By Hasan Kwame Jeffries, The Ohio State University
Jamaican-born, 32-year-old Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). In only three years’ time, Garvey built the UNIA into the largest African American organization in the country. By 1920, it had well over 1 million members, belonging to 500 branches, scattered across three dozen states. Learn more about his journey.
Laying the Foundation of UNIA
During 1910-1912 Garvey traveled through Central America and London. Reflecting on all that he had learned during his travels, Garvey wondered: “Where is the black man’s government? Where is his King and his kingdom? Where is his President, his country, and his ambassador, his army, his navy, his men of big affairs?”
At that moment, he said to himself: “I will help to make them.”
Garvey returned to Jamaica in 1914 and immediately founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). But the UNIA didn’t take hold. Garvey blamed its failure on ignorance and self-hatred among Jamaicans of mixed-race ancestry.
The Stepping Stones
The UNIA eventually did gain traction. The discriminatory treatment of Jamaican men by the British army during World War I politicized people, in much the same way it politicized African American veterans like Charles Hamilton Houston, making the Black nationalist organization more appealing. But by then, Garvey was looking for more fertile soil and had turned his attention toward the United States.
Garvey arrived in the United States in March 1916. He stepped off a steamship in New York City, and after getting settled in Harlem, began spreading the word about his movement. Within a few months, Garvey emerged as a dynamic, high-intensity orator. Now when he lectured, his voice boomed, his arms flailed, and his audiences became enraptured.
This article comes directly from content in the video series African American History: From Emancipation through Jim Crow. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Establishing a Brand of Black Nationalism
Garvey understood that there was much more to Black America than Harlem. So he embarked on a year-long speaking and listening tour, visiting 38 states, including several in the Deep South. Seeing the conditions under which African Americans lived and labored confirmed for him that Black America needed him, needed his ideas, and needed the UNIA.
Upon returning to New York after his year of travel, Garvey established the UNIA’s headquarters in Harlem. It was a logical place for him to plant the organization’s red, black, and green flag. The Great Migration was underway. Millions of Black Southerners were on the move, fleeing the poverty and violence of the Jim Crow South in search of better opportunities and safety in the urban North.
To reach Harlem’s Black residents, Garvey spoke nightly on street corners, espousing his brand of Black nationalism. With his new speaking style, the crowds became regular and quickly grew in size. And more and more people took the next step—they became dues-paying members of the UNIA.
Negro World: The Official Organ of the UNIA
To reach an audience beyond Harlem’s street corners, the master printer launched the Negro World, the official organ of the UNIA. He started the paper in 1918. It was a fabulous success. By 1920, the Negro World’s circulation reached 200,000, making it the most widely read newspaper in Black America.
Just as in Garvey’s speeches, race pride was a central theme of the Negro World. Its pages were filled with editorials, poems, essays, and news articles stressing the beauty of Blackness. The Negro World also emphasized the benefits of Black businesses, championing the advantages of Black economic independence and promoting investment in UNIA ventures.
UNIA Enterprises
Foremost among the UNIA enterprises was the Black Star Line. Although the shipping company was supposed to rival the White Star Line of British fame and Titanic infamy, it didn’t consist of much more than a handful of old freighters. But the condition of the aging fleet didn’t matter much to the thousands of African Americans who scraped together a few dollars to purchase one or two shares in the company. They were investing in the idea of connecting the African diaspora through oceanic trade and travel.
From Harlem to Helena, Arkansas, Black families cherished their Black Star Line stock certificates, even framing and hanging them in places of prominence in their homes.
But the UNIA was more than a conduit for Black business ventures. It was a political incubator, politicizing and training African Americans, including Black women, for future leadership. Indeed, many Black nationalist women began their political activism in the UNIA and gained a sense of empowerment as members of the organization.
Did UNIA Fail?
Several missteps by Garvey, including financial mismanagement by deceitful deputies, sapped the strength of the UNIA, making an already difficult task even more challenging. It also created an opening that the federal government exploited to completely undermine Garvey’s efforts.
The Bureau of Investigation infiltrated the UNIA with at least one Black undercover agent. It arrested Garvey in 1922 for mail fraud, for selling stock in a ship that the Black Star Line had not yet purchased. Garvey was convicted and imprisoned in 1925. Two years later, President Calvin Coolidge, hoping to stamp out Garveyism for good, commuted his sentence and deported him to Jamaica.
UNIA membership dwindled in the absence of its charismatic leader, and by the time Garvey died in 1940, the organization was a faint shadow of what it had been 20 years earlier.
Common Questions about Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association
Marcus Garvey founded of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) with an aim to rescue African Americans from the clutches of Jim Crow. In only three years’ time, the native of Jamaica had built the UNIA into the largest African American organization in the country. By 1920, it had well over 1 million members, belonging to 500 branches, scattered across three dozen states.
The official organ of the UNIA was the newspaper, the Negro World, that was started in 1918. It was a fabulous success. By 1920, the Negro World’s circulation reached 200,000, making it the most widely read newspaper in Black America.
The UNIA was a political incubator, politicizing and training African Americans, including Black women, for future leadership. Indeed, many Black nationalist women began their political activism in the UNIA and gained a sense of empowerment as members of the organization.
