Transcription
I want no mercy, only justice, justice, justice. I would not betray my struggling race. If I did, I should be thrown into the nethermost parts of hell.
In an era of unrelenting oppression, when the shackles of slavery still lingered and the chains of colonialism bound the African diaspora, there was one man who dared challenge the status quo: Marcus Garvey.
"In death I shall be a terror to the foes of Negro Liberty. Look for me in the whirlwind or the song of the storm. Look for me all around you."
I dreamed that dream, and he came, and I saw him, and he said to me, "Brothers, do not be worried, for everything is working according to plan. I am not dead, I am only sleeping."
The organization left the legacy of "I am simply I am, with no apology." "I am." We had never had that up to that time. We belong to churches, you sang with coffee. You just stand there, tall and quiet, looking into the future. And that's great news.
And just before we dive into the inspiring life of Mr. Garvey, something happened in this recent time concerning this uniquely endowed individual. On the 19th of January, 2025, last week, President Biden made history by issuing more pardons and commutations than any president before him. Among the thousands of pardons was one that came after more than a century. Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey received a posthumous pardon for a mail fraud conviction in 1923. Yes, you heard right. After over a hundred years since Marcus Garvey died, he only just got a pardon, a posthumous pardon, on January 19th, 2025, for a mail fraud conviction he had in 1923.
While he was alive, this event didn't go down well with many in the black community, who became indignant on the account that it had taken the United States over a century after the man's death to concede to granting him some pardon over something he did not do. Advocates and congressional leaders had pushed for Garvey's pardon for years, with supporters arguing Garvey's conviction was politically motivated and an effort to silence the pan-African leader who spoke of racial pride.
This is audio of Marcus Garvey speaking in Harlem in 1924. "We represent the illegal, if not get against the wall. We do not want it back against the wall, because that would be the truly position. We don't want them here. Heat, heat, never going to be like we are human beings. You can ensure you can suffer the hands of men. You can tackle the feet of men. You can..."
The body of the story of Marcus Garvey was more sad than it was glorious. It is one of crying hope, one of the betrayal of one's existence and of one's people. Who could have imagined the trauma he was faced with on a daily basis for the sake of the struggle? Where his beloved wife got separated from him after only four months of marriage for lack of attention. Where his own son never even got to see his own daddy laugh.
"I never saw him laugh. I never saw him laugh." But they obviously was serious. "When we went to visit him at home, well, he was very kind. I was very kind. He was always bringing things for us children. But I, I never saw him. He was always looked serious."
"My father was committed totally to the struggle, and that's why he, he never seemed to, he never seemed to relax. He never seemed to take a day off. He was always committed to struggle. He was always appeared to be dressed, ready to work, and he's working at home. He was working at the office. He kept tremendous hours. So it was a total commitment to the struggle and the cause."
Growing up in such intense cruelty-riddled surroundings of white oppression brought nothing short of a wildfire out of the unique black figure called Marcus Garvey. Garvey, he would now establish a stage, a world stage for his movement, and effectively, what he gave the black world was a government in exile, a government in waiting. He was a reactionary, a firebrand, a visionary, a realist. He wasn't going to toy with his reality, and he wasn't going to pretend about it. He wasn't one to take advice from others kindly. He made his own decisions, and he would rise or fall by the decisions that he made.
"Because it was a supreme ignorance. Every window that you looked at, people's heads were out to see Marcus Garvey free. Most of them wanted to see Marcus Garvey." And he was very well decorated, his hats and feathers, but he drove always in his on the field, sitting back. There were many stories about him, everyone their opinions. But of all the passionate opinions people had about Mr. Garvey, no one dared ever mention that he was a coward.
"We have met in this historic building tonight for the purpose of enlightening the world respecting the attitude of the new Negro. If you believe that the Negro should have a place in the sun. If you believe that Africa should be one vast empire." He was never afraid to call it like it was. For him, the vision had to come to fulfillment, as there was no other means to a greater end for the black nation other than utter liberation, absolute freedom, and empowerment. Garvey would do just anything morally and logically necessary to see all of this come to pass. In his time, the man was nothing short of a great force of nature. He started something that became bigger than Garvey himself. He, more than any other figure in the 20th century, symbolizes the turning of the perception of black people into something positive.
In the sweltering heat of Jamaica, St. Ann's Bay, a young Marcus Mosiah Garvey was born on August 17th, 1887. Little did the world know that this charismatic and ambitious individual would one day become a champion of African liberation, inspiring millions worldwide. Youngest of 11 children, Garvey's early life was marked by hardship and the struggles of a colonial society. His parents, Malachi and Sarah, were both descendants of enslaved Africans, and their family's economic circumstances were precarious. Despite these challenges, Garvey's parents instilled in him a strong sense of self-worth and a desire to learn.
Yes, Garvey had been a thinker from a young age. Garvey's awareness of the injustices faced by African people began to take shape when certain remarkable encounters began to unfold in Garvey's life. At 14 years of age, Garvey experienced his first heartbreak when the white minister's daughter, a neighbor that Marcus had grown up with and played with all his life, was sent to school in England and was told by her parents to never write to him because he was a... This was something that Garvey wasn't going to forget all through his entire life. It was a stunning awakening to the harsh reality of the racial discrimination present in Jamaican society at the time, and he said that's the first time that he heard and became aware of this idea of being black and what it meant. He soon realized that opportunities for desirable employment, such as training for government jobs, went to white youths, while black boys became laborers. He felt shut out, he felt that he was excluded and made to feel that he was not good enough. The thing is, Garvey, like every other child, was born not knowing the difference between black and white, but his innocence was soon lost as these remarkable events began to unfold. The rest of his life was really an attempt to prove that he was just as good as anyone else in the world.
Garvey affirmed that God created all people equal, and to deny this was to insult the Almighty. He was particularly influenced by the works of Booker T. Washington, whose autobiography *Up From Slavery* left an indelible mark on Garvey's consciousness. Marcus Garvey's reading of Booker T. Washington's *Up From Slavery* was an eye-opener to him and pointed to it to his conclusion, which remained with him throughout his life, that the situation facing black people was a global one. Washington believed African-Americans needed to improve themselves first, showing whites in America that they deserved equal rights. Although politically involved behind the scenes, Washington repeatedly claimed that African-Americans would not benefit from political activism and started an industrial training school in Alabama that embodied his own philosophy of self-help. This, for a fact, had fallen in tune with Garvey's vision for black liberation.
Garvey's journey as a leader had, however, begun in 1910 when he traveled to Central America, and there he witnessed firsthand the exploitation and oppression of African workers. "I was determined that the black man would not continue to be kicked about as I had seen in Central America and as I had read of it in America." Garvey was disturbed. This was Garvey in his own voice. "Where is his king? Where is the black man's government? Where is his king and his kingdom? Where is his president, his country, his men of big affairs? I could not find them. And then I declared, I will help to make them. My brain was a fire." This experience had solidified his resolve to fight for the rights and dignity of African people.
Garvey, having embraced Washington's ideas, had returned to Jamaica in 1914 and had founded the UNIA with the motto: "One God, One Aim, One Destiny." Initially, he kept very much in line with Washington by encouraging his fellow Jamaicans of African descent to work hard, demonstrate good morals and a strong character, and not worry about politics as a tool to advance their cause. Garvey did not make much headway in Jamaica and had decided to visit America in order to meet Booker T. Washington and learn more about the situation of African-Americans. By the time Garvey arrived in America in 1916, Washington sadly had passed on to the afterlife, and although this had broken his heart, undeterred, Garvey decided to travel around the country, still to observe African-Americans and their struggle for equal rights.
In this mission, what Garvey saw was a shifting population and a diminishing hope in Jim Crow's demise. African-Americans were moving in large numbers out of the rural South and into the urban areas of both North and South. As World War I came to an end, disillusionment was beginning to take hold. Not only was the optimism in the continuing improvement of humanity and society broken apart, but so was any hope on the part of African-Americans that they would gain the rights enjoyed by every white American citizen. African-Americans had served in large numbers in the war, and many expected some kind of respect and acknowledgement that they too were equal citizens. Indeed, World War I was the perfect opportunity for blacks to fulfill Booker T. Washington's requirement for equality and freedom through dedicated service in the armed forces. They could prove their worth and show they deserved the same rights as whites. However, as black soldiers returned from the war and more and more black Americans moved into the urban areas, racial tensions grew. Between 1917 and 1919, race riots erupted in East St. Louis, Chicago, Tulsa, and other cities, demonstrating that whites did not intend to treat blacks any differently than they had before the war.
Marcus Garvey's arrival in Harlem, New York City, in 1916 would mark a pivotal moment in history, coinciding with the dawn of the New Negro era. This transformative period was characterized by growing black discontent and resistance, fueled by another one of those riots born of uncontrollable hatred and envy of the black race: the horrific East St. Louis race riots in 1917. On July 2nd, this particular year, just months after America's entry into World War I, the city of East St. Louis had exploded with the worst racial riot the country had ever seen. This riot, in particular, highlighted the depths of racial violence and injustice, leaving a lasting impact on the nation. On the side of African-Americans, hundreds dead, and on the side of whites, only 39 had been killed on that day.
"You have black troops going off to fight to make the world safe democracy in April, and in July, you have black people being murdered in those wanted barbaric manner in East St. Louis. You know, children being thrown back into flaming houses, people being boarded up in their houses before they're torched. So, even by American standards, East St. Louis was a horror." This was heartbreaking for Garvey. He had surveyed the pitiable racial situation and was terribly offended at it all. At this point, he had become increasingly convinced that integration would never happen and that only economic, political, and cultural success on the part of African-Americans would bring about equality and respect.
And when the then NAACP leader W.E.B. Du Bois conducted a silent march in response to the mass killings of the blacks who were killed in the East St. Louis race riots of 1917, Marcus Garvey didn't buy that. He had considered it an act of servility, an act far less in response than what has been done to them. Hundreds of black people dead in a single day. Garvey lamented, "This was no time for a silent march, but a time for black people to get together and fight back."
"The whole thing, my friends, is a bloody farce. That the police and soldiers did nothing to stem the murder thirst of the mob is conclusive proof of conspiracy on the part of the civil authorities to condone the acts of the white mob against Negroes. White people are taking advantage of black men today because black men all over the world are disunited."
Garvey's message had inspired hope. It connected instantaneously with what the very spirit of the black community needed at the time: absolute redemption from slavery and the grip of the white man. It is that speech that marks the turning point of Garvey away from Jamaica, away from a preoccupation with matters related to the West Indies, and now he's not looking for support for what he is hoping to accomplish in the West Indies, but rather he is now sucked into the vortex of American race relations.
"Even though I had a great deal of admiration for W.B. Du Bois and A. Philip Randolph and and and other black leaders of the time, I thought that their approach to our problems were too doggone tame, and that we we needed to to have that attitude of that of Marcus Garvey, that stand up on your feet and and be ready to defend your manhood at at at all times. And all of a sudden, this golden voice from the Caribbean came and stood on the corners in Harlem and began to talk about self-esteem, holding up your backbone, you know, no wishbones." And Mr. Garvey gave them hope that there was a dream for black people.
Garvey's message was practical, logical, and motivated black Americans whose predicaments were by the said time already overwhelming. Garvey believed people of African descent could establish a great independent nation in their ancient homeland of Africa, just like they have done with the white man's world for the white man throughout a considerable amount of years. Garvey's message was revolutionary because at that time it told black people that they had to unite, they had to come together as one to uh and believe in in their roots, that they came from from something greater than they were told to begin with. Africa was called the dark continent, and the pictures that we got of Africa in those days were cannibals running around in the jungles, putting people in pots. Garvey changed all of that.
Garvey had taken the self-help message of Washington and adapted it to the situation he saw in America, taking a somewhat individualistic, integrationist philosophy and turning it into a more corporate, politically-minded nation-building message. He left the impression, uh, that, um, the only way there could be a difference in in in the way black people, people of African descent, could be treated would be for them to have a powerful nation of their own. With this goal, he established the headquarters of the UNIA in New York in 1917 and began to spread a message of black nationalism and the eventual return to Africa of all people of African descent. His brand of black nationalism had three components: unity, pride in the African cultural heritage, and complete autonomy.
"The first time we went to a GO meeting was a Sunday afternoon in November of 1919. It was the first time I had heard the message of the UNIA. The day I met Marcus Garvey was one of the most exciting days of my life. It was filled with anticipation from the early earliest part of the day because I knew that I was going with my father to meet Marcus Garvey. And when Garvey came in the door, everybody stood up in one accord and said, 'Speak, Garvey, speak.'" And it was just like a hutch on the broom. He said that the pen is mightier than the sword, but the tongue is mightier than them both put together.
In the year 1919, Garvey had purchased an auditorium in Harlem and named it Liberty Hall. There, he held nightly meetings to get his message out, sometimes to an audience of 6,000. Meanwhile, in the year before, relying on the printing skills he'd learned as a boy, Garvey had begun a newspaper called *The Negro World* with a cover price of 5 cents, which by 1920 had a circulation somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000. The paper carried essays, articles, and poetries on black history and world events. On the front page of every issue was a long editorial penned by Marcus Garvey himself. He distributed this paper with the help of Amy Ashwood, who had made her way to New York a year earlier.
Garvey was a black revolution in words and in action. He was a man always at work to promote unity. Garvey had encouraged African-Americans to be concerned with themselves first, thus he had stated after World War I, "The first dying which is to be done by the black man in the future would be done to make himself free, and then when we are finished," he said, "If we have any charity to bestow, we may die for the white man. But as for me, I think I have stopped dying for him." Black people had to do the work that success and independence demanded, and most important, they had to do that work for themselves.
Here's Garvey again in his own words at a meeting held in 1921: "If you want liberty, then you yourselves must strike the blow. If you must be free, you must become so through your own effort." Garvey was a whole new journey for blacks to become liberated inside out, a force of black transformation and intellectual transmigration. His ideals were a life-changing revolution for the survival of the black race in the United States.
"When he spoke, it was as if you were speaking yourself. It was not like somebody speaking to you, but like he was you, or you was he. And it just was a connecting link. And it was something like fire, like lightning, like something that went through everybody at the same time."
"Be as proud of your race today as our fathers were in the days of you. We have a beautiful history, and we shall create another in the future that will astonish the world."
"I can advise no better step toward racial salvation than organization among us. We have been harassed, trampled upon, and made little of because of our unfortunate condition of disorganization. Our racial program of today is a united, emancipated, and improved people." Gabby took black folk who were assaulted by a variety of very unfortunate and negative images of themselves and made them believe in themselves, made them see physical beauty in themselves, made them see the need to interpret and write their own history. In that sense, Garvey sold the Negro to himself.
Garvey's message would continue to attract a great deal of interest from blacks all over America. The new messages of this black prophet in the said era, who was by then nicknamed "Black Moses" by his people, quickened black souls and hearts that had been trodden on and depressed underneath the organized, oppressive legacy of the American system. Garvey knew that African-Americans would not take action if they did not change their own perceptions of themselves. He hammered home the idea of racial pride by celebrating the African past and encouraging African-Americans to be proud of their heritage and proud of the way they looked. Garvey had proclaimed "Black is beautiful" long before it became popular in the 1960s. He taught the black woman, especially, to love herself.
Marcus Garvey wanted black women to look at themselves in a new way, as beautiful, because up to the time that Marcus Garvey came into the Harlem of America, black women were what? Domestics, you know, seamstresses, nurses, at the bottom of the realm of whatever service line you could be. After you join the government, you are convinced that you were somebody. It made you feel that you was valuable, and you were worthwhile, and that you had something to live for. You had something even to die for, if necessary. That's how important it was to be a part of the Garvey movement. That's how I felt, and until today, that's the way I feel.
Garvey idealized women. He had a romantic view of the beautiful black woman, the black goddess, Africa herself as a woman. And he idealized women, and he wanted to place them on pedestals, in a way of lifting them up from jobs like domestic service into middle-class life. He published photographs in his newspaper, *The Negro World*, showing beautiful black women. She wrote a famous poem, for example, called "The Black Woman," which begins: "Black queen of beauty, thou hast given color among other women, thou art royal and the fairest. Black men worship thee, thy virginal shrine of truest love."
When Africa stood at the head of the elder incidents, the gods used to travel from foreign lands to look...
Garvey used *The Negro World* to promote a new, aggressive image of black women. In many ways, perhaps the best known was the creation of a special women's page in *The Negro World*. That page opened up the newspaper to the voices of women, uh, in in many interesting ways. They began to talk about the role of the black woman in the family, in politics, in the arts, in history. He wanted African-Americans to see themselves as members of a mighty race, which they truly happen to be.
"We must canonize our own saints, create our own martyrs, and elevate to positions of fame and honor black men and women who have made their distinct contributions to our racial history." Garvey would habitually reckon. Garvey had even gone as far as encouraging parents to give their children dolls that look like them to play with and cuddle. And he did not want black people thinking of themselves in a defeatist way.
"I am the equal of any white man. I want you to feel the same way." He would say, "I am the equal of any white man. I want you to feel the same way."
Garvey meant serious business. He had further begun organizing groups to the effect of his vision for blacks. He needed to change things by every means morally possible, but people do not change things by not responding to the reality of their surroundings. For Garvey, the black community all over America was in a dire state, and he responded to it by starting off with the formation of an organization for black struggle. He called it the Universal Negro Improvement Association, UNIA.
This Garvey had said, "I have come to the conclusion that the Negro race can only save itself when there is a free and independent Africa, because I repeat, it is not philosophy that rules the world, it is power, human power, human force. I mean, strength that rules the world, and the race and nation that has that is the race and the nation that is supreme. Give power to black Africa, and we become masters of the destinies of man, and that is what we want, and that is what we must get if we are going to survive." Power would enable black men and women to redeem themselves in their continent, and achieving this power was the first step in the process of redemption. But power, Garvey recognized, required economic support. Such economic and financial development was primary in Garvey's vision. Hence, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the UNIA.
"The UNIA was brought into being for the purpose of helping to develop the financial condition of our people and placing us in a position to control the industries we want." That was Garvey, yet again, talking. "If every division of the UNIA all over the world with a thousand members in each division would carry out this system, do you know what would happen? In the space of two years, the parent body would be able to control between 1 billion and $2 billion. We could force legislation. We could do anything. If you develop a strong financial power, you will control the politics of the country. You will control legislation, and if you can control legislation, you will control the government, and you will get all that you want."
That was excellently put out. And with just 35 cents, a photograph, and a pledge to support Garvey's nation-building program, any person of African descent could join the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Garvey's genius was to transform cooks, maids, and workmen with the pride that comes with a title and a uniform. You would almost see them ripped off into something else. You would see it. They suddenly get very tall because the smallest man in the uniform still looked like a giant. I can tell you that from experience. They were gorgeous. The black men were gorgeous.
The movement had become an excellent revolutionary organization for blacks. Everyone was carried along. Jacob Samuel Mills, a master carpenter from St. Kitts, for instance, had come to Harlem in 1910. But barred from the all-white carpenters union, Mills could only find work as a janitor. However, by virtue of the Garvey movement, joining the African Legion had changed it all for him. Here's what his daughter had to say: "My father joined the Garvey movement because she thought it was something for the advancement of black people. And every Sunday afternoon, when he was through with his work, he would put his uniform on. He felt very proud when he wore that uniform. He would wear it on the trolley car and let everybody look at him and talk if they wanted to talk, but that was Captain Mills."
And then the transformation for the common black man began. The effect of the uniform on everyone who saw it was electrifying, but especially on white people. "I heard white women fainted when we had the big parades going down Fifth Avenue. They would just fall." The UNIA had something for everyone. For men, there was the African Legion. For young people, there was the Juvenile Division. And the Black Cross Nurses and the Universal Motor Corps. The Garvean movement even offered black women a dignified place of their own.
"We wore this uniform everywhere. That was a biblical statement that these uniforms and proven made to the rest of the world that we are proud and proud of it." My father at one point said that the organization would have been able to develop farther and and faster if we had more women in the organization in comparison to some of the wimpy men.
At the end, black pride had been firmly established by the establishment of the UNIA. Members pledged allegiance to the red, black, and green flag, which Garvey himself had designed as a symbol of a black nation in the making.
"Show me the race or the nation without a flag, and I will show you a race of people without any pride. But that was said of us four years ago. They can't say it now."
"Ethiopia, the land of our fathers, thou land where the gods love to be. As to clouds suddenly gather, all armies come rushing to thee." And then the chorus went something like that: "Advance, advance, to meet the full. Let Africa be free." That's women would sing that, the men would reply, "Advance, women, advance to victory. Men, advance, advance to meet the full. Advance!" And everybody with the might of the red, the black, and the green. Advance with the might of the red, the black, and the green.
And then, to attract the dollars that flowed through black hands, Garvey created his first of many investment funds. Garvey was aware that blacks had contributed to the war effort by purchasing over $220 million worth of Liberty Bonds, and this contribution to the war effort indicated that there was some wealth within the black community in the United States. And his idea was that this black wealth should be converted into businesses that would benefit blacks and projects that would benefit black people.
Garvey's idea of the UNIA was that it would teach success. It was going to be a vehicle to communicate and demonstrate that black people could be successful. This idea of success was now translated into a whole series of commercial ventures: restaurants, newspapers. While racial pride and unity played important roles in Garvey's black nationalism, he touted capitalism as the tool that would establish African-Americans as an independent group. Interestingly enough, it was white America that served as the prime example of what blacks could accomplish. "Until you produce what the white man has produced," Garvey claimed, "you will not be his equal."
To this effect, Garvey had established the Negro Factories Corporation, which financed the UNIA and offered stock for African-Americans to buy. He wanted to produce everything that a nation needed so that African-Americans could completely rely on their own efforts. At the peak of this, the corporation operated three grocery stores, two restaurants, a printing plant, a steam laundry, and owned several buildings and trucks in New York City alone. UNIA businesses employed as many as a thousand people in Harlem. UNIA also operated the Phyllis Wheatley Hotel, 313 West 136th Street, New York, New York.
Toward the end of achieving economic support for his vision, Garvey's most famous economic venture was a shipping company known as the Black Star Line, a counterpart to a white-owned company called the White Star Line, founded to operate a worldwide network of steamships. The idea comes to Garvey that black people need a shipping line, and he bases his idea on the fact that the Cunard family has the White Star Line, and the Irish have the Green Star Line, and he says, "Why shouldn't blacks have the Black Star Line?" So, it is a vision of grandeur. Black people were routinely Jim Crowed on oceangoing liners. Black folk paying say for first-class accommodation often had to travel in third-class accommodation. Black people on ships had to eat after the white people had finished eating. So, all of these problems, Gabby was trying to address through a shipping corporation.
"Let our steamships sail the high seas, not one, not two, but hundreds of them. The stronger we become upon land and sea, the more will be the respect shown to us, and the greater will be the glory." What Garvey started the shipping company in 1919 as a way to one, promote trade, but also to transport passengers to Africa. Two, provide a financial base for support of the UNIA movement. And three, earn respect for black enterprises through a successful showing of the UNIA flag. Garvey offered shares of stock in the new company at $5 per share, and within a year, the line had raised $610,000 and owned three active ships.
The Black Star Line was, in some ways, Garvey's Empire State Building. It was this monument to black commerce, in the same way that the Empire State Building was this settled doll of white capitalism, and it represented the ability of black people to seize the day and to have their own economy. This was a huge success in motion, but some things were at stake. UNIA businesses had before long begun to flounder, as Garvey was into hiring managers with little or no experience. As a consequence, Garvey began shifting funds from one company to cover the mounting losses accruing in another. Even if the business practices of the Black Star Line's officers had been above reproach, the corporation still would have had great difficulty keeping its flag above water, and why its unwise purchase of dubious ships at exorbitant prices was a handicap from which even a more soundly managed company would have been hard-put to survive.
The thing was, Garvey needed more competent minds on the table to work with, and this was vastly missing. Garvey looked for people who would be personally loyal to him. "I think this is the only way we can explain the mismanagement, incompetence of the Black Star steamship line. The first treasurer of that line was a railroad clerk who had no experience in bookkeeping." What was important here, I think, was not an intellectual competence, but a loyalty to this charismatic leader. There was the grumble about Garvey being anti-democratic, which thus denied him the professional councils he may have needed, mostly in the running of his affairs. It was said that at one point, Garvey had physically assaulted an early member of the Harlem branch for challenging his leadership.
Garvey was very authoritarian and very anti-democratic in the way he ran his organization. His primary concern was in loyalty, not incompetence, because he does not attract around him people who are particularly competent, and they therefore would not tell him or try to stop him from using those monies to finance other endeavors in the UNIA. Garvey was, in fact, frustrated at some point, which could only eventually have led to occasional tantrums. Leadership was no child's play. Nonetheless, there's no way to succeed for long with all the antagonisms and hate games going on from the American government, worse still from his own people.
In October 1919, resentment against Garvey boiled over. An angry investor named George Tyler had pushed his way into the UNIA headquarters where Amy Ashwood was now working, and right there, he had shot Garvey three times. Amy Ashwood didn't really want to let him in. He seemed, uh, disturbed. Garvey came forward, said, "What do you want?" Whereupon George Tyler pulled out a gun and began shooting. Amy Ashwood threw her body between the shooter and Garvey to protect her lover. George Tyler said, "I don't want to shoot you." Trying to aim around her, she tackled Tyler, and they tumbled down the stairs to the first floor. As soon as the shots were fired, the people on the first floor had called the police. The police came, they apprehended Tyler, and took him to jail in Harlem. And the news reports were that Garvey had been shot in the head, and it, it made a huge news splash. And that moment becomes the turning point, because Garvey survives three shots. Next day, he had a big, uh, speaking engagement in Philadelphia, and he goes to Philadelphia in spite of the fact that he's been shot. Uh, he's bandaged, but he goes and makes his speaking engagement, and he now has this extraordinary sort of, um, quasi-religious, uh, significance. He survived. He's invincible.
Garvey had survived the three gunshots and attended a big speaking engagement in Philadelphia the next day with the wound bandages still on him. This had pretty much earned him increased solidarity, and by the year 1920, the UNIA had increased tremendously into 1,100 chapters in 40 countries around the world, such as the UK, Cuba, Panama, Costa Rica, Ghana. And by 1926, the membership of the UNIA had grown to over 11 million members. Marcus Garvey built the largest black organization in history. While chapters existed in the larger urban areas, such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, Garvey's message reached into small towns across the country as well. Later groups, such as Father Divine's Universal Peace Mission Movement and the Nation of Islam, drew members and philosophy from Garvey's organization, and the UNIA's appeal and influence were felt not only in America but in Canada, the Caribbean, and throughout Africa. However, with Garvey's rising influence came a growing number of black critics who mocked Garvey's hard work and eventually made him a target for the US government.
At the end of World War I, the world powers had descended on their side to make peace and redivide colonial territories, but from his podium in Harlem, Garvey had argued that it was time to give Africa back to black people. Some said it was a ridiculous fantasy, but Garvey's slogan "Africa for the Africans" reverberated around the world as his movement spread through the colonies in Europe. Garvey began to be seen as a capital threat. The United States had worked with the British government during World War I, and they continued that after World War I with a focus on Garvey because the British government was deathly afraid that the Garvey movement was going to spread revolution. They feared the hundreds of thousands of the masses of blacks under his influence.
"Undoubtedly, Harvey did stir up nationalism. I say this plainly and for everybody to hear. We are organizing to drive every pale face out of Africa. Do you know why? Because Africa is mine. Africa is the land of my fathers. We who make up this organization know no turning back. We have pledged ourselves, even under the last drop of our sacred blood, that Africa must be free."
Garvey at this time is being watched by the federal government, who had planted the FBI on his every move, appointing the person of J. Edgar Hoover to oversee the mission. And Hoover's agents were present at Carnegie Hall on the day that Garvey made this statement. The agents planted by J. Edgar Hoover had reported that Garvey's address was met with great applause and much excitement. In determination to hunt Garvey down, Hoover hired the FBI's first black agent in order to infiltrate the UNIA. The agent, James Wormley Jones, was referred to as code number 800.
One of Garvey's close confidants, Herbert Bulan, was a spy for the FBI, known as Agent P138. He was known by a code number. All his reports were signed, uh, 800. That was his code. And his job was to go into Harlem and to infiltrate the Garvey movement, to try and find evidence that could be used to build a legal case for ultimately getting rid of Garvey.
Garvey rejected America. They could no more agree to and accept a militant rejection of America by blacks than they could accept a militant demand for full inclusion by blacks. Garvey's *Negro World* newspaper, now published in French, Spanish, and English, carried news of the rebellion all around the globe. In Africa and the Caribbean, colonial authorities banned the newspaper, but with over 500 divisions of the UNIA in 22 countries, Garvey's message could not be stopped.
"The Negro World was been smuggled into Kenya by seamen, black seamen, and then it would be read aloud to groups of people. Around this reader, plus young children, young boys in particular, who were charged with memorizing Garvey's editorial in *The Negro World*, so it would read out, and then these young boys would run off, having memorized it, run off to the villages and spread Garvey's word, um, in that way."
Garvey's message of black nationalism and a free black Africa had, in fact, begun to meet considerable resistance from other African-American leaders as well, for no justifiable cause. W.E.B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson of the NAACP, and Chandler Owen and A. Philip Randolph of the publication *Messenger*, had their doubts about Garvey and did their utmost to influence other blacks with their doubts. But with all this, regardless, Garvey could not be stopped. However, the only loophole that would have to be utilized by the foes of this rapidly rising movement would be from the downfall of Garvey's UNIA economic investments. And to this end, Mr. Garvey was betrayed by the few people he had trusted to keep the Black Star Line afloat. The man he asked to inspect it turned out to be an FBI agent and a spy for J. Edgar Hoover, a shameless black man planted as an infiltrator to run down his own brother and the breakthrough of his own race. And Garvey's handpicked captain, Joshua Coburn, to crown it all, convinced Garvey to pay six times what the ship was worth and then took a kickback from the purchase price. He was deceived about the conditions of those of those ships and overpaid for for on what their value should have been. It was a disaster for the movement and turned out to be a disaster for Mr. Garvey. And what in the world could be more wounding than being betrayed by one's own people?
Garvey had been projected, and eventually had begun trusting one of the imposters who had pretended to be a trusted black brother but was an informant to the FBI, planted to keep feeding the federal government intimate information on Garvey's activities. To Garvey, Herbert Bulan was now a trusted black brother, but to FBI J. Edgar Hoover, Bulan was Agent P138. He got closer to Garvey than anyone else, uh, working for the government. And Garvey was really isolated. Things weren't going well with the organization. The Black Star Line was losing money, and so remarkably, he confesses to this informant that he tried suicide, that he was thinking of suicide. Again, it shows the loneliness Garvey must have had at the top. You know, he couldn't reveal those sorts of things to to the key people around.
As the decline of the Black Star Line got worse, Garvey's own reporter star rose and fell. Rather than providing a financial base for the UNIA, the Black Star Line succeeded in draining the UNIA's assets, dragging the organization's other operations under with it. Garvey was forced to sell off property and equipment. They placed spies in the UNIA. They sabotaged Black Star Line. The engines, sometimes of the ships, were actually damaged by foreign matter being thrown into the fuel and so on. And there was every effort made to destroy the movement. However, that wasn't the only thing that actually destroyed Garvey. There were internal problems to the movement as well.
As these external forces beset by problems, both internal and external, Garvey attempted to keep his fledgling steamship line afloat through the sale of more stock. This sale of stock, or more precisely, Garvey's stock solicitation through the mail, led to his arrest, conviction, and eventual deportation for mail fraud. The mail fraud was the most convenient and ultimately the only, uh, means that they could find to prosecute him. Prosecution was not the end; deportation was the government's real aim.
Garvey was indicted on 13 counts of mail fraud in February of 1922. However, the indictment and subsequent trial are not isolated events; they must be viewed in the historical context of Garvey's struggle with the existing power structure. There are several aspects of the trial and the circumstances leading up to it that illuminate a discussion of the power phenomenon: one, the atmosphere of hostility surrounding Garvey before and during the trial; two, the extensive government surveillance Garvey was under surveillance that shaped the outcome of the trial; and three, whether or not Garvey received an unbiased, fair trial.
One, hostility surrounding Garvey and the UNIA. Garvey's indictment coincided with a vigorous "Garvey Must Go" campaign. This was even spearheaded by several prominent Negro leaders who vehemently opposed Garvey's programs for no justifiable reason. Although the attack centered on the allegations that Garvey was a charlatan bent on milking the poor, ignorant masses of black people, Garvey's own mismanagement of the Black Star Line and his overly optimistic declarations of how close the race was to achieving the repatriation of Africa fed the "Garvey Must Go" hysteria. Garvey also became the black media's target for character assassination. W.E.B. Du Bois, a black man with his political influence at the time, who could have joined forces with Garvey for the betterment of blacks, whose liberation he claimed to champion, was in the forefront of the campaign against Marcus Garvey. He had written an article critically evaluating the Black Star Line's finances, questioning the existence of worthless ships and calling to task the habit of selling passenger tickets on non-existent ships scheduled to sail to Liberia. Du Bois accused Garvey of robbing his investors, dishonesty, a lack of knowledge and experience, and of using the mails in furtherance of a scheme to defraud and conspiring to do so. And the talk about Liberia, this clearly had to do with sabotage. Du Bois had played a glaring role in this, which makes some wonder now what Du Bois' true motive or ambition for black Americans had been all along.
Du Bois, born into a more affluent family, believed that collaborating with liberal whites was the key to improving the lives of African-Americans. He co-founded the NAACP in 1909, an organization meant to champion civil rights and equality. However, the question remains: how could the NAACP truly represent the interests of black Americans when it was influenced by wealthy whites behind the scenes? Garvey, on the other hand, emerged from an impoverished Jamaican community, convinced that true freedom lay in blacks helping blacks without relying on whites. His philosophy was put to the test when he visited the NAACP office to personally invite Du Bois to one of his events, only to be dismayed by the lack of colored staff in the building. The experience left him wondering if he was in a white office or the NAACP's. The two leaders' differing views sparked a heated debate. Garvey advocated for black Americans to return to Africa, where they could live as a majority and wield real political power. Du Bois, however, saw this as a surrender to white supremacy, threatening the gains made by the NAACP.
It wasn't so much of a hidden agenda that Du Bois had played a major role in the downfall of Garvey's Back to Africa movement, through which Garvey was trying to arrange for blacks to leave the US and relocate to the West African country of Liberia. Garvey's initial plan was to send a limited number of blacks, 20,000 to 30,000 families at first, with skills, professions, and capital to settle in Liberia. With Liberia having economic trouble due to corruption and mismanagement, Garvey had launched the Liberian Construction Loan Program, from which he successfully raised a $2 million fund and offered it to the Liberian government in exchange for the settlement of his people there. This event took place on the 17th of October, 1921.
The Universal Negro Improvement Association, UNIA, had a large and growing presence in Liberia already. High-ranking members of the government and ordinary Liberian citizens were members of the UNIA or followers of Marcus Garvey, including former presidents Arthur Barkley and Daniel E. Howard. Then-President Charles D.B. King had welcomed the UNIA to Liberia and invited it to establish headquarters in the country.
This would mean that the Liberian government and Marcus Garvey were already in good rapport and working together towards fulfilling the goal in sight. Liberia was selected as the base for the establishment of the great African nation Garvey envisioned. The West African nation as the rightful home of those wanting to return to Africa, Jamaicans.com had reported thus.
Garvey wanted to settle in Liberia before white nations of Europe robbed Liberia of its autonomy under the guise of friendship. Meanwhile, Dubo had maneuvered through his high-powered contacts to get himself appointed ambassador extraordinary of the United States so he could attend the second inauguration of Charles King as the president of Liberia. During this time, Dubo developed a relationship with King.
Shortly after, the experts and engineers of Garvey's UNIA would, as planned, arrive in Liberia to prepare for resettlement and were immediately deported on the instruction of Liberian President Charles King. This was clearly unanticipated. The new Liberian president had no doubt been influenced by his new acquaintance, Web Dubo. The slave rebellion had reported thus: "The inviable truth is Dubo had worked very closely with the US State Department to destroy the UNIA movement in Liberia and had taken steps to hamper the construction and resettlement plan."
And then, the Liberian Listener reported thus: "The more complicated truth, which was also known, has less to do with America-Liberian hegemony than a curious combination of French, British, and American interests in Africa." This means that all the powers then were against Garvey's mission and would do anything to quash it. All kinds of schemes had begun to come into play.
In a New York news editorial, Garvey was accused of playing on the prejudice and imagination of blacks and having seduced from them hundreds of thousands of dollars and squandered upon self-glorification and visionary projects. The editorial referred to Garvey as a despotic dreamer and a menace to his people and the United States, who was not only bankrupting his race but fast leading it to untimely bloodshed and suicide.
Additionally, in the white media, Garvey was portrayed as a racial agitator stirring up hatred against whites. Still another major line of attack focused on Garvey's plan to send black people back to Africa, which was portrayed as a foolish effort to get back to the jungle. A. Philip Randolph ridiculed Garvey's scheme of conquering Africa for Negroes, declaring that the Garveyes had neither the brains nor the capital to run a steamship line, much less build an empire.
All these were done to simply discourage and thwart a life-changing phenomenon which was already in movement. There were also forces at work to destroy the Black Star Line. Corrupt UNIA officials received kickbacks from the ship owners who sold Garvey overpriced, ill-repaired vessels. When the ships were put out to sea, Black Star Line crew members sabotaged the vessels, the cargo, and the ship's sailing itinerary.
Garvey had said on this regard: "All the troubles we have had on our ships has been caused because men were paid to make this trouble by certain organizations calling themselves Negro Advancement Associations. They paid men to dismantle our machinery and otherwise damage it so as to bring about the downfall of the movement."
In other cases, Garvey was known to have said that his failed Back to Africa plan was because of a plot against him by lighter-skinned black people colluding with whites. He had concluded thus in the editorial of the Slave Rebellion report: "The enemies of colonization of Africa were led by very light-skinned negroes under the leadership of Dubo because the black leadership and politicians and those of the white race who wanted to discredit and imprison me to please their negro political wards and foreign power tried to make the plan unpopular and unsuccessful."
And when Garvey met with a prominent leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Atlanta in 1922 to discuss their views on misogynation and social equality, that meeting only gave more fuel to his critics. Garvey felt that the Klux Klan represented the invisible government of the United States, that's the real source of um power in America. Garvey believed, and Garvey felt that as provisional president of Africa, he was entitled to meet with the counterpart of white American power. And so, Garvey didn't feel that he had done anything wrong. In fact, Garvey thought that what he had done was a diplomatic stroke of genius.
After he met with the Klan leaders and had them speak at his rallies, he was viewed as an enemy of black people. For a so-called responsible black spokesman to be having anything to do with these people was viewed as a complete and utter betrayal. This was too much. All hell had broken loose. Regardless of the diplomacy of his moves and the innocence behind this act of his, in particular, for his black critics, they finally had something tangible to hold on to.
For the longest time, A. Philip Randolph, whose paper saw the race issue as one of class more than skin color, called Garvey the messenger boy of the Klan and a supreme negro Jamaican jackass, while labeling his organization the "Uninformed Negroes Infamous Association." Dubo, on his part, claimed that Marcus Garvey is the most dangerous enemy of the negro race in America and in the world.
Additionally, several state corporation commissions concerned themselves with Garvey's compliance with state securities laws. Garvey entered a guilty plea to the charge of violating the Illinois Blue Sky laws and was fined $100. Garvey was also investigated by the Virginia State Corporation Commission. Garvey was in bloody hell. Everywhere had become a trap set to catch the most promising leader of the black American future.
Two, government surveillance of Garvey. The United States government had conducted an extensive and detailed investigation of Garvey's activities. One FBI agent's report stated that Garvey was, without doubt, one of the worst insiders in the United States today. Among the Negroes who would do almost anything for him, if there should be any race trouble in New York at any time, there is no doubt that Garvey was sewing the seeds now for it.
The scope and reach of the surveillance network was staggering. Garvey's activities were initially brought to the government's attention by the American Protective League, a citizen vigilante group set up to hunt for communists. The United States Military Intelligence Division began charting Garvey's activities and scrutinizing the content of his speeches to ascertain what type of threat he might pose to the government. This effort coordinated with the British Military Intelligence Division and the United States Diplomatic Service, with the aid of the US Postal Censorship Committee, which provided a means by which Garvey's international mail could be scrutinized, provided an international intelligence gathering mechanism which could monitor Garvey and the UNIA's activities throughout the world.
J. Edgar Hoover originally began his observations of Garvey because he was considered an undesirable alien. In 1919, all aliens were under suspicion as communist infiltrators or sympathizers. Garvey's speeches were also scrutinized to determine whether he was in violation of the Sedition Acts. After Garvey was determined not to be a communist, the surveillance effort was classified as an effort to gather information on Negro agitation or Negro radicalism, for which the government set up a special investigation section. Various government agencies regularly investigated black individuals and organizations who spoke out against racial discrimination and injustice.
The US government at this point had no issues with assuming readily that Garvey's business program was a fraud. Government surveillance reports discussing the investigation of the Black Star Line described Garvey as a get-rich-quick artist. Blacks who opposed Garvey painted him as a con artist, and statements to this effect were made to government agents and black publications.
A significant portion of the intelligence on Garvey was gathered by blacks who were either agents, informants, or UNIA infiltrators. These men were instructed to circulate among the various communities where unrest was being reported among the Negro population. They were to remain long enough in each community to determine for themselves what the real trouble was and then, by conversations and formal talks in Negro churches and other meeting places, to persuade the Negroes in the community that the actions being suggested to them by persons who had previously circulated among them would lead to very serious consequences if not abandoned.
Garvey and his followers had become aware that there were blacks who were spying on their organization and made some attempts to identify those persons. "You know, in times of war, we usually shoot spies, and it would be a good thing if, for some reason, the negroes could get rid of the spies of his writing and telling everything to the white man. If there is a negro in this house who has been here for that purpose, if he attempts to report the speech, you would do yourself credit to simply report the same to us."
However, forces from within as well as without would undermine the UNIA and hasten its decline. Every aspect of Garvey's business operations was under strict scrutiny. Through UNIA informants, the government had secured the minute details of the Black Star Line's financial affairs. Agents of government intelligence knew in advance when Garvey or UNIA representatives would be embarking on a Black Star Line promotional tour, and agents faithfully recorded every success and failure. Whereas Garvey wasn't actually doing these things as a hidden agenda, as it is neither criminal nor illegitimate to want what's best for oneself and one's people.
When Garvey attempted to buy more ships, a broker conspiring with a top UNIA officer embezzled thousands of dollars in deposit money. As a result of this theft, J. Edgar Hoover advised the US Shipping Board, from whom Garvey had attempted to purchase the ships, not to sell anything to Garvey and forced the Shipping Board to renege on a contract for sale. These acts greatly undermined the financial integrity of the Black Star Line. It moreover undermined the confidence UNIA members placed in Garvey's vision of a redeemed race. However, an overwhelming majority of the fiercely devoted UNIA membership still believed implicitly in its martyred leader and accepted unquestioningly his bitter account of the dishonesty and treachery that caused the downfall of the Black Star Line.
Three, the mail fraud trial. Garvey's conviction must be examined in terms of the substantive elements of mail fraud. In order to secure a conviction for mail fraud, the prosecution had to prove that the defendant one had the intent to defraud, two had devised a scheme or device to defraud, and three made use of the mails in furtherance of his scheme to defraud. Paradoxically, although the government proved its case, Garvey was clearly not guilty. The trial court, the United States Attorney, the jury, the Circuit Court of Appeals, and the general public had assumed from the start, without proof, that Garvey's plans were fraudulent.
An examination of the Circuit Court's opinion makes clear that the only issue they felt called upon to decide on appeal was whether or not Garvey made use of the mails. An unbiased, fair evaluation of Garvey's plans was therefore not a task the court wished to undertake. The unreal facts or falsehoods taken as given established a legal conclusion that the Garvey vision must have been one of fraud. Hoover's agents had the UNIA under surveillance for years in search of damaging evidence, but in the end, Garvey's conviction hung on nothing other than using the mails to defraud one man, Benny Datson, of $25, and this too never happened. The man was clean.
This was clearly a case of bias, prejudice, and ill will against Marcus Garvey and his vision for his people by the US and British government. Worse off, betrayal from his very own people had severely broken Garvey's heart. He was eventually sentenced to prison and began serving his sentence in 1925 as prisoner number 1.9359. When his sentence was commuted two years later, Garvey was deported to Jamaica.
It was the saddest moment. It was a Monday morning in November, a cold, drizzly, damp November New Orleans morning. It was more like a migro day in New Orleans on that particular day. Going out to the sea market on this ship, I imagine the conductors got tired of asking for fare, so some people ruled for nothing, and the fare was only seven cents, and they were just packed on top of each other on the streetcar. Went out to the riverfront, and everybody went out with their children, everybody just to get that glimpse of him as the ship would leave. And the people could stand on the levee and stand close to the river and, uh, you know, they were for miles and miles of other people. Mr. Garvey was not allowed to land. He had to stay on board ship. He did not put his foot on land, and he spoke to the people, bidding them farewell and wishing them well and asking them to hold on, keep the faith as the, uh, ship was moving out from the docks. The people on shore was singing the President General's hymn: "One God, our Father, one angels most glorious wonder, journeying forever our present."
We saw wagon, we saw him do that with our energy. It was something, but the people in general, they just was waving, waving, waving, waving, and crying and waving, crying and waving. And the waves appeared to have been in harmony with this song as the people were singing and the boat was moving out to sea. They felt they was losing their father, somebody so close to them. Losing themselves. "What are we going to do?" And my mother said, until the day she died, she would not forget the sight of Garvey waving that white handgun as far as she could see.
With his imprisonment and deportation, his organization in the United States lost much of its momentum. In January 1940, Garvey had a stroke, which was said to have begun in some kind of way while he was in prison as an asthma heart disease. This may have been as a result of cumulative pressures and the trauma that came with it over the years of his heartbreaking struggles. This time, the ailment had deteriorated into a stroke, left him partially paralyzed.
In May 1940, George Padmore had written a reproachful article stating that Garvey had died, but not without failure and isolation. This would upset Garvey even more, and he suffered a second fatal stroke or heart attack. Garvey had a stroke in January of 1940, and he becomes incapacitated. George Padmore, who was a columnist for the Chicago Defender, had heard a rumor that Garvey had died, and instead of confirming this, he published a premature obituary. The obituary described Garvey as a man whose followers had deserted him, a man who died broke, alone, and unpopular. When Garvey reads it, he lets out a loud moan, and he collapses. He suffers a second stroke, and the next morning, he dies.
Garvey died on the 10th of June 1940 in London at age 53, without having set foot in Africa. Marcus Garvey's legacy has inspired every major black movement of the 20th century, both in Africa and the Americas. Followers of Garvey's ideology include Han Elijah Muhammad, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr., also leaders of African independent states such as Presidents Nnamdi Azikiwe and Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Nelson Mandela, Patrice Lumumba, and Julius Nyerere.
As we honor Marcus Garvey's legacy, we're reminded that our collective freedom is tied to our individual and communal efforts. His unwavering faith in black people's potential to shape their destiny continues to galvanize generations. May Garvey's unyielding spirit inspire us to strive for greatness, uplift each other, and remain steadfast in our pursuit of a world where black lives are cherished, valued, and celebrated. Garvey would always be remembered. His legacy would always be pure gold. Nothing in the world can change that.
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