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Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. ONH (17 August 1887 – 10 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL, commonly known as UNIA), through which he declared himself Provisional President of Africa.
Apr 5, 2024 · Marcus Garvey, charismatic Black leader who organized the first important American Black nationalist movement (1919–26), based in New York City’s Harlem. He reached the height of his power in 1920, when he presided at an international convention, with delegates present from 25 countries.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Why is Marcus Garvey important?Marcus Garvey organized the United States’ first Black nationalist movement. In the years following World War I, he urged Black Americans to be pro...
- How did Marcus Garvey become influential?Marcus Garvey left his native Jamaica for the United States in 1916. He established branches of his Universal Negro Improvement Association through...
- Why was Marcus Garvey’s ideology controversial?Marcus Garvey’s style of Black nationalism clashed with that of the 1920s Black establishment, notably with W.E.B. Du Bois, head of the National As...
- Why did Marcus Garvey lose influence?While Marcus Garvey’s views were unorthodox for the time, his influence ultimately declined when he began to engage in questionable business dealin...
- Marcus Garvey’s Early Years
- Universal Negro Improvement Association
- Marcus Garvey Quotes
- Black Star Line
- J. Edgar Hoover Spies on Marcus Garvey
- Marcus Garvey After Prison
- Death of Marcus Garvey
- Legacy of Marcus Garvey
- Sources
Marcus Moziah Garvey was born on August 17, 1887, in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, to Marcus Garvey Sr. and Sarah Jane Richards. His father was a stonemason and his mother was a household servant. Though the couple had 11 children, only Marcus and one other sibling survived into adulthood. Garvey attended school in Jamaica until he was 14, when he left S...
After two years in London—where he received an education that would likely have been unavailable to him in the Americas because of the color of his skin—Garvey returned to Jamaica. It was during this time that he started the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Garvey also began corresponding with Booker T. Washington, the Black American leader...
In many of his lectures, Garvey summarized his views on the rights of African Americans by noting, “The first dying that is to be done by the Black man in the future will be done to make himself free. And then when we are finished, if we have any charity to bestow, we may die for the white man. But as for me, I think I have stopped dying for him.” ...
Garvey established the first U.S. chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1917 in Harlem, and began publishing the Negro Worldnewspaper. Soon, his speaking engagements took on an angry tone, in which he questioned how the United States could call itself a democracy when across the country people of color were still oppressed. By 1...
Because of his outspoken activism and Black nationalism, Garvey became a target of J. Edgar Hoover at the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), a precursor to the FBI. The BOI began investigating Garvey on charges of mail fraud in connection with a brochure for the Black Star Line that included a photo of a ship before the company actually had a vessel in...
When he was released from prison in 1928 after serving three years of his sentence, Garvey travelled to Geneva, Switzerland, to speak to the League of Nationson issues of race and the worldwide abuse of people of color. A few months later, he returned to Jamaica where he established the People’s Political Party, that nation’s first modern political...
In 1935, Garvey returned to London where he lived and worked until his death at age 52. Marcus Garvey died on June 10, 1940 from complications brought on by two strokes. Due to World War IItravel restrictions, he was originally buried in St. Mary's Roman Catholic cemetery in Kensal Green, London. But on November 13, 1964, his body was exhumed and b...
While in London, Garvey continued to write and coordinated the establishment of the School of African Philosophy in Toronto to train future leaders of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. By then, the organization had more than a thousand chapters worldwide. Although his legacy as a leader and activist lives on, Garvey’s separatist and Blac...
Marcus Garvey: Civil Rights Activist. Biography.com. Van Leeuwen, D. “Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association.” National Humanities Center. humanitiescenter.org. Friedman, J. (2018). “From Jamaica’s Marcus Garvey came an African vision of freedom.” USAToday.com. Garvey, M. (1925). “First Message to the Negroes of the World fro...
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Jan 24, 2024 · Marcus Garvey was an orator for the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. Garvey...
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Feb 11, 2021 · Was Marcus Garvey a charlatan or a prophet? On one hand, his groundbreaking message of Black nationalism continues today. On the other, he was accused of defrauding people, some of their life...
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Feb 5, 2007 · Courtesy U.S. Library of Congress. Marcus Mosiah Garvey, one of the most influential 20th Century black nationalist and Pan-Africanist leaders, was born on August 17, 1887 in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. Greatly influenced by Booker T. Washington ’s autobiography Up From Slavery, Garvey began to support industrial education, economic separatism ...
Sep 15, 2020 · In addition to his support of Pan-Africanism, Marcus Garvey was a Black nationalist and believed in racial separatism. This made him a controversial figure in and out of the Black community, especially as he challenged major thought leader W.E.B Du Bois.
