The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Vol. IV: September 1921-September 1922

By Marcus Garvey

The fourth volume of the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers marks the period of deepening crisis in the UNIA's political and economic fortunes. After September of 1921, membership declined and morale in the UNIA began to weaken. Underlying it all, however, was the final failure of the Black Star Line that resulted when negotiations with the United States Chipping Board for the purchase of the long proposed African ship collapsed in March 1922. The movement also suffered a major setback when the first Liberian colonization plan aborted in the summer of 1921.   On the political front, Garvey's African program had to compete with W.E.B. Du Bois's Second Pan-African Congress. The were also major shifts in Garvey's political strategy during this period, his speeches reflecting a desire to placate the U.S. government, while simultaneously assailing his lef-wing critics for promoting "social equality." This disavowal of radicalism earned him further enemies on the left. One of his chief black critics, Cyril V. Briggs, the leader of the African Blood Brotherhood, unwittingly supplied federal investigators with evidence that led to Garvey's indictment on charges of mail fraud in February 1922.   By prosecuting him, however, the Department of Justice did not discredit Garvey in the eyes of his followers; rather, it temporarily strengthened his hold over the movement as the appearance of persecution intensified the loyalty of the UNIA membership. But later in 1922 Garvey did lose favor among many of his followers when it was disclosed that he had met secretly in Atlanta with the Acting Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. What Garvey had thought was a diplomatic triumph proved instead to be anathema to most blacks.   At the Third UNIA Convention in 1922, Garvey repudiated the entire executive council of the UNIA, while expressing his anger of "plots" against him from within the UNIA leadership.  Loyalty to Garvey thus became a more urgent issue than ever before. But although Garvey was once again able to silence his critics within the UNIA, the price was to be a badly fractured and demoralized movement. At the same time, his political adversaries outside the UNIA were steadily gaining ground against him.   As meticulously documented as the three previous volumes, Volume IV provides the first extended record of Garvey's emergent social philosophy, particularly as it relates to his conception of "racial purity" and the metaphysics of the human condition. It stands as an impressive record of the Garvey movement.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.
The fourth volume of the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers marks the period of deepening crisis in the UNIA's political and economic fortunes. After September of 1921, membership declined and morale in the UNIA began to weak

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520342262

Marcus Garvey

Robert A. Hill is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project, the University of California, Los Angeles. Tevvy Ball and Erika Blum are Associate Editors of the African volumes of the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project.

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THE

MARCUS GARVEY

AND

UNIVERSAL NEGRO

IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION

PAPERS

SUPPORTED BY

The National Endowment for the Humanities

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission

The Ford Foundation

The Rockefeller Foundation

The Atlantic Richfield Foundation

The Twenty-First Century Foundation

SPONSORED BY

The University of California, Los Angeles

THE

MARCUS GARVEY

AND

UNIVERSAL NEGRO

IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION

PAPERS

Volume IV

! September 1921-2 September 1922

Robert A. Hill

Editor

Emory J. Tolbert

Senior Editor

Deborah Forczek

Assistant Editor

University of California Press

Berkeley Los Angeles London

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

This volume has been funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency. The volume has also been supported by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Atlantic Richfield Foundation, the Twenty-First Century Foundation, and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Designed by Linda Robertson and set in Galliard type.

Copyright ©1985 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Main entry under title:

The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association papers

ï. Garvey, Marcus, 1887-1940. 2. Universal Negro Improvement Association—History—Sources. 3. Black power—

United States—History—Sources. 4. Afro-Americans—Race identity—History—Sources. 5. Afro-Americans—Civil rights— History—Sources. 6. Afro-Americans—Correspondence.

I. Hill, Robert A., 1943- • II. Garvey, Marcus, 1887-1940.

III. Universal Negro Improvement Association

E185.97.G3M36 1985 305.8'96073 82-13379

ISBN 978-0-520-05446-2

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

HERBERT APTHEKER

MARY FRANCES BERRY

JOHN W. BLASSINGAME

JOHN HENRIK CLARKE

EDMUND DAVID CRONON

IAN DUFFIELD

E. U. ESSIEN-UDOM

VINCENT HARDING

RICHARD HART

THOMAS L. HODGKIN!

ARTHUR S. LINK

GEORGE A. SHEPPERSON

MICHAEL R. WINSTON

Marcus Garvey during the 1922 UNIA convention parade

To

J. R. Ralph Casimir

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

EDITORIAL PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES

TEXTUAL DEVICES

SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

Repository Symbols

MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION SYMBOLS

Descriptive Symbols

Published Works Cited

Other Symbols and Abbreviations

CHRONOLOGY

Edward J. Brennan to William J. Burns, Director, Bureau of Investigation

Enclosure

Report by Bureau Agent F. M. Ames

William J. Burns to W. B. Matthews, Bureau of Investigation

Frank Burke to A. J. Frey, United States Shipping Board

Henry C. Von Struve, U.S. Consul, Antilla, Cuba, to the Black Star Line, New York

Marcus Garvey’s Declaration of Intention to Become a United States Citizen

VE. R. Conners, Master, S.S. Kanawha, to Henry C. Von Struve

Enclosure

PAY ROLL—S.S. KANAWHA

Marcus Garvey to Sir Eric Drummond,1 Secretary-General, League of Nations

L. B. Weeks, Acting Chief of Staff for Military Intelligence, to the Director, Military Intelligence Division

Report by Special Agent p.138

Report by Special Agent J. T. Flournoy

Report by Bureau Agent H. J. Lenon

Henry C. Von Struve to the Black Star Line, New York

African Redemption Fund List

Letter by Marcus Garvey for the African Redemption Fund

Report by Special Agent J. G. Tucker

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Speech by Marcus Garvey

J. Harry Philbin to the United States Shipping Board

William L. Hurley to Sheldon Whitehouse,1 United States Embassy, Paris

William J. Burns to Edward J. Brennan

Report by Bureau Agent Adrian L. Potter

Report by Special Agent Edward Anderson

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Meeting Announcement

Article in the New York Evening Post

Report by Bureau Agent W. S. Bachman

Editorial Letter by Marcus Garvey

Negro Factories Corporation Advertisement

Negro Factories Corporation Stock Certificate

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Emanuel McDonald to the Negro World

Promissory Note from Marcus Garvey to Thomas Phillips

Report by Bureau Agent Adrian L. Potter

Bureau of Investigation Report

Marcus Garvey to the Editor, New York Tribune

Report by Bureau Agent H. J. Lenon

Open Letter from Cyril V. Briggs to William H. Ferris, Literary Editor, Negro World

Report by Bureau Agent Adrian L. Potter

Albert A. Zink, et al. v. Black Star Line, Incorporated

Black Star Line to Henry C. Von Struve

Black Star Line to A. D. Lasker, United States Shipping Board

Ralph V. Sollitt, Assistant to the Chairman, United States Shipping Board, to the Black Star Line

George F. Ruch to W. W. Grimes,1 Bureau of Investigation

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Enclosure

Marcus Garvey to Henry C. Von Struve

Report by Special Agent J. G. Tucker

Article by James Weldon Johnson

Speech by Marcus Garvey

William H. Ferris to Cyril V. Briggs

Report by Special Agent 850

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Cyril A. Crichlow to Charles Evans Hughes

Editorial by Marcus Garvey

Report by Special Agent J. G. Tucker

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Henry C. Von Struve

Elmer Schlesinger, General Counsel, United States Shipping Board, to Clifford W. Smith

Elmer Schlesinger to J. Harry Philbin

Article in the Freeman

Negro World Notices

Report by Special Agent J. G. Tucker

Speech by Marcus Garvey

George F. Ruch to J. Edgar Hoover

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Enclosure

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Negro World Notice

William J. Burns to William L. Hurley

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Albert A. Zink, et al. v.

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Marcus Garvey to Bishop George Alexander McGuire

Bishop George Alexander McGuire to Marcus Garvey

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Article in the Washington Bee

Article in the California Eagle

The People of the State of New York v. Marcus Garvey

Article in the Amsterdam News

Enclosure

Article in the Washington Bee

Speech by Marcus Garvey

G. T. Charlton and J. T. Crone, to the United States Supervising Inspector

Article by W. A. Domingo

Editorial Letter by Marcus Garvey

George B. Christian, Jr., Secretary to President Warren G. Harding, to Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to W. E. B. Du Bois

George F. Ruch to J. Edgar Hoover

W. W. Grimes to J. Edgar Hoover

Article in the California Eagle

J. Bompart, Secretary to the President of France, to Marcus Garvey

Franklin Lee Terry to James Weldon Johnson

J. Edgar Hoover to W. W. Grimes

Marcus Garvey to the Secretary, International Conference on Disarmament

Report by Special Agent J. G. Tucker

Article in the California Eagle

Emanuel McDonald to the Negro World

Speeches by Marcus Garvey

Article in the Amsterdam News

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Marcus Garvey to J. R. Ralph Casimir

T. G. W. Paul to Marcus Garvey

Report by Bureau Agent A. A. Hopkins

J. Edgar Hoover to George F. Ruch

Report by Special Agent Mortimer J. Davis

J. Edgar Hoover to William J. Burns

Enclosure

Enclosure

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Enclosure

Report by Special Agent J. G. Tucker

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Report by Special Agent J. T. Flournoy

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Editorial by William H. Ferris

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Article in the Negro World

R. R. Moton to Marcus Garvey

Editorial in the Crusader

Crusader Front Page

A. A. Maney to James Weldon Johnson

Retraction by the Negro World

Article in the New York News

J. J. Hannigan, Commandant, Twelfth Naval District, to the Director, Office of Naval Intelligence

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Enclosure

Meeting Announcement

William J. Burns to Rush D. Simmons, Chief Inspector, Post Office Department

Court Order to Sell the S.S. Yarmouth

Editorial Letter by Marcus Garvey

Report by Special Agent Mortimer J. Davis

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Elmer Schlesinger to Joseph P. Nolan

Joseph P. Nolan to Elmer Schlesinger

Memorandum by W. W. Grimes

Negro World Announcement

Report by Special Agent J. G. Tucker

Speech by Marcus Garvey

William J. Burns to David H. Blair, Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Negro World Front Page

Articles in the Negro World

Negro World Advertisement

Christmas Message from Sir Harry H.

William Pickens to the Negro World

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Editorial Letter by Marcus Garvey

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Enclosure

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT

Alice Woodby McKane to Herbert J. Seligman

Report by Special Agent Mortimer J. Davis

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Report by Special Agent J. G. Tucker

Christmas Message by Marcus Garvey

J. J. Hannigan to the Director, Office of Naval Intelligence

Herbert J. Seligman to Alice Woodby McKane

Anonymous Letter to Harry Daugherty

Article in the Nation

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Statement by Marcus Garvey1

Statement by UNIA

Speech by Marcus Garvey

UNIA Petition to the Speaker and Congress of the United States

J. Harry Philbin to the Treasurer, United States Shipping Board

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Report by Special Agent J. G. Tucker

Speech by Marcus Garvey

J. J. Hannigan to the Director, Office of Naval Intelligence

Complaint Against Marcus Garvey

Prepared Statement1 and Speech by Marcus Garvey on His Arrest

Articles in the New York World

GARVEY ACCLAIMED AS PRINCE OF MEN BY 1,000 BACKERS

Marcus Garvey to Edgar West1

Report by Special Agent Mortimer J. Davis

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Open Letter from the New York UNIA Local

J. Edgar Hoover to William J. Burns

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Gloster Armstrong, British Consul General, to the Secretary, United States Shipping Board

Editorial Letter by Marcus Garvey

Oliver B. Williamson to Rush D. Simmons

Report by Special Agent Mortimer J. Davis

Enclosures Statement of Orlando M. Thompson

Statement of Elie Garcia

Statement of James D. Brooks

Statement of Capt. J. W. Jones

Statement of Frederick A. Toote

Statement of George Tobias

Statement of Hubert H. Harrison

Report by Special Agent Mortimer J. Davis

James Weldon Johnson to Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to James Weldon Johnson

Anonymous Letter to the Department of Justice

Report by Special Agent Mortimer J. Davis

Edward J. Brennan to William J. Burns

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Report of Brooklyn UNIA Meetings

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Enclosure

Enclosure

William J. Burns to Edward J. Brennan

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Salary List by Marcus Garvey

Reports by Special Agent Mortimer J. Davis

J. J. Hannigan to the Director, Office of Naval Intelligence

Bureau of Investigation Report

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Report by Bureau Agent Harold Nathan

Ganesh Rao to the Editor, Negro World

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Editorial Letter by Marcus Garvey

A. W. Bennett to the Crisis

First Indictment of Marcus Garvey, Elie Garcia, George Tobias, and Orlando M. Thompson

John E. Bruce to J. R. Ralph Casimir

Report by Special Agent J. G. Tucker

Report by Bureau Agent W. L. Buchanan

Report by Special Agent Mortimer J. Davis

Associated Negro Press Report

UNIA Circular Letter

Bureau of Investigation Report

Report by Bureau Agent Emil A. Solanka

E. Powis Jones, Assistant Counsel, to Sanford H. E. Freund, Chief Counsel, United States Shipping Board

E. Powis Jones to Sanford H. E. Freund

Report by Special Agent Mortimer J. Davis

Enclosure

Enclosure

Report by Special Agent Mortimer J. Davis

Enclosure

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Enclosure

Enclosure

Enclosure

Enclosure

Sanford H. E. Freund to the Ship Sales Division, United States Shipping Board

Editorial in the Christian Recorder

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Article in the Negro World

Thomas P. Merrilees to William J. Burns

Enclosure

Marcus Garvey to David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Great Britain

Marcus Garvey to Albert D. Lasker

Marcus Garvey to Albert D. Lasker

William J. Burns to J. W. H. Crim, Assistant Attorney General

Enclosure

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Dusé Mohamed Ali to W. E. B. Du Bois

Wilbur J. Carr, Director, Consular Service, Department of State, to William J. Burns

Enclosure

Enclosure

Enclosure

Meeting Announcement

Article in the New York Sun

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Dusé Mohamed Ali to R. R. Moton

O. M. Thompson to the United States Shipping Board

Editorial Letter by Marcus Garvey

Secretary of W. E. B. Du Bois to Dusé Mohamed Ali

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

J. Harry Philbin to Sanford H. E. Freund

Frank Burke to J. Edgar Hoover

Bureau of Investigation Report

Statement by Marcus Garvey

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Marcus Garvey to Albert Beacon Fall,1 Secretary of the Interior

Marcus Garvey to Giovanni Amendola, Italian Secretary of State for the Colonies1

Editorial Letter by Marcus Garvey

E. Powis Jones to Sanford H. E. Freund

A. Rudolph Silverston to the United States Shipping Board

Report by Special Agent Mortimer J. Davis

UNIA Convention Fund Announcement

Sanford H. E. Freund to J. Harry Philbin

William J. Burns to Frank Burke

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Enclosure

E. Powis Jones to Sanford H. E. Freund

W. E. B. Du Bois to D. J. Steyn-Parve, Consul General for the Netherlands, New York

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Report of the Office of Naval Intelligence

Marcus Garvey to William Pickens

List of Contributors to African Redemption Fund

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

William H. Beck to Marcus Garvey

Report by Special Agent James E. Amos

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Enclosure

John E. Bruce to Charles Evans Hughes

Article by E. Ethelred Brown

Marcus Garvey to President Warren G. Harding

Marcus Garvey to Sir Eric Drummond

Report by Special Agent James E. Amos

J. J. Hannigan to the Director, Office of Naval Intelligence

Confidential Informant 800 to George F. Ruch

Enclosure

J. Harry Philbin to Sanford H. E. Freund

Marcus Garvey to President Warren G. Harding

Marcus Garvey to Nicholas Murray Butler

Meeting Announcement

R. B. Moseley, UNIA Commissioner for Texas, to Marcus Garvey

Telegrams from Marcus Garvey to the Chairman, Liberty Hall

William Pickens to H. Claude Hudson1

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Editorial Letter by Marcus Garvey

J. J. Hannigan to the Director, Office of Naval Intelligence

George B. Christian, Jr., to Marcus Garvey

Nicholas Murray Butler to Marcus Garvey

Article in the Negro World by L. Mann

EASON TELLS OF INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR MCCALLUM

V. Koreshkov to William H. Ferris, Literary Editors, Negro World

J. J. Hannigan, to the Director, Office of Naval Intelligence

Editorial Letter by Marcus Garvey

Royal Italian Ministry of External Affairs to the General Director for Political Affairs, Royal Italian Ministry of the Colonies

J. J. Hannigan, to the Director, Office of Naval Intelligence

Duse Mohamed Ali to R. R. Moton

Marcus Garvey to the French Minister of the Colonies

Cable by Marcus Garvey to Chairman, Liberty Hall

Joseph P. Nolan to Sanford H. E. Freund

Report by Bureau Agent J. Tolivar

Editorial Letter by Marcus Garvey

William C. Matthews to Sanford H. E. Freund

Newspaper Article

Marcus Garvey to C. V. Safford

Reports by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Report by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

J. J. Hannigan to the Director, Office of Naval Intelligence

Report by Special Agent James E. Amos

Report by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

Advertisement for the Negro Times

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to William Pickens

R. Desmond St. Clair to the New York World

Marcus Garvey to James Weldon Johnson

Negro World Advertisement

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Report by Special Agent James E. Amos

Article by William H. Ferris

Marcus Garvey to Sir Eric Drummond

Marcus Garvey to the League of Nations

Enclosure

Report by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

Speech by Marcus Garvey

William Pickens to Marcus Garvey

W. E. B. Du Bois to Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to President Warren G. Harding

Marcus Garvey to Charles Evans Hughes

Report of UNIA Luncheon

W. E. B. Du Bois to Albert D. Lasker

Editorial Letter by Marcus Garvey

Negro World Adver tisement

Albert D. Lasker to W. E. B. Du Bois

Editorial in the Messenger

Messengeres Front Page

Opening Speech by Gabriel M. Johnson, UNIA High Potentate

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Convention Brochure

Report by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

Article in the New York World

Report by Special Agent James E. Amos

Convention Reports

Royal Italian Ministry of External Affairs to the General Director for Political Affairs, Royal Italian Ministry of the Colonies

Meeting Announcement for the Friends of Negro Freedom

Report by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

Article in the New York Times

Walter F. White to A. Philip Randolph

Convention Reports

Report by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

J. Edgar Hoover to John B. Cunningham, Bureau of Investigation

Advertisement for the Blackman

Minutes by Various Officials of the League of Nations

Speeches by Marcus Garvey and Robert L. Poston

Report by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

Article in the New York Call

Convention Reports

George B. Christian, Jr., to Marcus Garvey

Walter F. White to Arthur B. Spingarn

Convention Reports

Report by Special Agent James E. Amos

Article in the New York World

Reports by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

Convention Report

Notice in the Negro World

Article in the Negro World

Editorial in the Negro World

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Report by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

Article in the New York Times

William Pickens to J. Milton Batson

Convention Report

Report by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

Convention Report

Report by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

Marcus Garvey to Sir Eric Drummond

Report by Bureau Agent Adrian L. Potter

Report by Special Agent James E. Amos

Convention Reports

Article in the Baltimore Afro-American

Convention Report

Royal Italian Ministry of External Affairs to the General Director for Political Affairs, Royal Italian Ministry of the Colonies

Report by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

Convention Reports

Marcus Garvey to Sir Eric Drummond

Special Agent R. B. Spencer to William J. Burns

Convention Reports

Giovanni Amendola, Italian Ministry of the Colonies, to the Royal Italian Ministry of External Affairs

Report by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

Convention Reports

Report by Special Employee Andrew M. Battle

Appendixes

APPENDIX I Revisions to the Constitution and Book of Laws1

APPENDIX II Delegates to the 1922 UNIA Convention

APPENDIX III Delegates to the 1922 Convention Listed by Divisions

APPENDIX IV Finances of the Black Star Line, Incorporated

APPENDIX V Report of the UNIA Treasurer, 1 August 1921- 31 July 1922

APPENDIX VI Marcus Garvey on the Ku Klux Klan

INDEX

ILLUSTRATIONS

Marcus Garvey during the 1922 UNIA convention parade (frontispiece)

Philosophy and Opinions

Jean Joseph Adam

NW, 25 August 1923

Duse Mohamed Ali

The African Abroad (New Haven, 1913)

Thomas W. Anderson

NW, 29 December 1923

Grace Campbell

Messenger, November 1920

Lt. Herbert Julian

NW, 12 August 1922

Blaise Diagne

Crisis, February 1919

William L. Sherrill

NW, is September 1923

Noah D. Thompson

WWCA

Mary Sharpison Young

NW, 24 February 1923

Meeting of the Cincinnati, Ohio UNIA

NW, 17 December 1921

Meeting of the Gary, Indiana UNIA

NW, 2S March 1922

Marcus Garvey after his indictment

New York World, 13 January 1922

Liberty Hall

Crusader, October 1921

Marcus Garvey and Amy Jacques Garvey

Courtesy of the Jamaica Broadcasting Company

Richard Hilton Tobitt

Courtesy of J. R. Ralph Casimir

Reviewing stand for UNIA convention parade

Philosophy and Opinions

Black Cross Nurses

Philosophy and Opinions

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The editors wish to thank the institutions and individuals whose generous assistance advanced the research and editorial preparation of the present volume. Important documents were provided by the National Archives and Records Service, Washington, D.C.; Washington National Records Center, Suitland, Maryland; Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C.; Federal Archives and Records Service, Bayonne, New Jersey; League of Nations Archives, Geneva; New York County Clerk’s Office, New York; Division of Old Records of the Hall of Records, New York; Columbia University, New York; University of Massachusetts Library, Amherst; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library, New York; Hollis Burke Frissell Library; Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama; Archives of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brussels; Public Record Office, Kew, England; Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris; and the Archives of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rome. We are deeply indebted to the archivists of these institutions for their responses to our many requests and for their continued interest in the project.

Information used to prepare annotations was provided by the staffs of the following libraries: The Detroit Public Library; Special Collections of the Fisk University Library, Nashville; National Library of Jamaica, Kingston; Barbados Public Library; Springfield City Library, Springfield, Massachusetts; Howard-Tilton Memorial Library of Tulane University, New Orleans; University of British Columbia Library, Vancouver; Women’s Club of Logan Library, Logan, West Virginia; Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, Buffalo, New York; Chicago Historical Society; Dallas Historical Society; Doctors Hospital, Bronx, New York; Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans; Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston; Historic New Orleans Collection, New Orleans; Registrar of the University of Durham, Durham, England; County of Baltimore Department of Vital Records, Baltimore; State of Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson; Jackson County Department of Vital Records, Independence, Missouri; Supreme Court Appellate Division of the First Judicial Department, New York; United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles

Times, Los Angeles; and the American Medical Association, Chicago. We should also like to thank the staff of the University Research Library at the University of California, Los Angeles, for their assistance. As always, the archival staff of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, Washington, D.C., has given indispensable sustenance to the project, and we gratefully acknowledge their help.

Helpful data for use in annotations also came to us from Dr. Giovanni Bossi, Rome; Prof. Randall K. Burkett, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts; Louis Elias, Spewack-Dramatist Guild, New York; W. F. Elkins, London; Yuji Ichioka, Asian-American Studies Center of the University of California, Los Angeles; and Arthur M. Zipser, New York.

For assistance in translating some of the documents, we would like to acknowledge Christina Marcuso, Annalisa Roselli, David Salgarolo, and João Costa.

Permission to publish was gratefully received from the Universal Negro Improvement Association Collection of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations; J. R. Ralph Casimir of Roseau, Dominica; the Nicholas M. Butler Collection at Columbia University; and the R. R. Moton Papers at the Tuskegee Institute. Marcus Garvey, Jr., graciously allowed us to publish letters written by his father. David Graham Du Bois, Cairo, Egypt, kindly granted permission to publish letters by W. E. B. Du Bois.

The staff of the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers project has contributed their usual skill and dedication to the preparation of the present volume. The editors wish to express appreciation for the work of Diane Lisa Hill, Robin Dorman, Margaret Brumfield, and Alison Drew. We also extend our appreciation to Emory J. Tolbert, the project’s former Senior Editor, who contributed to the work of research and annotation writing for the present volume. We acknowledge the assistance of Gregory A. Pirio, Assistant Editor of the African series of the edition, for his help with the African annotations in this volume.

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the University of California, Los Angeles, have sustained the project with their support, and we are deeply grateful for their continuing commitment. In addition, support from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, Twenty-First Century Foundation and the Atlantic Richfield Foundation has assisted the project.

INTRODUCTION

The period between the second and third UNIA conventions marks the beginning of the UNIA’s political decline and the corresponding erosion of its economic base. By the end of the 1922 convention, the morale of the membership would plummet from the notable height it had achieved just one year earlier. Likewise, the movement’s spectacular advance over the previous two years was now slowed: at the 1921 convention, 480 divisions were chartered, whereas at the 1922 convention there were 230 divisions added.

During 1921 Garvey continued to base his strategy for African redemption on the prospect of imminent revolutionary upheaval in Europe; but he, like many others of the day, did not realize that the bourgeois political order in Europe had become restabilized. At the end of 1921, therefore, Garvey was still predicting Africa’s emancipation on the basis of a political collapse in Europe. He also found renewed hope in the growth of India’s noncooperation movement, which reached its height in 1921, as well as in the establishment of the Irish Free State in early 1922.

By October 1921, however, Garvey’s own movement was beset by a deepening crisis. Circulation of the Negro World had fallen off, a reflection of the gradual loss of UNIA membership. After September 1921, UNIA officers received little, if any, salary, and in January 1922, the entire executive council met and unanimously agreed to a 40 percent to 50 percent retrenchment of their salaries. Moreover, by December, a series of open revolts erupted within major divisions in Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The winter of 1921-1922 found the UNIA confronting these crises with no prospect for relief. By then the $144,000 raised through the sale of bonds in the Liberian Construction Loan scheme had been expended.

Underlying this decline, however, was the failure of the Black Star Line. Its demise was assured when negotiations with the United States Shipping Board for purchase of the BSL’s long-proposed African ship collapsed in March 1922. There were numerous delays in these negotiations while the USSB pondered the sale of the S.S. Orion to the BSL, and they may have been partly the result of pressure from the Department of Justice. During the interval, embarrassing attacks against Garvey appeared in the press. When negotiations finally failed, the BSL sought to recover its $22,500 deposit from the USSB, and a welter of claims arose over the legal ownership of the deposit.

On the political front, Garvey found that his African program had to compete for official recognition and press coverage with W. E. B. Du Bois’s Second Pan-African Congress, which opened during the final week of the UNIA’s August 1921 convention. In Garvey’s view, the Pan-African Congress was the creation of an admixture of white and colored people, and his attacks against it consequently stressed the theme of racial purity.

Garvey’s speeches during this period also reflected a desire to placate the United States government while simultaneously assailing his black critics and denouncing European colonizers of Africa. He went to great lengths to praise President Harding’s controversial speech on black-white relations delivered in Birmingham, Alabama, in October 1921. Since his return to America from his Caribbean tour in July 1921, Garvey had been anxious to disavow his association with radicalism, a fact that his black critics on the left, particularly the leader of the African Blood Brotherhood, Cyril V. Briggs, delighted in denouncing. By a strange irony, considering his communist leanings, Briggs became the first person to supply federal investigators with evidence that led to Garvey’s eventual indictment on charges of mail fraud. By January 1922 the government was ready to act, and on 15 February 1922 Garvey was indicted on twelve counts of mail fraud along with Elie Garcia, George Tobias, and Orlando Thompson, all officials of the insolvent BSL, which shortly afterward suspended all business.

Garvey’s arrest and indictment destroyed any remaining hope that the BSL would raise the performance bond that the USSB had made a condition for the sale of the Orion. At the very moment that the BSL was about to reach an agreement for the necessary bond, news of Garvey’s arrest appeared in the newspapers, and the prospective bondholders immediately withdrew from all further negotiations.

By prosecuting Garvey, however, the Department of Justice made him the object of even greater international attention. In fact, Garvey observed that the government’s prosecution had made the cause more saintly to the people. Nevertheless, Garvey viewed the United States government as the unwitting instrument of a conspiracy organized by his black opponents and European governments.

Immediately following his arrest, Garvey launched a legal defense fund that drew strong support from UNIA members worldwide. His faith in the loyalty of the membership was further reinforced by the results of his membership drive in February 1922 through Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Kansas. The federal indictment, therefore, did not discredit Garvey in the eyes of his followers; rather, it temporarily strengthened his hold over the movement by arousing its members to new heights of devotion and bringing in a new infusion of contributions.

Garvey lost favor among many of his followers, however, when he disclosed that he had met secretly in Atlanta with the acting imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Edward Young Clarke, on 25 June 1922. What Garvey thought was a diplomatic triumph proved instead to be anathema to most blacks. This act was curiously reminiscent of the Southernizing strategy that conservative black politicians advocated after Reconstruction, in the late 1870s, when confronted with the problem of political violence and disfranchisement. The advocates of this strategy called for an alliance to placate their former enemies, namely, conservative southern Democrats, rather than continuing to depend on the Republican party for protection. Yet whereas this earlier policy had been presented as a tactic adopted for expediency, Garvey in 1922 was propounding something more than a tactical retreat: he presented a perspective based on the notion of a national separation of the races (the development of the two races in their own way to a common standard). Indeed, Garvey’s capitulation to the doctrine of white supremacy (this is going to be a ‘white man’s country,’ sooner or later, and the best thing possibly we could do is to find a black man’s country) occurred well before his Atlanta meeting with the KKK chieftain.

There were to be other major strategic shifts in Garvey’s political line during this period. In May 1922 he reversed his position on the Liberian loan that had been provisionally negotiated with the American government: in 1920 and 1921 he had opposed the loan as an unacceptable constraint upon the independence of Liberia, but he now took the view that America was coming to the rescue of Liberia to put her house in order, thereby making a new start toward the goal of national security. Another shift was his invitation to the American authorities and European colonial governments to send representatives to the 1922 UNIA convention. Then, in his petition to the League of Nations of July 1922, Garvey also modified his previous stand in announcing that the UNIA was not seeking to establish a government over the whole of Africa; instead, he asked only that certain sections of Africa be turned over. In a similar vein, he offered the League of Nations his assistance in enforcing its civilized program for the good of the entire human family, a stance that contrasted with his earlier view of the league as the enforcer of the European partition of Africa, a role he had condemned in 1919 and 1920.

The third convention was dominated at the outset by debates over the selection of delegates to be sent to the League of Nations. It became clear as the convention proceeded that bitter factional disputes had been brewing. In his speech opening the convention, the potentate, Gabriel M. Johnson, found it necessary to call for better understanding between Garvey and the members of the UNIA Executive Council, pointing to its absence as one of the greatest drawbacks to the movement. But this advice failed to prevent Garvey from using his official convention report to repudiate the entire executive council, save two members, as disloyal and dishonest. He also initiated impeachment proceedings against J. D. Gibson, the UNIA surgeon general, and Adrian Johnson, the speaker in convention, with the result that both men were removed from office. Garvey, who had expressed his anger over plots against him from within the leadership of the organization, even startled delegates by tendering his resignation, although on the following day they returned him to office with a unanimous vote of confidence, one of the three such votes that he received during the convention.

Among the disputes that arose during the sessions of the convention, the most dramatic was the confrontation that pitted Garvey against the organization’s leader of American Negroes, the prominent black American clergyman Rev. James W. H. Eason. Hints of the impending showdown appeared early in the convention, when Eason demanded the opportunity to deliver a report of his activities directly to the convention rather than to Garvey and the UNIA Executive Council. One significant consequence of the clash between Garvey and Eason was the rift that developed between Afro- American and West Indian delegates, though Negro World reports of the convention only hinted at it. Eason, who was determined to salvage his reputation in the face of accusations of malfeasance, reacted violently to Garvey’s implications about the behavior of UNIA leaders, taking several of Garvey’s general remarks personally. Some American delegates also chafed under harsh remarks by fellow delegates about the voting habits of black Americans. As the convention proceeded, some suggested that the American leader be chosen only by the American delegates and that the West Indian leaders be chosen only by West Indian delegates. Despite the loyal support that Garvey received from Dr. Leroy Bundy, Rev. J. C. Austin, and Rev. J. R. L. Diggs, prominent American-born converts to the UNIA, the dimensions of the rift cannot be overestimated.

With Eason’s impeachment and conviction, Garvey was finally rid of an important rival for the movement’s allegiance. Loyalty to Garvey became a more important issue than ever before. Now Garvey requested and obtained approval to form a privy council of his appointees to replace most of the previously elected members of the UNIA Executive Council; thereafter, all the council members below the rank of fourth assistant president general, by far the majority, were to be appointees of the president general.

If once again Garvey had silenced his critics within the UNIA’s leadership, the price was a badly fractured and demoralized movement. At the same time, his political adversaries outside the UNIA were gaining ground. A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen, the black Socialist editors of the Messenger, with the help of Robert Bagnall and William Pickens of the NAACP, felt confident enough to challenge Garvey publicly in August 1922 with a blistering series of speeches delivered to well-attended Marcus Garvey Must Go! meetings, which they held at a nearby hotel during the UNIA convention.

A sign of the exhaustion within the ranks of the UNIA during the convention’s final days was the noticeable decrease in attendance. Apart from the fact that the month-long convention proved a financial strain for out-of-town delegates, the constant discord and lengthy trials, discussions, and reports had by then begun to wear the interest of the delegates thin. When Garvey delivered his closing speech, calling for a loyal opposition within the UNIA, it was clear that most of those who dissented from his policies had long since left the convention.

One important group at the convention chose the occasion to express its grievances. Female delegates led a challenge to male dominance of the proceedings and also to the UNIA overall as a male-run organization. Their challenge raised the question of the role of women within the movement in a bold and original manner. The convention also featured discussions of various economic and commercial proposals for nation building in Africa, which clearly reveal an early appreciation by UNIA members of the issues that many years later were to inform the North-South dialogue and the New International Economic Order. The convention also mooted the novel idea of an international political party for blacks.

Finally, the present volume provides the first extended record of Garvey’s emergent social philosophy, particularly as it related to his conception of the metaphysical and racial bases of the human condition: as Garvey stated on 5 June 1922, The Universal Negro Improvement Association is engaged in the development of a new education, a new culture.

EDITORIAL PRINCIPLES AND

PRACTICES

I. Arrangement of Documents

Documents are presented in chronological order according to the date of authorship of the original text. Enclosures and attachments to documents, however, do not appear in strict chronological sequence but are printed with their original covering documents. Enclosures have been set in italic type in the table of contents for identification.

The publication date of news reports, speeches, and periodical articles is given on the place and date line within square brackets. In the case of news reports, speeches, and periodical articles containing the date of original composition, that date chronologically supersedes the date of eventual publication and is printed within double square brackets on the place and date line of the document.

Bureau of Investigation reports that give both the date of composition and the period covered by the report are arranged according to the date of composition.

Documents that lack dates and thus require editorial assignment of dates are placed in normal chronological sequence. When no day within a month appears on a document, it is placed after the documents specifically dated on the latest date within that month. Documents that carry only the date of a year are placed according to the same principle. Documents that cover substantial periods, such as diaries, journals, and accounts, will appear according to the date of their earliest entries.

When two or more documents possess the same date, they are arranged with regard to affinity to the subject of the document that immediately precedes them or that which immediately follows them.

II. Form of Presentation

Each document is presented in the following manner:

A. A caption introduces the document and is printed in a type size larger than the text. Letters between individuals are captioned with the names of the individuals and their titles; captions, however, include a person’s office only upon that person’s first appearance. The original titles of published materials are retained with the documents; however, the headlines of some news reports are abbreviated or omitted, in which case this is indicated in the descriptive source note to the document.

B. The text of a document follows the caption. The copy text of letters or reports is taken from recipients’ copies whenever possible, but in the absence of a recipient’s copy, a file copy of the letter or report is used. If the file copy is not available, however, and a retained draft copy of the letter is found, the retained draft copy is used as the basic text.

C. Following the body of the text, an unnumbered descriptive source note describes editorially the physical character of the document by means of appropriate abbreviations. Moreover, a repository symbol gives the provenance of the original manuscript or, if it is rare, printed work. Printed sources are identified in the following manner:

1. A contemporary pamphlet is identified by its full title, place and date of publication, and the location of the copy used.

2. A contemporary essay, letter, or other kind of statement that appeared originally in a contemporary publication is preceded by the words Printed in …, followed by the title, date, and, in the case of essays, inclusive page numbers of the source of publication.

3. A contemporary printed source reprinted at a later date, the original publication of which has not been found, is identified with the words Reprinted from …, followed by the identification of the work from which the text has been reproduced. The same applies to any originally unpublished manuscript printed at a later date.

D. Numbered textual annotations that explicate the document follow the descriptive source note. The following principles of textual annotation have been applied:

1. Individuals are identified upon their first appearance, with additional information about them sometimes furnished upon their later appearance in a document where such data provide maximum clarification. Pseudonyms are identified, wherever possible, by a textual annotation.

2. Reasons for the assignment of dates to documents or the correction of dates of documents are explained in those instances where important historical information is involved.

3. Obscure allusions in the text are annotated whenever such references can be clarified.

4. Printed works and manuscript materials consulted during the preparation of textual annotations appear in parentheses at the end of each annotation. Frequently used reference works are cited in an abbreviated form, and the complete table may be found in the list of abbreviations of Published Works Cited.

5. Garvey’s appeal case (Marcus Garvey v. United States of America, no. 8317, Ct. App., 2d Cir., 2 February 1925) contains the complete transcript of his original mail fraud trial (United States ofAmerica v. Marcus Garvey et al., C31-37 and C33-688, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, May 1923). Trial documents reprinted in the volume and references to the trial in annotations to documents are taken from the transcript used in the appeal case.

111. Transcription of Text

Manuscripts and printed material have been transcribed from the original text and printed as documents according to the following principles and procedures:

A. Manuscript Material

1. The place and date of composition are placed at the head of the document, regardless of their location in the original, but exceptions are made in the cases of certificates of vital registration and documents in which original letterhead stationery is reproduced. If the place or date of a letter (or both) docs not appear in the original text, the information is supplied and printed in italics at the head within square brackets. Likewise, if either the place or date is incomplete, the necessary additional information is supplied in italics within square brackets. Superscript letters are brought down to the line of type, and terminal punctuation is deleted.

In the case of Bureau of Investigation reports that were submitted on printed forms, the place and date are abstracted and placed at the head of each document, while the name of the reporting agent is placed at the end of the document on the signature line.

The formal salutation of letters is placed on the line below the place and date line, with the body of the text following the salutation.

The complimentary close of letters is set continuously with the text in run-in style, regardless of how it was written in the original.

The signature, which is set in capitals and small capitals, is placed at the right-hand margin on the line beneath the text or complimentary close, with titles, where they appear, set in uppercase and lowercase. Terminal punctuation is deleted.

When a file copy of a document bearing no signature is used to establish the text but the signatory is known, the signature is printed in roman type within square brackets.

The inside address, if significant and not repetitive, is printed immediately below the text.

Endorsements, docketings, and other markings appearing on official correspondence, when intelligible, are reproduced in small type following the address, with appropriate identification. In the case of other types of documents, such as private correspondence, endorsements and dockets are reprinted only when they are significant.

Minutes, enclosures, and attachments are printed in roman type following their covering documents and placed after the annotation material of their covering documents. Whenever minutes, enclosures, or attachments are not printed, this fact is always recorded and explained. Whenever a transmission letter originally accompanying an enclosure or attachment is not printed, the omission is noted and the transmission document identified and recorded in the descriptive source note.

2. Printed letterheads and other official stationery are not reproduced, unless they contain significant information, in which case they are reprinted above the date line. In cases where they are not reprinted, they are sometimes abstracted, and the information is placed in the descriptive source note. Printed addresses are reproduced only upon the first appearance.

3. In general, the spelling of all words, including proper names, is preserved as written in the manuscript and printed sources. Thus, personal and place names that are spelled erratically in the original texts are regularized or corrected only in the index. However, we have corrected serious distortion in the spelling of a word, to such an extent as to obscure its true meaning, by printing the correct word in italics within square brackets after the incorrect spelling. Mere slips of the pen or typographical errors are corrected within the word and printed in roman type within square brackets; however, some typographical errors that contribute to the overall character of the document are retained.

4. Capitalization is retained as in the original. Words underlined once in a manuscript are printed in italics. Words that are underlined twice or spelled out in large letters or full capitals are printed in small capitals.

5. Punctuation, grammar, and syntax are retained as found in the original texts. In the case of punctuation, corrections that are essential to the accurate reading of the text are provided within square brackets. If, however, a punctuation mark appears in a document as a result of typographical error, it is corrected in square brackets or, in some instances, silently deleted.

6. All contractions and abbreviations in the text are retained. Abbreviations of titles or organizations are identified in a list of abbreviations that appears at the front of the volume. Persons represented by initials only will have their full names spelled out in square brackets after each initial on their first appearance.

7. Superscript letters in the text are lowered and aligned on the line of print.

8. Omissions, mutilations, and illegible words or letters have been rendered through the use of the following textual devices:

a) Blank spaces in a manuscript are shown as [ ]. If the blank

space is of significance or of substantial length, this fact is elaborated upon in a textual annotation.

b) When a word or words in the original text must be omitted from the printed document because of mutilation, illegibility, or omission, the omission is shown by the use of ellipses followed by a word or phrase placed in square brackets in italics, such as: … [torn], … [illegible], … [remainder missing].

c) Missing or illegible letters of words are represented by suspension points within square brackets, the number of points corresponding to the estimated number of letters omitted. The same holds true for missing or illegible digits of numbers.

d) All attempts have been made to supply conjecturally missing items in the printed document, according to the following rules: (i) if there is no question as to the word, the missing letter is supplied silently;

e) ) if the missing letter(s) can only be conjectured, the omission is supplied within square brackets and printed in roman type. Uncertainty of the conjecture, however, is indicated by a question mark within the square brackets in the document;

f) ) if the conjectured word(s) is highly uncertain, it has been rendered in italics within the square brackets.

9. Additions and corrections made by the author in the original text have been rendered as follows:

a) Additions between the lines are brought onto the line of type and incorporated into the body of the text within diagonal lines / /.

b) Marginal additions or corrections by the author are also incorporated into the printed document and identified by the words [in the margin] italicized in square brackets. Marginal notes made by someone other than the author are treated as an endorsement and are printed following the text of the document.

c) Words or groups of words deleted in the original, as in a draft, are restored in the printed document. The canceled word or phrase is indicated by canceled type at the place where the deletion occurs in the original text. If a lengthy deletion is illegible, this is indicated by the words [deletion illegible].

B. Printed Material

Contemporary printed material has been treated in the same manner as were original texts and has been transcribed according to the same editorial principles as was manuscript material.

E In the case of originally published letters, the place and date of composition are uniformly printed on the place and date line of the document, regardless of where they appear in the original, and placed within double square brackets. Those elements that have been editorially supplied are italicized.

2. Newspaper headlines and subheads are printed in small capitals. Headlines are punctuated as they are in the original; however, they are reproduced in the printed document in as few lines as possible.

3. Words originally printed in full capitals for emphasis or for other reasons are usually printed in small capitals. Boldfaced type that appears within the text is retained.

4. The signature accompanying a published letter is printed in capitals and small capitals.

5. Obvious typographical errors and errors of punctuation, such as the omission of a single parenthesis or quotation mark, are corrected and printed within square brackets in roman type.

6. In the case of a printed form with spaces to be filled in, the printed words are designated in small capitals, while the handwritten or typewritten insertions are designated in italics with spaces left before and after the small capitals to suggest the blank spaces in the original form.

TEXTUAL DEVICES

SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

Repository Symbols

The original locations of documents that appear in the text are described by symbols. The guide used for American repositories has been Symbols of American Libraries, eleventh edition (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1976). Foreign repositories and collections have been assigned symbols that conform to the institutions’ own usage. In some cases, however, it has been necessary to formulate acronyms. Acronyms have been created for private manuscript collections as well.

Repositories

xlv

Manuscript Collection Symbols

xlvi

SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

Descriptive Symbols

The following symbols are used to describe the character of the original documents:

xlvii

Published Works Cited

xlviii

SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

Other Symbols and Abbreviations

included are abbreviations that are used generally throughout annotations of the text. Standard abbreviations, such as those for titles and scholastic degrees, are omitted. Abbreviations that are specific to a single annotation appear in parentheses after the initial citation and are used thereafter in the rest of the annotation.

Monetary Symbols

CHRONOLOGY

September 1921-August 1922

li

Hi

liii

liv

Iv

THE PAPERS

VOLUME IV

1 September 1921-2 September 1922

Edward J. Brennan to William J. Burns,

Director, Bureau of Investigation

NEW YORK, N.Y. September 1st, 1921 Dear Sir:

I am attaching herewith an article said to have been written by MAD[AR]IKAN DENIYI, the author of which is opposed to the movement of Marcus Garvey as well as the Universal Negro Improvement Association. This information was furnished Agent Scully by Mr. Worthington of the New York Tribune. Very truly yours,

EDWARD J. BRENNAN

Division Superintendent CJS-WED Enclos.

[Endorsements] Memo JEH 9/7/21 GFR

DNA, RG 65, file BS 198940-257. TLS, recipient’s copy. Handwritten endorsements.

Enclosure

New York City, N.Y. September 1, 1921

AFRICAN REDEMPTION FUND IS FRAUD

NEGROES IN AMERICA ARE WARNED TO BEWARE OF

FAKERS

BY MAD ARI KAN DENIYI, NATIVE OF LAGOS, NIGERIA,

WEST AFRICA

Because the Universal Negro Improvement Association is only an organization in the United States of America, and has no power to perform the functions of a Government, therefore I am writing this article to warn all the Negroes in America against the bogus African Redemption Fund, that was invented recently by Marcus Garvey in New York City, during the Negro Convention at Liberty Hall, West 138th St.

The black Kings, Chiefs, Princes and Presidents in Africa, did not send any special invitation to a black slave or descendant of slave like Marcus Garvey to use such fraudulent schemes of defrauding poor and needy Negroes in America, by inducing and preaching to them to contribute five dollars ($5.00) each for the redemption of Africa. But through my investigation about this African Redemption Fund, I discovered that the contribution is for the purpose of paying the salaries of the President (Marcus Garvey) and officials of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in America, instead of using the money for the purpose of educating and Christianizing the African natives. Therefore I will advise the white and black Missionaries of various denomination [s] in the United States to investigate thoroughly under what condition Marcus Garvey is inducing Negroes to contribute five dollars ($5.00) each to such fraudulent fund.

A few months ago in this greater city of New York, Marcus Garvey issued and sold the bogus Liberian Liberty Bonds to these Negroes for the purpose of redeeming Africa, without the proper seal of the Liberian Government on the bonds; but the Universal Negro Improvement Association did not make any improvement with the money in Liberia or any part of Africa. The Secretary General (Rev. J. D. Brooks) of the organization disappeared with [a] few thousand dollars of the Negroes’ money, and did not return to make the report of the money, that he collected from various branches in the United States.

If there is any law in the United States, that protects a person, whether white or black from the pickpockets and highway robbers, I think the policemen and detectives ought to use the law, and exercise their Federal authorities to protect poor and needy Negroes from being robbed by the so-called Negro Moses, who is using his fraudulent schemes to catch suckers easily as molasses always catch[es] the flies without any molestation.

There are lots of Negroes to-day in the United States, who are out of work on account of the propaganda of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Improvement Association. Some of them have to depend on various white and black charity societies to feed and clothe them. This is the kind of conditions we are facing in America, but still, the Universal Negro Improvement Association hasn’t ma[d]e any preparation to help solve the problem of hard time[s], instead of imposing on these unfortunate Negroes to contribute five dollars ($5.00) each for the redemption of Africa, when some of the people in this country are almost starve[d] to death.

In some part of Africa, a person can buy the whole chicken for fifteen cents, and hog for three or four dollars each, whereas you have to pay fifty cents for a leg of fried chicken in the American restaurants, and few pig ta[i]ls with lima beans for thirty-five cents a plate. Therefore I will advise the Negroes all over the world not to contribute to this bogus African Redemption Fund, because the African natives will not receive a penny out of the fake invention. If the black rulers in Africa need money for the redemption of Africa, they will send the native educators and lawyers to negotiate with the United States Government in America.

MADARIKAN DENIYI

African Prince

DNA, RG 65, file BS 198940-257. TD.

Report by Bureau Agent F. M. Ames

Pittsburgh, Pa. Sept. 1, 1921

UNIVERSAL NEGRO IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION, WOODLAWN, PA.

From a confidential source the following report was received of a meeting of the above named Association held at Woodlawn, Pa., Sunday, August 14th, 1921:—

SUBJECT: UNIVERSAL NEGRO IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION.

I attended the Negro meeting at three P.M. this date [in] the hall at the corner of Wykes and Davis Sts., Plan n exten[s]ion. The President, Walter Greaves presided. He was ably assisted by the Vice President, Irv Franklin. The charter members were present and were sitting up front. The principal speaker was S. A. Franklin from 1604 Wylie Ave., Pittsburgh, Pa. Accompanying him was Mr. Wider, Capt. of the Military Dept, of the Association.

S. A. Franklin made a very spirited address on the subject of equal rights for the negroes throughout the entire world. He spoke for an hour and one half. He called the attention of the members to the fact of my presence there and explained that I was conducting an investigation of the association; that I had been informed that the Association was radical and should not be permitted to exist. He remarked that some one was a traitor and had been carrying lies to the whites and that he had information as to who was the guilty one. He then said that if he was sure he would kill him. Repeating it he said, I will kill him myself (at this time he pounded himself on the chest) and no government in the land would question it because it would only be another negro out of the way. He explained in very emphatic language that the negro was just as good as any white man and that they would ask for their rights first and if they did not get them they would fight to the death for them. He called the negroes cowards for standing indignities forced upon them by whites. He told them that if they had any backbone they would lynch a white man every time a negro was lynched.

Franklin than mentioned the Klu Klux Klan, saying that it was being organized all over the country for the purpose of suppressing the negroes. He said that a large Klan was now being organized in Pittsburgh. He then added that when their organization was complete they would have an organization far more terrible than the Klu Klux Klan ever was.

A book of the By-Laws of this organization is attached to the Washington copies of this report.

F. M. AMES

[Endorsement] Filed General Intelligence

Library 9/8/21

DNA, RG 65, file BS 202600-824-7. TD. Handwritten endorsement.

William J. Burns to W. B. Matthews,

Bureau of Investigation

[Washington, D.C.] September I, 1921

Dear Sir:

Confirming conversation with your office on the 31st ultimo, this will advise you that MARCUS GARVEY will speak Friday, September 2nd at Cadet Armory, 8th and O Streets.

The Bureau is particularly anxious that you have Garvey covered after he leaves the hall, in order to ascertain where he is stopping for the night, also if possible, if his secretary Amy Jenks [Jacques] is accompanying him. It is alleged that Garvey has violated the Mann White Slave Act on previous occasions and we are particularly desirous of securing some evidence along that line during his stay in Washington. Very truly yours,

W. J. BURNS

Director

DNA, RG 65, file BS 198940-255. TLS, carbon copy.

Frank Burke to A. J. Frey, United States

Shipping Board

[Washington, D.C.] September 1, 1921

From: Division of Investigation.

To: A. J. Frey, Vice-President, In Charge of Operation.

Subject: MARCUS GARVEY OF THE BLACK STAR LINE.

I am enclosing herewith for your information, copy of a letter written in Washington, D.C., under date of August 31, 1921, signed by W. J. Burns, Director, Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice. The subject is President of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the communist party which is affiliated with the Russian Soviet Government and had been for several years a ra[d]ical agitator in the organizations of which he is a member. He advocates and teaches the over-throw of the United States Government by force and violence.

The Department of Justice has a record of this man covering a long period of time which shows his activities and that his associates are anarchists and agitators.

FRANK BURKE

Manager, Division of Investigation

FB.HS

Ene.

[Endorsement] Recommended sale to this party be cancelled

DNA, RG 32, file 605-1-653. TLS, recipient’s copy. Handwritten endorsement.

Henry C. Von Struve, U.S. Consul, Antilla,

Cuba, to the Black Star Line, New York

Antilla [Cuba] 1 September 1921

Shipping passengers¹ steamer [M]unamar [SJaturday charge piracy destruction appears absolutely unfounded unquestionably crew entitled wages and transportation strongly advise you send money urged by De- bourg² to avoid serious trouble

[HENRY C.] VON STRUVE

DNA, RG 84, file 885. TG, carbon copy.

2. John Sydney de Bourg.

1 The destitute crew of the S.S. Kanawha, stranded at Antilla, Cuba.

Marcus Garvey’s Declaration of Intention to

Become a United States Citizen

VE. R. Conners, Master, S.S. Kanawha, to

Henry C. Von Struve

Antilla, Cuba, September 2, 1921

Sir:

The S.S. Kanawha of the Black Star Line, of which steamer I am Master, had to put into the port