On March 23rd, 1916—96 years ago today—a man who would soon become one of America’s most well-known black nationalists—the self-proclaimed “Provisional President of Africa”—arrived in the United States.
Marcus Garvey, a native of Jamaica, traveled to America on Booker T. Washington’s invitation. Although Washington died before Garvey arrived, Garvey settled in the United States and organized a chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association—an organization he had originally founded in Jamacia to push for racial uplift and improved educational and industrial opportunities for blacks.
Within two years, the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) would expand to cities and towns across America and the world, arguing for African American autonomy, self-sufficiency, and economic improvement. Promoting the idea of establishing an independent nation of African Americans in Africa, Garvey utilized elaborate dress, energizing events, inspiring banners, and more, as a way to instill in African Americans pride in being black.
He had high hopes for the movement now known as Garveyism or the “Back to Africa” movement. He incorporated the Black Star Line—a shipping line to foster black trade and transportation—in 1919. He also founded The Negro World, a weekly newspaper with international circulation and a strong agenda of black consciousness and economic independence. Banned in many areas of the world, the newspaper published work by African American figures such as Zora Neale Hurston and T. Thomas Fortune, and remained in circulation for roughly 15 years.
Garvey’s reign was short-lived; the Bureau of Investigation (now the Federal Bureau of Investigation) kept the UNIA under investigation for many years, and Garvey was eventually incarcerated for federal mail fraud and ultimately deported. However, he continued his movement in Jamaica and London, and loyalists kept the UNIA alive after Garvey’s death in 1940. A version of the organization, now called the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) still functions today.
To learn more about Marcus Garvey, click here.
UCLA’s Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project provides information, a photo gallery, and two audio clips from Marcus Garvey’s speeches (click here to hear Marcus Garvey speak).
To learn more about Garvey’s life and actions, check out PBS’s film Marcus Garvey: Look for me in the Whirlwind.
To learn about Amy Jacques Garvey, Marcus Garvey’s wife and a UNIA staffer, check out Ula Yvette Taylor’s The Veiled Garvey: The Life and Times of Amy Jacques Garvey (UNC Press 2002).
For more on Garveyism, check out Mary Rolinson’s Grassroots Garveyism: The Universal Negro Improvement Association in the Rural South, 1920-1927 (UNC Press 2007).
