acrimony that developed between the UNIA and
the indigenous sociopolitical groups, such as the
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF
COLORED PEOPLE and the Brotherhood of Sleeping
Car Porters, causing Garvey to operate often in a
controversial environment.
An integral part of Garvey’s unifying power was
his astute use of pageantry with such UNIA sat-
ellite groups as the Universal Black Cross Nurses,
the Universal African Motor Corps, and the Black
Eagle Flying Corps; he added to this his many
costumes appropriate to his role as provisional
president of Africa and president of the UNIA, in-
cluding his academic gown and military uniform
accented by a French chapeau adorned with red,
green, and white feathers, which he wore during
weekly meetings and parades and annual confer-
ences and conventions.
In his “Declaration of the Rights of Negro Peo-
ples of the World,” Garvey noted that the current
U.S. government fosters conditions under which
black citizens were lynched, discriminated against,
and subjected to unfair trials, lower wages, infe-
rior medical care, education, and housing. Fur-
thermore, Garvey was convinced that “nowhere
in the world, with few exceptions, are black men
accorded equal treatment with white men.” He
demanded: “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa
Let us work towards the one glorious end of a
free, redeemed and mighty nation” (Philosophy,
135–136). Garvey’s nationalist agenda and eco-
nomic self-sufficiency programs were meant to
combat this oppression. In 1917, Garvey began
purchasing property in Harlem, including Liberty
Hall, an auditorium to host the UNIA’s gather-
ings. Such acquisitions were meant to establish a
separate social space that was also economically
independent.
Central to Garvey’s economic program was
the UNIA’s official weekly newspaper, The Negro
World, which he began publishing in 1920 to
serve as a cultural and political center for the or-
ganization’s activities and missions. Through The
Negro World, Garvey sought to construct a coun-
ternarrative to extant racist messages in American
newspapers and other media and to enhance the
survival of the black race. Thus, The Negro World
featured black beauty contests, advertisements for
black-owned businesses, and consistent examples
of black literature and art to reinforce a sense of
racial pride in the black community. With a peak
subscription of 200,000 weekly readers, The Negro
World signaled Garvey’s strength and the success
of his political message. Central to his legacy is the
celebration of racial pride, the acknowledgment
that “Black is beautiful,” and the demand for black
national independence, which had important so-
cial and cultural effects.
Garvey’s most ambitious commercial endeavor
was the creation of The Black Star Line, a ship-
ping company that was exclusively owned and
operated by black men and women. However, the
company never lived up to the success that Gar-
vey had intended; he was indicted in 1922 on mail
fraud charges, imprisoned for five years, and de-
ported to Jamaica in November 1927. Although he
never returned to the United States, he continued
to travel and speak out against global oppression
of black peoples. The UNIA, which is still in ex-
istence, never attained the same enthusiastic fol-
lowing it celebrated in Harlem at the height of the
New Negro Manhood Movement and the HARLEM
RENAISSANCE, in which it clearly played a major
role. Ironically, Garvey died on June 10, 1940, in
London, England, the colonial “motherland” of his
beloved Jamaica and Africa, which he had sought
to liberate.
Garvey’s imprisonment and ultimate inability
to free Africa and found an independent nation
for Africans and their descendants did little to dis-
credit his vision and cultural legacy in the eyes of
his followers, including, for example, the BLACK
POWER movement of the 1960s, the emergence of
the Nation of Islam and leadership of MALCOLM X,
and the BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Garvey, Marcus. Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus
Garvey, or Africa for the Africans. Edited by Amy
Jacques Garvey. Vol. 2. 1925. 2d ed. London: Frank
Cass, 1967.
———. “Speech by Marcus Garvey: Liberty Hall,
New York, January 20, 1924.” In The Marcus Gar-
vey and Universal Negro Improvement Association198 Garvey, Marcus M.