakeries to grocery stores and from factories to the famous Black Star shipping line.
How did he accomplish so much in so little time!?
First a bit of background is necessary. Garvey was born in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica on August 17, 1887. He inherited his father’s love for books and reading. However, by age 14 he had left school and soon started to work on ships which enabled him to travel throughout the Caribbean and South America. During these travels what struck Garvey most was the conditions under which most blacks lived. It appeared to him that wherever he went people of African descent were at the bottom of society – economically exploited, politically powerless, socially disrespected and very often brutalized
The conditions he saw convinced him of the need for a “universal” or Pan-African organization to address the needs of blacks world wide. He formed the first UNIA chapters in Jamaica in 1914. But when he arrived in the United States in 1916, the times, the conditions, and the attitudes of blacks, especially in large cities, were right for a man with the right message. Garvey was the man and with his powerful and emotional oratory he preached a three-part message:
• Betterment of the black race through economics and the building of wealth
• Racial pride and the need to build a black empire, and
• Self-help, we-can-do it attitude
“Garveyism” became a religion of pride and success driven by an attitude of “Up you mighty race and accomplish what you will.” – one of Garvey’s most frequently repeated statements.
Garveyism struck a positive cord among the hundreds of thousands of blacks who had left the oppressive conditions of Southern farms for World War I generated factory jobs in the North. This mass migration seemed to reflect the Marxist law which says quantitative change tends to produce qualitative change. And indeed the massive concentrations of blacks in Northern industrial centers working relatively well-paying jobs produced a change in attitude. There emerged a greater sense of self-confidence and an expanded attitude about what was possible.
Garvey fed into these changes with both substance and show. Blacks could see both his successful businesses and his showmanship which included discipline, uniformed or well dressed members marching in parades and other spectacular events. It was this sense of pride, success and the theatrical which explain the rapid growth of the UNIA in the U.S. and worldwide.
However, success attracts attention – not all of it positive!
Garvey’s downfall resulted from three factors:
• Jealously and opposition from other black leaders and groups
• Internal dissension and pettiness within his own organization and
• Government harassment
It was the government harassment which proved to be the crucial factor. The U.S. government feared Garvey. He was more powerful than a black man was supposed to be and he was not begging for integration with the white man. He advocated an independent black empire in Africa which would lend protection to blacks around the world.
The historical record now suggests that the mail fraud charges filed against him in 1922 were trumped up. He was railroaded into jail in 1925. But the sentence was commuted in 1927 with the proviso that he had to leave the Unites States. Away from his U.S. power base in arguably the most important black community in the world, Garvey regrouped but never fully recovered. He died in London, England on June 10, 1940.
But not before leaving an everlasting legacy of pride and success for the black race which was captured in an excerpt from one of his last speeches:
“So few of us can understand what it takes to make a man – the man who will never give up; the man who will never depend on others to do for him what he ought to do for himself; the man who will not blame God; who will not blame Nature; who will not blame fate for his condition, but the man who will go out and make conditions to suit him.”
