Black History Fact of the Week: Marcus Garvey
Established the Universal Negro Improvement Association
On Aug. 17, 1887, Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was born in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, to Marcus Mosiah Garvey Sr., a mason, and Sarah Jane Richards, a domestic worker. The youngest of 11 children, Garvey, along with his sister Indiana, were the only two to survive to maturity.
Naturally apt to revolutionary thought and action, in his young adult years he became a trade unionist, and in 1907 was elected vice president of the compositors’ branch of the printers’ union.
Later, Garvey moved to England to study at Birbeck College where he interacted with other people of African descent who were involved in the struggle to gain independence from Britain.
Inspired, he returned to Jamaica and established the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). He then began to formulate ideas based on the philosophies and ideals of Booker T. Washington.
By 1916, Garvey launched a tour around the United States, gaining the support of more than 2 million African Americans, who joined the UNIA. By 1920, membership had soared to 4 million.
The organization campaigned against injustices against Black people and promoted self-sufficiency. Garvey became famous for his saying to the Pan African community, “Africa for the Africans.”
Garvey promoted the return to Africa, both mentally and physically. In 1919, he established the Black Star Line, a shipping line that transported goods and African Americans throughout the African global economy. Due to its rapid success, the Black Star Line garnered mass appeal, but it also attracted investigations by U.S. government officials. Garvey and four other Black Star Line officers were charged with mail fraud, causing the shipping line to collapse. Garvey was eventually deported. Despite these setbacks, Garvey continued to fight for the economic and political liberation of Black people around the world.
His many travels and petitions for African people included a trip to Geneva in 1928 to present the Petition of the Negro Race, in which was outlined the global abuse of Africans to the League of Nations.
His other organization efforts are numerous.
On June 10, 1940, Garvey read an obituary of himself in the Chicago Defender. Scholars debated that the article was written to dismantle the Garvey movement. After reading the article, Garvey suffered two strokes and died. However, some argue that he was poisoned on a boat on which he was traveling and died as a result of that.
He was married twice, once to Jamaican Pan-African activist Amy Ashwood in 1919 (divorced in 1922), and then to Amy Jacques in 1922.
On June 17, 1871, James Weldon Johnson, writer of the lyrics for “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” (then called the Negro National Anthem), was born in Jacksonville, Fla., to James and Helen Johnson.
Coming from a well-educated and cultured family, Johnson was first taught by his schoolteacher mother. She instilled in him a sense of appreciation for English literature and the European tradition in music.
On Sept. 26, 2001, police officer Stephen Roach was acquitted of all charges in the shooting death of an unarmed 19-year-old Black man—Timothy Thomas.
The shooting occurred on April 7 in Cincinnati, Ohio, when two off-duty police officers spotted the young man walking down the street. Thomas had 14 outstanding warrants out for his arrest, 12 of them for traffic violations. The other warrants were for evading the police. After noticing the police, the young man began to run. Within minutes, 12 officers were in pursuit.
“We are men; we have souls, we have passions, we have feelings, we have hopes, we have desires, like any other race in the world. The cry is raised all over the world today of Canada for the Canadians, of America for the Americans, of England for the English, of France for the French, of Germany for the Germans— do you think it is unreasonable that we, the Blacks of the world, should raise the cry of Africa for the Africans?” -Marcus Mosiah Garvey
On Sept. 13, 1886, world renowned writer and philosopher, Alain LeRoy Locke was born in Philadelphia, Pa., to math teacher and activist, Pliny Ishmael Locke and educator Mary Hawkins Locke.
He was a sickly child with rheumatic fever, but coped by reading a great deal and learning to play the piano and violin. The sickness damaged his heart for life.
They say the economy’s getting better.
