Separate but Equal: the Marcus Garvey Story

Marcus Garvey was born in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica on August 17, 1887. The baby of 11 children born to Marcus Garvey Sr. And Sarah Jane Richards but one of only two to live to be an adult. His father worked as a stone mason and his mother a farmer and maid. He once described his father as a very “severe, firm, determined, bold, and strong, refusing to yield even to superior forces if he believed he was right” (biography.com). Young Marcus was self taught and love to read thanks to his father who owned a large library where Marcus would spend much of his time outside of school.

When he moved to the Island’s capital city, Kingston, at the age of 14; he began a job as a printer’s apprentice in a print shop. There he became a part of a the print tradesmen labor union which lead him to take part in unsuccessful strikes and political activism which would place him on the path to becoming an strong-willed and vocal activist later in life.

(History.com)

Garvey went on to spent time in Central America and then on to study st the University of London’s Birkbeck College where he majored in law and philosphy. While in both places he worked in the arena of media. In Central America he worked as a newspaper editor and in London he worked for the Orient Review and African Times. After obtaining these experiences and a new education, Marcus went back to Jamaica and organized the universal Negro Improvement Association in 1912.

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Its mission was to unite Africans from all over to create a country designed, created for, created by, and governed by, what he called, Negros.After talking with Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee University, Garvey decided to hop board a shit and sail to the United States. He came over with the intentions of raising funds for a project he worked on in Jamaica and stir up some unpopular views.

He landed in New York City and found the Harlem community a ripe location to set up a chapter of the U.N.I.A.. After speaking at St. Mark’s Church, he then went on a 38 city speaking tour where he set about to promote his separatist views. Building up quiet the reputation in the U.S Marcus started publishing the Negro World newspaper to distribute his views of the United States failure at democracy. Garvey was not pleased with the blunt oppression, present during this time, towards African Americans. He had recently came from London and received an education that African Americans could not even start to dream about. So, Marcus and his U.N.I.A followers, which had rose to 4million, kicked off the Black Star Line in 1919. The BSL was a shipping company that could create a trade and commerce between blacks in America, Canada, South and Central America,the Caribbean, and Africa. Needing more hands on deck U.N.I.A held its first International Convention in August of 1920 in New York City at the Madison Square Garden before 25,000 people. His separatist views did not sit well with integration and civil equality activist like W.E.B. Du Bois and the N.A.A.C.P. Du Bois is famously quoted as calling Garvey, “the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America” (biography.com) This was because Garvey didn’t just want African Americans to be completely separate from all others, especially the whites, but he planned for African Americans and all other descendant stolen from Africa to completely uproot and create their own nation. To do so Black Star Line bought the S. S. Yarmouth and renamed it to S.S Fredrick Douglas and jump started its redemption program aimed at setting up a new found nation on the west coast of Africa for those who were sold into slavery and their descendants from anywhere in the world. This gain attention from everywhere.

Not only did BSL gain attention but Marcus Garvey gained unwanted attention from the F.B.I Director, J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover became fearful of Garvey and his message. His fear soon became an fixation, which lead to a massive investigation to bring Garvey down. Hoover felt Garvey was putting dangerous, for white, thoughts in the minds of the blacks and as a result they could stand up against the injustice placed upon them. It scared Hoover and his team so bad they hired the first black F.B.I agent to go undercover and penetrate the U.N.I.A security and physically damage the BSL ships. Seeing that nothing seemed to stop Garvey, Hoover charged Garvey with mail fraud all because of a brochure for the BSL that had a photo of a ship on it but at the time they didn’t have a vessel of their own in their fleet. Garvey was charged and convicted of mail fraud and sentenced to five years in prison thanks to a Jewish judge and all Jewish juror, whom Garvey believed convicted him because he was set to have a meeting with the KKK grand wizard coming up. Garvey felt he and the KKK had similar views of segregation and that may have rubbed the Jewish the wrong way since the KKK dislike the Jews as well. The case was all but fair and just and the evidence was planted and falsified He appealed his case but was denied.

In 1928 Garvey was released and deported back to Jamaica. Garvey continued work for the U.N.I.A and traveled to speak in Switzerland and Geneva,on the major world wide problems with race and injustice. He did try one last attempt to bring African Americans back home. In 1939, Garvey and Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo brought to congress The Greater Liberia Act of 1939. If passed it would deport 12 million African-Americans to Liberia at the expense of the Federal Government. They argued it would relieve unemployment. The act didn’t pass and Garvey’s reputation with African Americans hit an all time low. Garvey went on to live and work in London until his death in 1935, due to two strokes ,at the age of 52. Garvey trained new leaders to lead the U.N.I.A at his school, the School of African Philosophy, in Toronto. Many have taken his journey as inspiration and although his views were controversial he believed in the black people. He stressed “Black is Beautiful” and to this day we still celebrate in the beauty of the black race. Now bits and pieces of his message is taken and applied in some way. When we talk about “buy Black”, “Black buisness”, “black pride”, etc Garvey probably smile or maybe he just says, I told you so.

References

1. Biography.comeditor.2014 April 2. Marcus Garvey Biography.A&E Television Networks. Retrieved on:
2. http://www.biography.com/people/marcus-garvey-9307319
3. History.com editors. 2018 September 12. Marcus Garvey. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved on: February 4, 2019: http://history.com/topics/black-history/marcus-garvey