Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey Biography

Marcus Garvey (1887- 1940) was a political activist born in Jamaica. Garvey began working in a print manufacturing company as a teenager and went on to become the youngest Afro-Jamaican print foreman in Kingston. Garvey also became involved in trade unionism and was involved in a print strike that led to his dismissal. Unable to find other suitable work, Garvey became increasingly frustrated at the injustice and inequalities of life in Jamaica.

Fig. 1 Portrait photograph of Marcus Garvey

His uncle managed to arrange a job for him on a United Fruit Company banana plantation in Central America, and he began working there in the office as a timekeeper, overseeing the largely Jamaican workforce. Garvey was shocked by the conditions that the labourers worked in and wrote a letter to the governor of Jamaica asking for better protections for Jamaican workers in Central America, but never received a reply.

Garvey lived in the UK between 1912 and 1914, studying at Birkbeck University where he took classes in law and philosophy. During his return passage to Jamaica in 1914, Garvey met a Guyanese passenger who has been living in Basutoland in Southern Africa and heard firsthand about the brutal and unjust treatment that blacks were subjected to there.

This encounter caused Garvey to consider how black people were universally mistreated, whether it be in Jamaica, Central America, Britain, or Southern Africa. Garvey felt that black people needed to be politically united and encouraged in their struggles against mistreatment. Within one week of his conversation with the Guyanese traveler, Garvey had founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).

UNIA Marcus Garvey

Garvey established the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA) in Jamaica with the help of his fiancee Amy Ashwood in July 1914. The UNIA was initially headquartered in Garvey's hotel room until Ashwood secured sufficient funds from her father to establish an office for the organisation.

The aim of the UNIA was to establish a 'confraternity' among black people and focused on providing poor blacks with access to vocational training.¹ The UNIA had few members or supporters in Jamaica initially but managed to secure funding from key community figures including mayors and governors.

Garvey was criticised for seeking help from Jamaica's white elites and bypassing the black middle class. This led to accusations of him being a 'social climber', and Garvey's popularity also suffered on account of his characterisation of fellow black Jamaicans as uncouth or even vulgar.² Garvey mismanaged the funds of the UNIA and eventually had to move to New York to re-established the organisation. From its new base in Harlem, New York, the UNIA would go on to spark a global movement promoting black nationalism.

In 1918, the UNIA established its own newspaper, Negro World, and membership expanded to 2 million people. Copies of Negro World were circulated around the world thanks to the migrants and sailors that passed through New York. Sailors in particular helped deliver copies of the newspaper to colonial territories where it would otherwise have been banned, further enhancing the organisation's profile. The UNIA held its first convention at Liberty Hall in New York in 1920, with huge numbers attending and delegates from up to 22 countries.³ The UNIA opened chapters in the British Caribbean, African states, and the UK.

Marcus Garvey Movement

Garvey and the UNIA espoused black pride and advocated for racial separatism, believing black people's interests would be best served by having their own structures and authorities. However, Garvey also believed all people were equal and didn't seek an antagonistic relationship with whites. Garvey was also sympathetic to the idea that the African diaspora should return to Africa, a movement that was known as the Back to Africa campaign.

Garvey envisioned a United States of Africa, with each state having its own identity but sharing a common economy and political federation. Although Garvey never visited the African continent himself, he did establish the Black Star Line - a shipping company specifically aimed at increasing trade between black people in the Americas and Africa.

When taken together, Garvey's ideas of blackness as a political identity, the universality of the black experience, his sympathy for black separatism, and his pan-African nationalism are known as Garveyism.

Marcus Garvey Economic Philosophy

The UNIA's aims included provisions for the economic development of black people:

1. Education, building up leadership and knowledge

2. Support for entrepreneurship initiatives and support for black business

Garvey was supportive of capitalism and advocated for its acceptance by black people. However, he also believed in redistributing wealth if it became too concentrated.

Garvey's Black Star Line shipping company was meant to put his economic ideas into practice. Inspired by the idea that trade could bring peace and unity to disparate nations, the Black Star Line aimed to provide opportunities for black people in Africa to trade with black people in the African diaspora in the Americas. It would also provide a cheap way for African Americans to migrate to Africa if they wanted to. Garvey appointed himself the provisional President of a United States of Africa, which he believed would emerge out of African American migration to Liberia and other parts of West Africa. There has been some criticism of this part of Garvey's activism, as well as the fact that one of the UNIA's goals was to "assist in civilising the backward tribes of Africa".⁵ For many this kind of discourse merely replicates European colonialism.

Garvey was also a fervent anti-socialist, claiming that the ideology was created for white people to serve their own interests. He claimed socialism was

This anti-socialist standpoint would late isolate Garvey from many of the other prominent African American activists, such as A Philip Randolph or W.E.B Du Bois, who often looked to socialism as a means of black liberation.

Fig 2. Black Star Line Stock Certificate

Marcus Garvey Cause of Death

Garvey settled in the UK in 1935 having lost much of his credibility for his mismanagement of the Black Star Line and UNIA. On top of this, Garvey's views were radically different from other black activists in London at the time, so he never managed to find friends and supporters in the city. Still, his ideas continued to influence people around the world, especially in terms of black pride and black political consciousness.

Fig. 3 - Marcus Garvey Blue Plaque

In 1940, Garvey suffered first from one stroke, then another 6 months later, leaving him paralysed. A final stroke led to his death on 10 June 1940 at the age of 52.

Marcus Garvey Quotes

Here are some well-known quotes by Marcus Garvey: