By Hasan Kwame Jeffries, The Ohio State University
By the time the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) held its 1920 Harlem convention, Marcus Garvey had emerged as a leading spokesperson for Black America, especially for the Black working class. But Garvey had a grander vision. He was looking to build the “Black man’s government”. So, when the grand parade through Harlem ended, the work of building that government began.
Drafting the Declaration of Rights
Throughout the month of August 1920, convention delegates convened at the UNIA’s Liberty Hall, in the heart of Harlem. There they created a government-in-waiting for Africa that would supposedly one day rule a liberated and united continent. It was a grandiose gesture that was unlikely ever to be realized, but that didn’t stop Garvey from orchestrating his own election as provisional president of Africa.
More practically and more significantly, the conventioneers spent considerable time drafting the Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, a remarkable statement outlining the injustices that people of African descent suffered at the hands of people of European descent. The document also identified fundamental human rights—“common rights”, they called them—that African people, and all people for that matter, were entitled to enjoy.
Grievances of the African Americans
Not unlike America’s Declaration of Independence, the UNIA’s Declaration of Rights began with a list of grievances, a dozen in all, that summarized the social, political, and economic problems confronting African Americans. In the document, the authors called out segregation in public accommodations not only for being unequal, but also for being unduly burdensome.
“On the public conveyances and common carriers in the Southern portion of the United States,” they wrote, “we are jim-crowed and compelled to accept separate and inferior accommodations and made to pay the same fare charged for first-class accommodations.”
The Garveyites also criticized segregated education. “Our children,” they said, “are forced to attend inferior separate schools … and the public school funds are unequally divided between the white and colored schools.”
Highlighting Political Injustices
The Declaration of Rights highlighted two elements of the American political and legal system that were especially troubling for African Americans. The first was the absence of due process under the law, which contributed to the rise of lynching. The Garveyites wrote: “In certain parts of the United States … our race is denied the right of public trial accorded to other races when accused of crime, but are lynched and burned by mobs, and such brutal and inhuman treatment is even practiced upon our women.”
The second political injustice was disenfranchisement. “In the Southern portion of the United States of America, although citizens under the Federal Constitution, [we are] denied all voice in the making and administration of the laws and are taxed without representation by the State governments.” Making matters worse, they pointed out that Black men were simultaneously “compelled to do military service in defense of the country”.
This article comes directly from content in the video series African American History: From Emancipation through Jim Crow. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Economic Injustices
Economic injustice worried the Garveyites as well. The Declaration pointed out that Black people are “discriminated against and denied an equal chance to earn wages for the support of our families, and … nearly everywhere are paid smaller wages than white men”.
The Garveyites understood that a widespread belief in white supremacy was at the heart of the problems that African Americans faced. As the declaration put it: “Nowhere in the world, with few exceptions, are black men accorded equal treatment with white men, [but are instead] discriminated against and denied the common rights due to human beings for no other reason than their race and color.”
Demands of the African Americans
After summarizing the social, political, and economic problems confronting African Americans, the Declaration of Rights listed 54 demands that Garveyites deemed necessary to “stimulate [the race] to overcome the handicaps and difficulties surrounding it, and to push forward to a higher and grander destiny”.
Garvey and his followers called for ending racial discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, and education. They asked that African Americans be allowed to “elect their own representatives” so that they could “exercise control over [their own] community”. They insisted that Black representation on juries ensured “even-handed justice before all courts of law”.
They asserted their belief in freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and claimed their right to “travel unmolested … as other men”. They advocated self-defense so that African Americans could “protect [themselves] against the barbarous practices inflicted upon [them] because of color”. And they reserved the right to revolt, to “free one’s self or protect one’s rights” from the depredations of others.
New Voice to the Old ideas
The Garveyites spoke undeniable truths in the Declaration of Rights. They gave clear voice to the injustices that African Americans faced and laid out the freedom rights they deserved. But none of the problems or even the demands that they identified were new.
The impediments to equality that African Americans faced in 1920 were the same ones that African Americans had been struggling to overcome since emancipation. The same was true for the civil and human rights that they called for. African Americans had articulated their desire to obtain these at the moment of emancipation. What was new was the vehicle through which they were trying to disrupt the status quo, and how they expressed their grievances and demands.
Common Questions about the UNIA’s Declaration of Rights
The Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World was a remarkable statement outlining the injustices that people of African descent suffered at the hands of people of European descent. The document also identified fundamental human rights—“common rights”, they called them—that African people, and all people for that matter, were entitled to enjoy.
The UNIA’s Declaration of Rights began with a list of grievances, a dozen in all, that summarized the social, political, and economic problems confronting African Americans. In the document, the authors called out segregation in public accommodations not only for being unequal, but also for being unduly burdensome. They also criticized segregation in education.
The Declaration of Rights listed 54 demands that Garveyites deemed necessary to “stimulate [the race] to overcome the handicaps and difficulties surrounding it, and to push forward to a higher and grander destiny”. Among other things, Garvey and his followers called for ending racial discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, and education.
