Marcus Garvey
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On August 17, 1887 in St.Anns Bay in the Caribbean island of Jamaica, Marcus Mosiah Garvey was born (Lawler 15). He was the youngest of eleven children that lived in the household. In 1904, after Garvey finished elementary school in St. Anns bay he moved to Kingston which is Jamaicas capitol to work as a printer. He was pursued to move at the age of fourteen to get a job to help his family financially. After his father died in 1903 he was apprenticed as a printer and earned journeyman and foreman ranks in the trade of printing (Thomas). Garveys involvement in a typographical union and printers strike in 1907 and 1908 caused him trouble finding employment in Jamaica (Thomas). Garvey decided to travel and found work in Costa Rica, panama, and other places in South America.
In 1912 through 1914 he lived and attended a few college lectures in England. This was a good opportunity for him as it was the place where he first was able to meet native Africans and learn about the horrible conditions in Africa. During his stay in England he became interested on how blacks lived in the United States. It was also there he first began to read the autobiography of Booker T Washington.(Cronon 2) He once said, “I read Up from Slavery by Booker T Washington and then my doom- if I may so call it-of becoming a race leader dawned upon meI asked: “Where is the black mans government?” “Where is his King and his kingdom?” “Where is his president, his country, and his ambassador, his army, his navy, hid men of big affairs?” I could not find them, and then I declared, “I will help to make them.”(Cronon 3) Garvey was also heavily influenced by the West African journalist Casely Hayfords Ethiopia Unbound, and William H. Ferris The African Aboard. (Thomas) These works caused him to have an interest in the early Pan-African movement.
In 1913, Garvey developed an friendship with the Egyptian editor Duse Mohamed Ali, a former actor who had became a journalist and, inspired by the Universal Races Conference held in London in 1911, had founded a monthly magazine called the African Times and Orient Review. (Thomas) Garvey later returned to his homeland with lots of ideas of how he was going to help Jamaicans and blacks across the world. He arrived back in Jamaica on July 15, 1914; five days later he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and African Communities League along with Amy Ashwood. He made these associations in a government of their own. (Cronon 3) He picked this name of the UNIA because he thought that a name like that would, “embrace the purpose of all black humanity.” The UNIA was an organization designed “to promote the spirit of race pride.” (Columbia Encyclopedia) Amy Ashwood was very active in the UNIA organizing and, despite her parents objections; she married Garvey on Christmas Day, 1919. (Thomas) This relationship did not last more than a few months, and then later they divorced. Garvey later married Amy Jacques, another young woman who was a fine public speaker and leading UNICA figure. (Thomas) The native intelligentsia did not respond to Garveys ideas. The majority of educated British West Indians are more conservative in their patriotism than many Britons and feel little kinship with the native of Africa. The Jamaica intelligentsia ridiculed Garveys pan African dreams. (Black Writers 146)
When he was 28 years old he left his native land of Jamaica for the United States. He settled in Harlem, New York where he would later rise to become a black leader, not just for America and Jamaica but also the world. Before Garvey left for the United States, He wrote a letter to Booker T. Washington informing his he was coming to America to lecture about the UNIA and sent him information on his views. (Cronon 23) Garveys past training in Jamaica as a printer came in handy for his next endeavor, a leading American black newspaper. Garvey started and edited the Negro World, which was a paper for the association until November 1920. He traveled to cities all over the U.S. at his own expense establishing branches until 1919 when they had about thirty of them. Writing and speeches helped build the organization to over two million by June 1919. This is when he started Black Star Line. This was what he thought a way to unite and link blacks all over the world with Africa. This gave the UNIA a better reputation. The organization gained hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of followers all over the world. In August 1920, over four million people had joined the group. (Cronon 25) Their motto was “One, Aim! One, God! One, Destiny!” (Cronon 27) The highest point of Garveys movement was the first international convention of the UNIA, which was held in New York in August of 1920. This is where he was elected the Provisional President of Africa. (Cronon 30) The way that Garvey gave his speeches was dramatic and almost poetic at times. Here are some Garveys maxims:
Be as proud of your race today as our fathers were in the days of yore. We have beautiful history, and we shall create another in the future that will astonish the world.
A race without authority and power is a race without respect.
LEADERSHIP means everything- PAIN, BLOOD, DEATH.
Let Africa be our guiding star-OUR STAR OF DESTINY.
No one knows when the hour of Africas Redemption cometh. It is in the wind. It is coming. One day, like a storm, it will be here. When that day comes Africa will stand together. (Cronon 27-29)
Convinced that blacks black could not secure their rights in countries where they were a minority race, he urged a “back to Africa” movement. (Columbia Encyclopedia) Some of his teachings were to worship a black God and black Christ, be proud of black physical features and that whites would never treat them equal so they should from their own black state in Africa. Not all blacks agreed