Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey chillin'

Marcus Moziah Garvey was born in St. Ann’s, Jamaica on August 17, 1887. He is known to be a Negro movement’s leader of his time. His main goal was for blacks to be relieved of racism and colonialism. To many, he was known as the Black Moses back in the early 1900s. Garvey was persistent with trying to succeed in reaching his main goal, too.

In the year 1914, in his home island of Jamaica, Garvey founded what was called the Universal Negro Improvement Association or the UNIA. In order to further publicize his association, though, he moved it, along with himself, up to Harlem, New York, New York in May of 1916 where the UNIA began to thrive. In 1920, the UNIA began to host international conventions and would publish the Negro World, a widely published “weekly” or newspaper, based off of said conventions, but the Negro World became banned in many parts of Africa and the Caribbean’s. In the year of 1922, though, Garvey was arrested and indicted for mail fraud charges against him.

In 1919, Marcus Garvey started what was known as the Black Star Line “shipping” company which its purpose was to pretty much get blacks back to the proclaimed “homeland” of Africa. A year later, he tried to get land colonized in Liberia for African- Americans. He had announced a colonization plan and even sent delegations to Monrovia, Liberia to try to get the land for blacks to settle, but it failed. So in the same year of 1920, he started a Negro Factories Corporation in order to encourage African- American economic independence.

Whilst spending precious time in prison, they decided to deport Garvey back to his home island of Jamaica where he tried to become and Jamaican politician, but it seemed to also fail. So he began writing books. Two of his better novels were “The Black Man” and the “New Jamaican”. After this, he then moved to London because he had bankrupted in Jamaica. While living in England, though, he became deathly ill and died in June of 1940.

Garvey’s body was returned back to Jamaica twenty four years later where he was buried and known as the country’s first national hero. Garvey seemed to be the “Caribbean Martin Luther King” in the sense that he fought for what he believed was right and tried to do everything in his power to succeed.

Garvey leading the UNIA

Marcus Garvey coolin' it though!!

Sources for M. Garvey Project

Sources:

• Modern American Poetry: About Marcus Garvey and the Black Star Line
• PBS: Marcus Garvey
• PBS: Marcus Garvey- People and Events
• AVL: Article of Britannica Encyclopedia
• UCLA African Studies Center: Marcus Garvey
• BBC History: M. Garvey Info