The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Vol. VII: November 1927-August 1940

By Marcus Garvey

The publication of Volume VII marks the completion of the American series of The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. This final book in the seven-volume set charts the magnetic, controversial Pan-African leader's career from his deportation from the United States in November 1927 to his death in England in 1940.

The volume begins with Garvey's triumphant welcome in Jamaica, his tour abroad, and his entry into Jamaican party politics. It traces his reshaping of the organizational structure of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the late 1920s, and his management of UNIA affairs from Kingston and London in the 1930s. Though typically seen as a time of decline, this final period of Garvey's life appears, in editorials drawn from his publications, as a fruitful one in which some of his strongest political writings were produced. Surveillance reports filed by Jamaican police and British colonial officials provide a rich account of Garvey's speeches and activities. Although he was banned from the United States and restricted from traveling or speaking in many areas under colonial supervision, Garvey nevertheless traveled widely after his deportation, visiting and influencing affairs in Geneva, Paris, and London, and making organizational tours of Canada and the Caribbean. He chaired UNIA conferences in Toronto and inaugurated the School of African Philosophy, a series of lectures designed to train UNIA leaders. In the mid-1930s he moved the headquarters of the UNIA to London.

In the final months of his life, correspondence between Garvey in England and his young sons in Jamaica shows the personal side of the public leader. The tragedy of Garvey's personal demise is framed by the cataclysmic events of Europe entering a world war and by the decline of the movement he had worked so diligently to build. The long financial hardships of the previous decade and the loss of Garvey's presence had winnowed the membership of the UNIA. Garvey suffered a disabling stroke in January 1940. He died in London the following June, as Italy invaded France and Germany prepared to occupy Paris. Volume VII ends with the reconstitution of the UNIA in the months immediately after Garvey's death and the establishment of a new headquarters with new leadership in Cleveland.

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 1992.
The publication of Volume VII marks the completion of the American series of The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. This final book in the seven-volume set charts the magnetic, controversial Pan-African leader's caree

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520342293

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.

Book preview

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 Ahmanson Foundation

The Ford Foundation

The Rockefeller Foundation

The UCLA Foundation

SPONSORED BY

The University of California, Los Angeles

THE

MARCUS GARVEY

AND

UNIVERSAL NEGRO

IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION

PAPERS

Volume VII

November 1927-August 1940

Robert A. Hill

Editor

Barbara Bair

Associate Editor

Edith Johnson

Assistant Editor

Stephen De Sal

Administrative /Production Assistant

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 Ahmanson Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the UCLA Foundation, and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Documents in this volume from the Public Record Office are ©British Crown copyright 1990 and are published by permission of the Controller of Her Britannic Majesty’s Stationery Office.

Designed by Linda M. Robertson and set in Galliard type.

This volume has been typeset by Stephen De Sal of the Garvey Papers project using the TYXSET software system supplied by TYX Corp., Reston, Virginia.

Copyright ©1990 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. Bair, Barbara, 1955-

III. Garvey, Marcus, 1887-1940. IV. Universal Negro Improvement Association

E185-97.G3M36 1986 305.8'96073 82-13379

ISBN 978-0-520-07208-4

10 98765432

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. HODGKINt

ARTHUR S. LINK

GEORGE A. SHEPPERSON

MICHAEL R. WINSTON

Marcus Garvey, 1937

In Memorium

Mason Hargrave

1923-1988

Richard Lucas

1942-1988

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

A. S. Jelf,1 Colonial Secretary, Jamaica, to M. D. Harrel,2 Inspector General of Police, Kingston

Articles in the Chicago Defender

Article by Cespedes Burke in the Panama Star and Herald

Meriweather Walker,1 Governor, Panama Canal Zone, to Dwight Davis,2 Secretary of War

Message from Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Speech by E. B. Knox, Personal Representative of Marcus Garvey

Article by Marcus Garvey in the Daily Gleaner

Report of Speech by Marcus Garvey in the Daily Gleaner

Report on Marcus Garvey by Detective Charles A. Patterson

Editorial by Herbert DeLisser' in the Daily Gleaner

Francis White,1 Assistant Secretary of State, to Frank Billings Kellogg, Secretary of State

Report on Marcus Garvey by Detective Charles A. Patterson

A. S. Jelf to Sir Vernon G. W. Kell,1 Head, British Security Service

Marcus Garvey to Amy Jacques Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Amy Jacques Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Amy Jacques Garvey

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Frank Billings Kellogg

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Article in the Richmond Planet

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Report on Marcus Garvey by Detective Charles A. Patterson

Essay by Noble Drew Ali,’ Prophet of the Moorish Holy Temple of Science

Report on Marcus Garvey by Detective Charles A. Patterson

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Report on Marcus Garvey by Detective Charles A. Patterson

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Article in the Negro World

Negro World Notice

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Report on Marcus Garvey by Detective Charles A. Patterson

Article in Opportunity

Negro World Notice

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Negro World Notice

John Burdon,1 Governor, British Honduras, to L.C.M.S. Amery,2 Secretary of State for the Colonies

Roy T. Davis,1 U.S. Minister to Costa Rica, to Frank Billings Kellogg

Report on Marcus Garvey by W. A. Orrett, Inspector, Trelawny Parish,1 Jamaica

Report on Marcus Garvey by Inspector W. A. Orrett

Article in the Daily Gleaner

Sophia Cox to the United States Government

Report on Marcus Garvey by H. J. Dodd, Inspector, St. Ann Parish

E. B. Knox to Members of UNIA Divisions and Chapters in the United States

UNIA Program at the Ward Theatre

Marcus Garvey to J. R. Ralph Casimir

Report on Marcus Garvey by Detective Charles A. Patterson

Article in the Negro World

J. A. Craigen, UNIA Special Representative, to the Miami Daily News

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Report on Marcus Garvey by Detective Charles A. Patterson

Report on Marcus Garvey by Detective Charles A. Patterson

Front Page of the Negro World

Article in the Negro World

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Article in the New York Times

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Negro World Cartoons

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Frederick Fortune1

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to H. M. Cundall'

Negro World Notice

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Marcus Garvey to Herluf Zahle,1 President, League of Nations

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

Karel Rood,1 Private Secretary, Union of South Africa Delegation to the League of Nations, to Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Aristide Briand,1 French Minister of Foreign Affairs

Report of Speech by Marcus Garvey

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Marcus Garvey to Amy Jacques Garvey

Amy Jacques Garvey to Marcus Garvey

Interview with Marcus Garvey by Hubert W. Peet1

Article in the Montreal Gazette

H. G. Armstrong,1 British Consul General, New York, to R. Edward Stubbs,2 Governor, Jamaica

Wesley Frost,1 American Consul General, to Frank Billings Kellogg

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Negro World Notice

Marcus Garvey to Julian D. Steele1

Article in the New York Herald Tribune

Front Page of the Blackman

Article in the Blackman1

J. R. Ralph Casimir1 to Marcus Garvey

Article in the New York Times

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Speech by Marcus Garvey at the 1929 UNIA Convention

Article in the Negro World

J. F. Milholland, Lewis Ashenheim, and L. J. Stone,1 Solicitors, to Herbert. P. Cox,2 Bailiff, Kingston Court

J. F. Milholland, Lewis Ashenheim, and L. J. Stone to Herbert P. Cox

Negro World Cartoon

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Negro World Cartoon

Article in the Neøro World

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Article in the Daily Worker

José de Olivares to Henry L. Stimson,1 Secretary of State

Enclosure

MARCUS GARVEY TO BE IMPRISONED FOR THREE MONTHS AND ORDERED TO PAY £100 FINE FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT

Negro World Cartoon

Anonymous Letter to Attorney General William DeWitt Mitchell1

Sir Fiennes Barrett Lennard, Chief Justice, Jamaica Supreme Court, to Governor R. Edward Stubbs

Governor R. Edward Stubbs to Sir Fiennes Barrett Lennard

Sir Fiennes Barrett Lennard to Governor R. Edward Stubbs

Governor R. Edward Stubbs to Sir Fiennes Barrett Lennard

Article in the New York Times

Marcus Garvey to the Daily Gleaner

Marcus Garvey to the Daily Gleaner

R. L. Gough to the Daily Gleaner

Marcus Garvey to Governor R. Edward Stubbs

Marcus Garvey to Governor R. Edward Stubbs

Marcus Garvey to the Daily Gleaner

Marcus Garvey to Phillip Snowden,1 British Chancellor of the Exchequer

Marcus Garvey to Phillip Snowden

Report by UNIA Secretary General Henrietta Vinton Davis in the Negro World

Notice from Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Article in the Daily Worker

Article in the Negro World

Herbert H. Bacon,1 British Security Service, to Sir Gerard Clauson,2 Principal Secretary, British Colonial Office

Herbert H. Bacon to A. S. Jelf

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Notice by Harold G. Saltus in the Negro World

Article in the Negro World

Articles in the Daily Worker

Article in the Blackman

Lord Sydney Olivier to the Blackman

Article in the Blackman

M. L. T. De Mena, UNIA International Organizer, to the Negro World

Report by Altaman Sutherland1 Captain, New York Tiger Division

Paul C. Squire,1 American Consul, Kingston, to Henry L. Stimson

William Ware to W. N. Cault, Assistant Secretary of State

A. S. Jelf to Sir Vernon G. W. Kell

William Ware to James G. Rogers,1 Assistant Secretary of State

William Ware to James G. Rogers

Sir Vernon G. W. Kell to A. S. Jelf

Detroit UNIA Division Circular

S. MacNeil Campbell, British Colonial Office, to A. S. Jelf

A. S. Jelf to M. D. Harrel

A. S. Jelf to Sir Vernon G. W. Kell

A. C. Aderhold,1 Warden, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, to Austin H. MacCormick,2 Acting Director, Bureau of Prisons, Department of Justice

Article in the Negro World

Marcus Garvey to Sir Eric Drummond

Peter Anker, Mandates Section, League of Nations, to Mr. Catastini,1 Chief Officer, Mandates Section

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

William Ware to W. N. Cault

Essay by George Padmore1

Department of State, Division of Western European Affairs, Memorandum

John W. Geraty,1 Postmaster,

Negro World Notice

Wilbur J. Carr to Paul C. Squire

Paul C. Squire to Henry L. Stimson

Front Page of the New Jamaican

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the New Jamaican1

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Wilbur J. Carr to William N. Doak,1 Secretary of Labor

Essay by Marcus Garvey

Henry L. Stimson to Postmaster General Walter F. Brown

Articles by Vere Johns1 in the New York Age

Article in the Waco Messenger

Jella B. Whitmore1 to Charles L. James2

Marcus Garvey to Earnest S. Cox

Appeal by Marcus Garvey in the Negro World

Editorial in the Daily Gleaner

Marcus Garvey to the Daily Gleaner

Editorial in the Daily Gleaner

Truth to the Daily Gleaner

Rupert J. Dixon to the Daily Gleaner

Wilfred Duhaney to the Daily Gleaner

Arnold J. Lecesne to the Daily Gleaner

New Jamaican Notice

Article by Cyril Briggs in the Harlem Liberator

William W. Corcoran,1 American Consul, Kingston, to Henry L. Stimson

Front Page of the Black Man

Editorials by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Marcus Garvey to President Franklin D. Roosevelt1

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Black Man Notice

Marcus Garvey to Karl A. Crowley,1 Solicitor, U.S. Post Office Department

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Black Man Notice

British Foreign Office Minutes

Arthur Sweetser,1 Secretary, League of Nations to Prentiss B. Gilbert,2 U.S. Representative to the League of Nations Council

Gaston Joseph, French Ministry of Colonies, to Jean Louis Barthou,1

Article in the Negro World

Marcus Garvey toR.L. Whitney

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Article in the Jamaica Times

Article in the Daily Gleaner

Benjamin W. Jones,1 Secretary, Philadelphia UNIA Division No. 379, to President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Marcus Garvey to R. L. Whitney

Benjamin W. Jones to President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Benjamin W. Jones to Joseph B. Keenan, Assistant Attorney General

Marcus Garvey to A. L. King, President, New York UNIA Division

Marcus Garvey to R. L. Whitney

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Marcus Garvey to President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Marcus Garvey to Cordell Hull,1 Secretary of State

Marcus Garvey to A. L. King

Article in the Daily Gleaner

Benjamin W. Jones to Joseph B. Keenan

Article in the New York Amsterdam News

Front Page of the Black Man

Editorials by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Editorials by Marcus Garvey

Editorials by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Article in the Daily Gleaner

A. L. King to Marcus Garvey

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

A. L. King to Emperor Haile Selassie I

Marcus Garvey to McKenzie King,1 Prime Minister of Canada

Marcus Garvey to A. L. King

A. L. King to Marcus Garvey

Samuel A. Haynes, UNIA National Representative, to Co-workers

Carmen Cordoze,1 Executive Secretary, New York UNIA Division, to the Scottsboro Defense Committee2

G. N. Lowdon, Special Agent in Charge, to J. Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Editorials by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Report of Activities in UNIA Divisions and Garvey Clubs by Samuel A. Haynes

Minutes of New York UNIA Division No. 340 Meeting

Notice from the New York UNIA Division No. 340

Post Card of Ras Tafari Distributed by Leonard Howell

Poem by Marcus Garvey

Editorials by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Editorials by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Article in Plain Talk1

Article in the Montreal Daily Herald

Una Brown to Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Una Brown

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Marcus Garvey to Lord John C. W. Reith,1 Director, British Broadcasting Corporation

Pacific Movement of the Eastern World Membership Certificate

Article by Marcus Garvey in the Norfolk Journal and Guide

Article in the New York Amsterdam News

Marcus Garvey to Irene Ford

Editorials by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Marcus Garvey to William Casha

Jane G. Baker to Marcus Garvey

Edwin Horde1 to Marcus Garvey

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Marcus Garvey to Amy Jacques Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Claudius M. Ballentine,1 President, Kingston UNIA Division

Edith Johnson to Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Edith Johnson

Memorandum from Hubert Martin,1 Chief Passport Officer, British Foreign Office, to the British Colonial Office

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Official Minutes of the Second Regional Conference of the UNIA

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Article in Plain Talk

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Article in Plain Talk

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Marcus Garvey to Vivian Durham1

Thomas W. Harvey, Chairman, Second Regional Conference Committee,1 to Sen. Theodore G. Bilbo2

Charles Watkins, President, Peace Movement of Ethiopia, Inc.,1 to Sen. Theodore G. Bilbo

Editorials by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Official Minutes of the First Ohio State Caucus of the UNIA and ACL, by Theresa Young, Secretary

Notice from the New York UNIA Divisions

Marcus Garvey to the London Times

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Official Minutes of the Eighth International UNIA Convention

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Sen. Theodore G. Bilbo

Speech by Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey and Ethel Collins to Malcolm MacDonald,1 British Colonial Secretary

Marcus Garvey to Earnest S. Cox

Marcus Garvey to Lord Halifax,1 British Secretary of Foreign Affairs

Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man

Black Man Notice

Marcus Garvey to Julius Winston Garvey

Marcus Garvey, Jr., to Marcus Garvey

Julius Winston Garvey to Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Clarence Thomas

A. L. King to Thomas W. Harvey

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Julius Winston Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Essay in the Black Man

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Julius Winston Garvey

Thomas W. Harvey to Sen. Theodore G. Bilbo

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Julius Winston Garvey

A. L. King to Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr., and Julius Winston Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Essay in the Black Man

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr., and Julius Winston Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr., and Julius Winston Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr., and Julius Winston Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr., and Julius Winston Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Thomas W. Harvey

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr., and Julius Winston Garvey

Carlos Cooks,1 President, UNIA Advance Division,2 to Sen. Theodore G. Bilbo

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr., and Julius Winston Garvey

James Stewart to Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

School of African Philosophy Graduation Dance Invitation

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr., and Julius Winston Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr., and Julius Winston Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr., and Julius Winston Garvey

Thomas W. Harvey and Ethel M. Collins to Fellow Officers and Members of the UNIA

Ethel M. Collins to Amy Jacques Garvey

J. McIntyre and Daisy Whyte to Marcus Garvey, Jr., and Julius Winston Garvey

Marcus Garvey to the League of Coloured Peoples1

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

G. E. Harris, President, Garvey Club,1 New York, to Marcus Garvey

Front Page of the Chicago Defender

Ethel M. Collins to Amy Jacques Garvey

Marcus Garvey to Marcus Garvey, Jr.

UNIA Notice

UNIA Leaders to Earnest S. Cox

Daisy Whyte to Amy Jacques Garvey

Geoffrey Freeborough,1 Solicitor, to Amy Jacques Garvey

Ethel M. Collins to Amy Jacques Garvey

Ethel M. Collins to Amy Jacques Garvey

Obituary in the League of Coloured Peoples News Letter

Daisy Whyte to Ethel M. Collins

Opening Message to UNIA Conference by Amy Jacques Garvey

Amy Jacques Garvey to Freeborough and Company, Solicitors

Ethel M. Collins to Amy Jacques Garvey

APPENDIX I Delegates to the Sixth International UNIA Convention, Kingston, August 1929

APPENDIX II Delegates to the Seventh International UNIA Convention, Kingston, August 1934

APPENDIX III Delegates to the First Regional UNIA Conference, Toronto, August 1936

APPENDIX IV Delegates to the Second Regional UNIA Conference, Toronto, August 1937

APPENDIX V Delegates to the Eighth International UNIA Convention, Toronto, August 1938

APPENDIX VI UNIA Convention Delegates by Gender

APPENDIX VII Chronological List of the Editorial Staffs of the Negro World

APPENDIX VIII Alphabetical List of Negro World Staff Members

APPENDIX IX Map of UNIA in Harlem

APPENDIX X Locations of UNIA Divisions and Chapters

APPENDIX XI Concentration of UNIA Divisions by Regions

APPENDIX XII Speech by Daisy Whyte, Private Secretary to Marcus Garvey

INDEX

ILLUSTRATIONS

Marcus Garvey, 1937 (frontispiece)

Bettmann Archives

Garvey welcomed upon arrival in Jamaica, 1927

DG, 12 December 1927, courtesy ofWIRL

Grand opening, UNIA Liberty Hall, King Street, Kingston, 1930

DG, 31 July 1930, courtesy ofWIRL

Garvey and UNIA delegation aboard the S.S. Green Briar

prior to Garvey’s departure from Kingston for Europe, 1928.

NW, 12 May 1928

Rev. Charles Garnett, Pan-African activist, London

Courtesy of Michael Hastings, Royal Court Theatre, London

E. B. Knox, UNIA first assistant president general, August 1929

NW, 7 September 1929

M. L. T. De Mena, UNIA assistant international organizer, August 1929

NW, 10 August 1929

Delegates to the Sixth Annual International UNIA Convention,

August 1929, Edelweiss Park, Kingston

WRHS, UNIA-C

Group of Jamaican delegates at 1929 UNIA convention

DG, 13 August 1929, courtesy ofWIRL

Group of American delegates at 1929 UNIA convention

DG, 5 August 1929, courtesy ofWIRL

Map of Jamaica, by parish

Trederick G. Cassidy, Jamaica Talk, 2d ed. (London: Macmillan, 1971)

Marcus Garvey, municipal councillor,

Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation, early 1930s

DG, 2 February 1934, courtesy ofWIRL

Lewis Ashenheim, Jamaican lawyer and politician, ca. 1929

Courtesy of WIRL

Dunbar Theophilus Wint, representative for St. Ann Parish

in Jamaica Legislative Council, 1930

DG, 29 July 1933, courtesy ofWIRL

Marcus Garvey and delegates to parochial conference, Kingston, 1934

DG, 25 July 1934, courtesy ofWIRL

Garvey returning to Jamaica after trip to Geneva, 1931

DNA

UNIA welcoming parade upon Garvey’s arrival from Geneva,

Kingston wharf, 1931

DNA

Capt. James Nimmo, Miami UNIA African Legion, ca. 1928

Courtesy of James Nimmo

St. William Wellington Grant

(foreground), Jamaican nationalist, Kingston, ca. 1934—1938

William Makin, Caribbean Nights (London: Robert Hale, 1939)

Carlos Cooks, president, UNIA Advance Division, New York

Courtesy of Nab Eddie Bobo

Ashima Takis, president, Pacific Movement of the Eastern World

Courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Wallace D. Fard, prophet, Nation of Islam

DJ-FBI

Leonard Howell, prophet of Ethiopianism

C. G. Maragh, The Promise Key, n.d.

Sufi Abdul Hamid, mystic and leader in the Harlem

Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work boycott campaign, 1930s

Claude McKay, Harlem: Negro Metropolis (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1940)

Father Divine (George Baker), founder, Peace Mission movement

Robert Weisbrot, Father Divine and the Struggle for Racial Equality

(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983)

Jomo Kenyatta and Paul Robeson on location for the film Sanders of the River, 1934

Martin Duberman, Paul Robeson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988)

Haile Selassie on train in exile in London, 1936

Robert Rotberg, A Political History of Tropical Africa

(New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1965)

A. L. King, president, UNIA Central Division, New York

NN-Sc, UCD

ILLUSTRATIONS

Mittie Maud Lena Gordon,

Chicago Garveyite and president, Peace Movement of Ethiopia

DJ-FBI

Members of the first graduating class of the School of African Philosophy,

newly appointed as UNIA commissioners, Toronto, 1937

BM 2, no. 8 (December 1937): 5

Marcus Garvey, Jr., Julius Winston Garvey,

and Amy Jacques Garvey, ca. 1938

Len Nembhard, Trials and Triumphs of Marcus Garvey (Kingston: Gleaner, 1940)

Deceased Garvey in coffin, 1940

TNF

Delegates to 1941 UNIA convention,

at UNIA parent body headquarters and New Negro World office, Cleveland.

JS, courtesy of Roberta Stewart

UNIA Vangard division members, with portrait of Garvey and memorial wreath,

New York, early 1940s

Courtesy of Samuel Benjamin

Marcus Garvey, Jamaican national hero, memorial monument, Kingston

Courtesy of WIRL

Map of UNIA in Harlem (Appendix IX)

Tim Seymour and J. R. Sanders

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The editors wish to thank the many institutions and individuals whose generous assistance contributed to the historical research and editorial preparation of the present volume. Important documents were provided by the Archives du Ministere des Affaires Étrangères, Paris, France; Archives Nationales, Section d’Outre-Mer, Paris, France; Boston University, Boston; Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C.; Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee; Jamaica Archives, Spanish Town, Jamaica; League of Nations Archives, Geneva, Switzerland; National Archives and Records Service, Washington, D.C.; National Library of Jamaica (formerly the West India Reference Library), Kingston, Jamaica; Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Public Record Office, London, England; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, New York; University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi; Washington National Records Center, Suitland, Maryland; and the Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio. The archivists, librarians, and staff members at these institutions have been most responsive to our many requests, and we are grateful for their continued assistance.

Important documents and annotation materials were graciously contributed by the following individuals from their private collections: Nab Eddie Bobo, African Diaspora Youth Development Foundation, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands; J. R. Ralph Casimir, Roseau, Dominica; Hilbert L. Keys, Wilmington, Delaware; James B. Nimmo, Miami, Florida; and Golden Stewart, formerly of Monrovia, Liberia.

This volume is dedicated in part to Mason Hargrave, former presidentgeneral of the UNIA, August 1929 of the World, who died in 1988. Mr. Hargrave was an activist in the Cleveland UNIA Division No. 133. He provided many materials from his private collection for use in this volume. He also was responsible for preserving a large body of UNIA documents stemming from the operation of the UNIA headquarters in Cleveland from the 1940s onward. These documents have been deposited in the Western Reserve Historical Society Library, where they are available to the public.

The process of annotating the many people, places, and historical subjects that appear in the documents is an arduous one. Our burden has been eased by the helpful information provided by the staff members of many insitutions. We would like to thank the staffs of the following public and private libraries for their valuable assistance: Boston Public Library; British Consulate Library, Los Angeles; Chicago Public Library; City of New Orleans Public Library; Free Library of Philadelphia, Logan Square, Philadelphia; Gary Public Library, Gary, Indiana; Graduate Theological Union Library, Berkeley, California; Halifax City Regional Library, Nova Scotia, Canada; Indiana State Library, Indianapolis; Islington Library, London Borough, England; Jacksonville Public Library, Jacksonville, Florida; Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Kansas; Knox County Public Library System, Knoxville, Tennessee; McConnell Public Library, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada; New York Public Library, New York; Municipal Reference Library of Metropolitan Toronto; National Diet Library, Tokyo; Norfolk Public Library, Norfolk, Virginia; Park Memorial Library, Asheville, North Carolina; Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Cincinnati, Ohio; St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, Missouri; Tennessee State Library, Nashville; Tokyo Metropolitan Central Library; and Virginia State Library, Richmond.

The staff members of the following archives, historical societies, and research institutes provided us with helpful information: American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati; American Jewish Historical Society, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Archives of the City of Toronto, Canada; Archives of the Episcopal Church, Austin, Texas; Archives Nationales-Section Outre-Mer, Paris; Atlanta Historical Society; Cincinnati Historical Society; Department of Archives, St. Michael, Barbados, West Indies; Georgia Historical Society, Savannah; Historical Society of Western Pennsylvannia, Pittsburgh; Huntington Library, San Marino, California; Idaho State Historical Society, Boise; Kansas Historical Society, Kansas City, Kansas; Law Society Library, London; Montgomery County Historical Society, Dayton, Ohio; New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston; Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Theosophical Society, Pasadena, California; Virginia Historical Society, Richmond; and the Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland.

We wish to thank librarians at research libraries located at the following educational institutions for their assistance: Columbia University, New York; Drew University, Madison, New Jersey; Florida State University, Tallahassee; Hampton Institute, Hampton, Virginia; Howard University, Washington, D.C.; Indiana University Northwest, Gary; St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University, Oxford, England; Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama; University of Cincinnati; University of Georgia, Athens; University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and the University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg.

Staff members of the following governmental agencies contributed information used in the volume: Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C.; City of New York Bureau of Corporations; Federal Bureau of Investigation, Freedom of Information-Privacy Acts Section, Records Management Division , Washington, D.C.; Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Library and Records Department, London; Liverpool Record Office, Liverpool, England; National Personnel Records Center, Civilian Personnel Records, St. Louis, Missouri; Office of the Postmaster General, United States Postal Service, Washington, D.C.; Post Office Users National Council, London; State of New York Court of Appeals Clerk’s Office, Albany; State of New York Department of Labor, Albany; State of New York Department of State, Bureau of Corporations, Albany; United States Department of the Army, Army Intelligence and Security Command, Arlington, Virginia; United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, Washington, D.C.

Individuals affiliated with the following businesses, administrative offices, and private agencies also contributed: Academic International Press, Gulf Breeze, Florida; J. L. Freedman and Company, Solicitors, Middlesex, England; Harvard University Alumni Association, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Wilkinson Kimbers, Solicitors, London; Law Society Services, Ltd., Records and Statistical Department, London; Library Services, Atlanta Journal I Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia; New York State Bar Association, Albany, New York; Office of Alumni Affairs, Lincoln University, Jefferson City, Missouri; Picture Editing Department, Sunday Times Magazine, London.

The reference and interlibrary loan staffs of the University Research Library at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Timothy Connelly of the archival staff of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, Washington, D.C., have provided indispensable research assistance to the project. We gratefully acknowledge their contributions.

The following individuals are among the many people who have assisted the project in securing documents or by lending their research knowledge or historical expertise: Harold Brackman, Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, Los Angeles; Robert Edgar, Howard University, Washington, D.C.; Eppie Edwards, National Library of Jamaica, Kingston; Cathy Collins Gaskin, McCain Library and Archives, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg; Betty Gubert, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York; Louis R. Harlan, University of Maryland, College Park; Michael Hastings, Royal Court Theatre, London; Mark Higbee, Columbia University, New York; Anita Johnson, National Library of Jamaica, Kingston; Diana Lachatanere, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York; Terry S. Latour, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg; Rupert Lewis, University of the West Indies, Kingston; Ralph Luker, Martin Luther King Papers Project, Emory University, Atlanta; Richard Newman, New York Public Library; Peter Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers Project, Florida State University, Tallahassee; Ann Allen Shockley, Fisk University, Nashville; Madge Sinclair, Los Angeles; Ann Sindelar, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland; Roberta Stewart, Kent, Ohio; and Fannie Zelcer, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati.

Graphic artists Timothy Seymour and J.R. Sanders prepared the map of UNIA sites in Harlem that appears in Appendix IX.

This volume was produced in close cooperation with the staffs of the Berkeley, Los Angeles, and New York offices of the University of California Press. Individual thanks to Martha Gasoi and Patricia Malango of the Berkeley office; Diana Feinberg, Stanley Holwitz, and Shirley Warren of the Los Angeles office; and to Amanda Mecke and Linda Norton of the New York office. The volume was copy edited by Susan Gallick, indexed by Robin Haller, and designed by Linda Robertson. Typographical production was provided by Rex Blankenship of Prestige Typography, Brea, California, and Neil Miller of the HITEC Corporation, Columbia, Missouri.

Special appreciation must be expressed for the contributions of Richard Lucas, former director of marketing of the University of California Press, who died while this volume was in preparation. Richard was a champion of the Garvey Papers project and took a lively personal interest in making its volumes available to the public. We miss his high enthusiasm, humor, and creative energy; we mourn his illness and his passing. We dedicate this volume to him, with personal gratitude and in appreciation of his many spirited accomplishments during his career.

We wish to thank the full- and part-time members of the Marcus Garvey Papers Project staff whose labor produced this volume. Research for the volume was conducted primarily by Robin Dorman and David Ralston. Avon Leekley and Kairn Klieman also participated significantly in the research. Michael Fitzgerald gathered manuscript materials on the connection between Garvey and the UNIA and the Greater Liberia bill from the Theodore Bilbo collection at the University of Southern Mississippi, Hattisburg. Charles Bahmueller prepared the biographical annotation on Charles Garnett and Steven Rubert wrote annotations on African history. Patricia Karimi-Taleghani reviewed annotations on Ethiopia and the Italo-Ethiopian war. Ernest Hill prepared the initial draft of the chronology. Reginald Daniel compiled the data on UNIA divisions utilized in Appendix X. Deborah Forczek conceived of and prepared the initial drafts of Appendixes VI, VII, and VIII. She also directed the proofreading of transcriptions of some of the original documents. Transcriptions were produced by Janine Briggs, Kelly Bushinsky, Carol Coluehoun, Tracy Chriss, Diane Hill, and Lucille Spiff. Inge Nordstrom assisted with the proofreading of the typeset documents. The volume was typeset by project administrator and principal word processing specialist Stephen De Sal, using TYXSET typesetting software developed by the TYX Corporation of Reston, Virginia.

The National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the UCLA Foundation have sustained the project with their support. In addition, the project acknowledges the Ahmanson Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation for their extremely valuable assistance.

INTRODUCTION

With the United States government’s deportation of Marcus Garvey in December 1927, the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) entered upon che final phase of his extraordinary relationship with the international black movement he had organized in Harlem almost a decade before. This closing phase of Garvey’s life coincides with a strategic time in larger world affairs, as the era of buoyant post-war optimism drew to a close and was superseded by the human tragedy of worldwide economic depression and, finally, by the violence of a second world war.

Garvey’s first entry onto the world stage—as the militant herald of black self-determination—had been facilitated by opportunities presented by the crisis of World War I and the concomitant rise of national emancipation movements. Strategic alterations in the international system of colonial empires continued to be proposed throughout the interwar period, providing Garvey with further diplomatic opportunities in Pan-African affairs after his deportation. While he maintained an international presence as the UNIA’s spokesman in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, the internal operation of the UNIA in those years was characterized by disruptions and challenges more difficult than Garvey had yet encountered.

The world that Garvey had known during the peak years of his political influence in America in the early 1920s had changed dramatically during his years in prison. When he was released in 1927, the UNIA was no longer the organization that it had once been; increasingly rent by internal division and bereft of resources, it was struggling for economic survival and suffering from competition with analogous movements. These circumstances took a heavy toll on the morale of the movement and its membership base. Yet many of his followers still saw Garvey as a hero. As UNIA activist Samuel Haynes wrote in the 14 January 1928 issue of the Negro World, Garvey, living or dead, is our patron saint, our supreme leader and counsellor, and neither the cannon of hate nor the whip of prejudice can swerve us from our allegiance to him and the great ideal of African nationalism. The documents, speeches, correspondence, and editorials included in the present volume illustrate the ways Garvey and UNIA members responded to the rapidly changing socioeconomic circumstances that occurred following his departure from America and how they negotiated the many internal vicissitudes that were to emerge out of their changing relationship.

The enthusiastic crowds that greeted Garvey upon his arrival in his Jamaican homeland on 10 December 1927 represented a new facet in the complex development of the UNIA. During the previous decade the radical New Negro movement had risen explosively within the racially militant context of black Harlem, with Garvey and the UNIA emerging as internationally recognized symbols of the new black consciousness. The end of that New Negro era coincided with the waning of Garvey’s influence in America—with the disintegration of his various UNIA enterprises, the ensuing factionalization and fratricidal struggles among his followers, and the long sought success on the part of federal and local officials to find grounds to deport him. After years of struggling to maintain an agenda focused on Pan-African unity and black economic independence and dealing with problems of internal dissent and external repression, Garvey encountered new difficulties in Jamaica, where he came face-to-face with the concrete challenge of building a national movement against colonial rule.

Garvey’s itinerary upon his return to Jamaica reflected his reaction to freedom after almost three years of enforced silence. He addressed many large welcoming crowds in Kingston in late 1927 and almost immediately undertook a speaking tour of the rural parishes of the island. In January 1928, he set out on a six-week speaking tour of Central America but soon encountered familiar limitations. He had to alter his plans when denied admission into Costa Rica and was hampered by various other obstructions designed by American consular and Central American officials who considered him a threat to the security of colonial administrations.

Garvey’s speeches throughout the late 1920s are evidence of the renewed dynamism he felt emerging from a period of involuntary activity. They reflect strong religious and metaphysical beliefs, revealing him to be even more of a proponent of optimistic New Thought philosophy than he had been in the past. They also show a level of political conservatism that was perhaps born of his previous experiences with political repression. Closely monitored by journalists and colonial police, he urged Jamaicans in his speeches to be peaceful and law-abiding in return for guarantees of protection by the English crown. In Garvey’s words, Jamaicans should act as useful citizens of the Empire and as British subjects (4 April 1928). The observance of England’s constitutional primacy was explicitly recognized at UNIA public meetings where the English national anthem was sung before the rendering of the UNIA’s own Universal Ethiopian anthem. Garvey displayed his claims to full citizenship and privileges by purchasing a stately home that he called Somali Court. The location of the home was socially symbolic; it was situated on Lady Musgrave Road, close to King’s House, the English governor’s official residence, in an elite area of suburban St. Andrew that was the preserve of the white upper class.

It is also significant that Garvey charged an admission fee for his public appearances, except for the few occasions when he spoke at Kingston’s Liberty Hall. His audiences consisted of a nonrepresentative number of members of the professional middle class, artisans, and self-employed working class people. These paying, eminently respectable, audiences helped underscore Garvey’s message of citizenship, cooperation, and reward.

The themes of Garvey’s speeches—like those of his Negro World editorials, written in the period immediately following his deportation—thus show nuances and changes in his racial and political thought. Once back in Jamaica, Garvey began to see merit in the American practice of defining all persons with any African heritage as black. While in America he had virulently opposed the sociopolitical mandates of the colored or mulatto group; in Jamaica, he sought to affiliate himself with the more privileged, racially-mixed, sector of society. He promoted plans of interest to middle class people of color, including the ideas of establishing black-owned and operated department stores and the development of a scholarship fund for students of African descent.

In addition to addressing himself to Jamaican concerns, Garvey became immediately involved with UNIA business in the United States and abroad. After he returned from his extensive speaking tour, he called E. B. Knox, his personal representative in the United States, to come to Kingston to discuss UNIA affairs. Soon after Knox’s visit, he left Henrietta Vinton Davis in charge of UNIA operations in Kingston and sailed for England with his wife, Amy Jacques Garvey, for a six-month stay. Knox soon joined the couple and a temporary headquarters was established in West Kensington, London. Garvey rented Royal Albert Hall and delivered an address on the national rights of Africans and of peoples of the African diaspora. From England, he traveled to France, Belgium, and Germany. Returning briefly to England, he then traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, where he presented a renewal of the UNIA’s 1922 petition to the League of Nations. He concluded his tour with speeches in Paris before coming back to London.

In the autumn, Garvey left England for Canada, where he intended to tour local divisions and meet with UNIA officials to plan an international convention to be held in Canada in the following year. Soon after his arrival in Montreal, he was apprehended by Canadian immigration officials, who were responding to the fears of American diplomats who believed Garvey might use his proximity to the United States to urge his American followers to vote for the Democratic presidential challenger, Governor Alfred Smith of New York, in the upcoming presidential election. Garvey was questioned and released by the immigration authorities, who limited his stay to one week and stipulated that he make no public speeches. These restrictions induced Garvey to alter his plan to hold the next UNIA convention in Canada.

Garvey returned to Jamaica in December 1928, filled with new plans for redirection of the UNIA and for his own local possibilities. He issued a call for the next UNIA convention to be held in Jamaica and organized ceremonies to celebrate the opening of a new social and cultural enterprise based at Edelweiss Park, an elegant property situated at 67 Slipe Road, St. Andrew, that he had purchased to serve as the new international UNIA headquarters, as business offices of the local UNIA, and as the venue for mass entertainments, political convocations, and secular services. The park became a kind of local chautauqua, a novel phenomenon for Jamaicans. Garvey also announced plans to begin a new daily newspaper that he hoped would rival the Daily Gleaner, an established paper that represented the interests of the business and planter classes. Called the Blackman, Garvey’s newspaper commenced publication in March 1929. Garvey established the Blackman Printing and Publishing Company, which produced the paper in addition to handling professional printing jobs, at 5-7 Peters Lane, Kingston, in April.

After months of promotion and preparation, the Sixth Annual UNIA Convention opened at Edelweiss Park in August 1929. A sizeable number of delegates from the United States were in attendance—proof that Garvey’s influence remained strong among members of American divisions. A massive procession through the streets of Kingston attracted thousands of spectators; it was said to be the largest such display since the exhibition marking the celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The spectacle of that opening parade, with Assistant International Organizer M. L. T. De Mena in the lead on a white charger with drawn sword, and the pageantry of the UNIA court reception that followed, provided Jamaicans with the kinds of exciting experiences most had previously only read about in newspaper accounts of former convention proceedings in Harlem.

Once convention sessions were under way, the mood shifted from exhilaration to contention, as Garvey used the opportunity to call to account colleagues who were in office during the period of his incarceration, many of whom had remained loyal leaders of the UNIA in the United States. UNIA Parent Body officer Fred A. Toote was singled out for particular criticism for his handling of UNIA finances from the headquarters in New York. Despite his attempts to justify his leadership decisions and explain the legal demands placed upon the organization by court orders, he was vilified by Garvey and effectively expelled from the proceedings.

Garvey’s anger at the UNIA leaders who had managed organizational affairs from New York during his imprisonment turned out to be a precursor to his decision, announced at the end of the convention, to reorganize the association under the new name of the UNIA, August 1929, of the World. Garvey announced that this new organization would be based with him and directed from his headquarters at Edelweiss Park; and that it would replace the administrative authority of what remained of the old parent body, or UNIA, Inc., in New York. Garvey did not intend to sever all ties with the members of the American divisions; rather, he wished to bring them under his direct political control. In thus trying to consolidate his power in Jamaica, he irrevocably split the movement, forcing a major realignment among American divisions, who either had to remain affiliated with the New York-based parent body, or choose to show their loyalty to Garvey by applying for new division charters from his unincorporated UNIA, August 1929, of the World.

The dissension between the U.S.- and Jamaica-based wings of the movement was magnified by violent faction fights that erupted in various parts of the United States in 1928-1929. For example, the Tiger division, directed in paramilitary style by the street leader St. William Wellington Grant, clashed with the more staid Garvey Club in New York in June 1929. Violence also characterized the struggle between Garvey loyalists and the followers of Laura Adorkor Kofey in Florida. A former UNIA organizer and self-styled African prophetess, the charismatic Kofey was denounced by Garvey when she began to win her own following. She responded by forming her own organization, which soon rivaled, possibly even exceeded, the popularity of the local Miami UNIA division. The conflict between her followers and Garvey’s reached its zenith when Kofey was assassinated during a meeting of her organization in March 1928. The angry crowd that had witnessed the killing beat to death a Garvey loyalist who they believed had been her assailant. Two more Garveyites, one a member of the local African Legion, were arrested for the crime but later were released for lack of evidence. No one was ever prosecuted for the murder but it was widely rumored to have been an ordered execution.

Garvey’s decision to reorganize the movement was not only an attempt to gain greater personal control over unruly UNIA affairs; it was also a legal expedient forced upon him by the need to safeguard assets of the local Jamaican UNIA from the reach of American creditors, especially G. O. Marke. Marke was a former UNIA deputy potentate who, along with several other disgruntled former officers, successfully sued the UNIA, Inc., for nonpayment of salary. Faced with the bankruptcy of the American organization, which had lost most of its properties and closed all of its businesses except the Negro World, Marke turned to the Jamaican courts in the summer of 1929 to try to collect the judgment awarded him in America. His suit was upheld by the Jamaica Supreme Court, which ordered that UNIA property at the Kingston Liberty Hall and at Edelweiss Park be seized as partial satisfaction of the damages due him. The seizures were made during the 1929 UNIA convention, further disrupting what were already tumultuous proceedings. The court order was later revoked but much harm had already been done to the assets and reputation of the UNIA in Jamaica.

In addition to reorganizing the movement, Garvey used the 1929 convention to formally launch a new political party, the People’s Political party, or PPP. Conceived of after his return from Europe and Canada in late 1928, the PPP was formed to promote slates of reform candidates for local Jamaican political offices. The 1929 UNIA convention provided Garvey with the audiences and media attention to launch his own PPP campaign for the Jamaica Legislative Council elections of 1930. In a public speech given soon after the convention’s close, he unveiled the political platform of the PPP, which called for public health measures, public housing, fair labor practices, educational opportunities, and legal reforms. In the course of this 9 September 1929 speech, fresh from his entanglements with the Marke case, Garvey criticized the Jamaican legal system and accused its justices of corruption. As a result, he was almost immediately charged with contempt of court by the Jamaica Supreme Court. In a trial that took place at the end of September 1929, he was required to apologize for his statements before the court; despite this recantation, he was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for three months and fined one-hundred pounds—a sentence that was generally considered excessive.

Garvey was incarcerated in St. Catherine District Prison. Even though he was unable to campaign for office, he received support from local voters in the October 1929 city elections and was elected to the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC), the local municipal council. Some KSAC members responded to his election by presenting a resolution declaring Garvey’s seat vacant, since he was unable to attend council meetings while he was serving his term in jail. The effort was not successful, and when Garvey was released in December 1929, he served briefly as councilor before Acting Governor A. S. Jelf disbanded the municipal council on corruption charges in early 1930.

Undaunted by his repeated conflicts with the justice system and with colonial officials, Garvey proceeded with his candidacy in the general election for the Jamaica Legislative Council. The council was an advisory body under crown colony rule whose members were chosen in ballots cast by an elite electorate who satisfied the property restrictions placed upon the franchise. Garvey’s opponent from the St. Andrew district was George Seymour- Seymour, an established white politician and wealthy landowner. Seymour- Seymour won the election by a wide margin when the votes were tallied in January 1930.

Garvey’s unsuccessful political campaign for the legislative council brought him into conflict with the courts once again. Two weeks before the legislative election, Garvey published an editorial in the Blackman entitled The Vagabonds Again. The editorial attacked the members of the KSAC that had voted to deny Garvey his seat on the municipal council because of his imprisonment. The Kingston resident magistrate found Garvey guilty of seditious libel for his role in the publication of the editorial and sentenced him to six months imprisonment. Although the conviction was overturned on appeal in March 1930, this latest encounter with the courts, combined with his loss in the election, marked a turning point in Garvey’s outlook. He began to abandon his focus on challenging the colonial monopoly on political power through the electoral process, and started to concentrate instead on serving as a kind of diplomatic mediator between the social classes. In June 1930 he organized PPP supporters into the Workers and Labourers Association. He arranged for a delegation from the group to meet with the governor and other British- appointed officials to discuss conditions faced by working-class people on the island and to lobby for the appointment of a royal commission of enquiry to examine the issue of poverty.

During the early 1930s, Garvey continued to develop his personal business enterprises, and he and Amy Jacques Garvey began a family. Their first son, Marcus Garvey, Jr., was born in September 1930; their second, Julius Winston Garvey, was born three years later.

The gulf between Garvey and UNIA leaders in America that had been codified at the 1929 UNIA convention continued to grow in the 1930s. After his expulsion from the convention in Jamaica, Fred A. Toote returned to New York, where he was elected president general of the competing UNIA, Inc. Garvey also became estranged from other UNIA officials whom he had once counted among his most trusted aides, including J. A. Craigen, E. B. Knox, J. J. Peters, and William Ware. Garvey denounced Knox and stripped him of all authority in June 1930, after Knox tried to convene a special meeting of local UNIA division presidents in Chicago. Garvey had not authorized the meeting and saw Knox’s action as a challenge to his authority. He dismissed Knox and appointed M. L. T. De Mena to act in Knox’s place as Garvey’s personal representative in the American field.

Further strife within the UNIA occurred when William Ware broke ranks with Garvey in 1931-1932. Ware was the head of Cincinnati UNIA Division No. 146, a division affiliated with the UNIA, Inc. Claiming to represent that original incorporated body, Ware challenged Garvey’s right to use the UNIA name through the Ohio courts. He also wrote a series of letters to U.S. Department of State and postal officials charging Garvey with fraud in his operation of Edelweiss Park and in the fundraising solicitations he distributed through the American mails. Prompted by evidence presented by Ware, including lottery tickets that Garvey had attempted to sell through the mail, U.S. postal officials began an investigation. Earlier, in February 1929, U.S. postal inspectors had put an end to what Garvey called a world census of the entire Negro race, a scheme that was actually a means of soliciting contributions. The outcome of the 1932 investigation was more serious than the earlier one: between June 1932 and April 1934, U.S. postal authorities maintained a fraud order barring the transmission of postal money orders and all correspondence from America to Garvey and the UNIA in Jamaica. Ware continued to lobby against Garvey even after this postal ban was imposed. When M. L. T. De Mena traveled to the United States in JulyAugust 1932 in order to raise funds on Garvey’s behalf, Ware sought to have her activities stopped. Meanwhile, U. S. Department of State authorities worked cooperatively with British colonial officials who were clandestinely monitoring Garvey’s affairs.

In October 1931 Garvey paid a second visit to the League of Nations in Geneva and presented league officials with proposals regarding the UNIA petition that he had renewed during his trip in 1928. During his absence from Kingston he was elected a councillor of the reestablished KSAC. Upon his return to Jamaica in November, however, he did not devote himself to political affairs and held very few public meetings. He concentrated his energies on his newspaper and on private commerce. He began to sell shares in the Edelweiss Park Amusement Company and became involved in the promotion of concerts and vaudeville shows that featured local Jamaican artists and with the production of various other entertainments. He also began the operation of a real estate and commission agency under the name of Marcus Garvey and Company.

Meanwhile, the New York-based UNIA, Inc., held a convention independent of Garvey’s influence. With the worldwide economic depression approaching crisis stages, the resolutions passed by the 1932 convention delegates focused exclusively on domestic concerns rather than on a Pan-African program. Delegates reported actions taken by local divisions to respond to the conditions of stark need around them. In New York City, for example, the Tiger division reported feeding 1,563 unemployed persons during the last week of February 1931. In Gary, Indiana, some seventy-five people were fed daily at Liberty Hall; groceries were also delivered to the homes of those persons unable to attend the daily Liberty Hall meal. Rural UNIA divisions began community gardens.

From the fall of 1931 onward, Garvey ceased to write any further articles for the Negro World in New York. In July 1932 he disclaimed any further connection with the paper. During the same period he was forced for financial reasons to suspend publication of the Blackman, which had become a weekly rather than a daily. In the summer of 1932 he began an evening newspaper, the New Jamaican, which he used to promote Jamaica as a place second to none in the world, and argued that "there is no reason why any country whether it is subject to another or not cannot be self-sustaining in itself’ (New Jamaican, 16 July 1932). This optimism regarding Jamaica and her prospects was matched by his ever-present interest in New Thought metaphysics, which he made the principal theme of his weekly inspirational talks at Edelweiss Park. In those sermons he advocated the application of New Thought gospel beyond personal habits and orientations to the reform of society as a whole.

At the same time that Garvey was preaching optimism and selfdetermination, however, his own personal fortunes were rapidly being depleted. Publication of the New Jamaican ceased abruptly in September 1933, when the landlord seized the printing plant used to produce it due to Garvey’s nonpayment of rent. Obliged to mortgage his home to raise money for his activities, he appealed to former supporters for financial help. In spite of these straitened financial circumstances, he began publishing a third newspaper in December 1933, two months after suspension of the New Jamaican. The new monthly magazine, intially called the Blackman, was eventually renamed the Black Man: A Monthly Magazine of Negro Thought and Opinion. The new publication was aimed at an international audience rather than a local Jamaican readership. The magazine represented Garvey’s attempt to reclaim his leadership after three years of virtual abstention from UNIA affairs. It may also have been an effort to avoid financial collapse by creating a publication that could be distributed in the United States and other areas beyond Jamaica where the UNIA remained active.

The generally conservative editorial stance of the Black Man was in keeping with these twin objectives of political reacceptance and financial regeneration. This was nowhere better demonstrated than in Garvey’s announcement calling for patriotic support for American and European governments to which Negroes owe allegiance, especially in light of the progress the Negroes have made under the U.S. Government (January 1934). This editorial stance was part of Garvey’s larger campaign to gain readmission to the United States, a cause that he felt might be more successful than in the past because of the shift from Republican to Democratic party presidential administrations. Garvey’s consistent support of Franklin D. Roosevelt, both as a Democrat and statesman, was one of the more salient editorial features of the Black Man, from its beginning in 1934 through its final issue in 1939. Meanwhile, Garvey loyalists in the United States, especially Benjamin Jones of the Philadelphia UNIA division, worked hard to help Garvey win readmittance. They lobbied administration officials to grant a pardon to Garvey, or, at the very least, to permit him to visit the United States in order to conduct UNIA business there.

Garvey’s renewed interest in UNIA affairs and in his prospects as an international spokesman and leader were also manifested in his call for the meeting of the UNIA’s seventh international convention, the first held by his UNIA, August 1929, of the World since its inception. The convention was held at Edelweiss Park in August 1934. It proved to be the last major event that Garvey would hold in Jamaica. Billed as a double program, namely, a Celebration of the Centenary of the Emancipation of the Negroes of the Western Hemisphere, in conjunction with a Convention to make the progress the race has made within said period of time, the 1934 UNIA convention was a poorly attended affair. During the same time, the rival wing of the movement had gathered some strength in the United States. Soon after Garvey’s UNIA, August 1929, of the World held its meeting, the New York UNIA, Inc., elected its own slate of officers, including former Garvey stalwart Henrietta Vinton Davis as president. Davis had been slighted by Garvey at the 1929 UNIA convention, and although she served as an officer with his Jamica- based organization until 1932, she had also maintained ties to UNIA leaders in America. Her election represented her permanent rejection of Garvey’s claims to sole administrative authority. While the UNIA, Inc., continued to maintain its independence from the Jamaica-based organization, the New York Garvey Club remained loyal to Garvey, as did A. L. King’s New York UNIA division.

As the economic depression worsened, Garvey and the UNIA were faced with the advent of rival movements that arose to compete directly for the support of Garveyites. One of the highlights of the 1934 convention was the preoccupation with the state of religion among blacks, or, as it was termed by Garvey, the prevailing religious fanaticism among certain classes of Negroes (Daily Gleaner, 14 August 1934). The convention discussion and resolution on religion disclosed, however, that the principal object of the delegates’ concern was the sweeping growth of the Father Divine movement in the United States.

The Garveyites assembled in Jamaica were distressed at the continuing inroads that Father Divine was making and his ability to attract hitherto loyal UNIA members into the ranks of his fast growing Peace Mission movement. Perhaps the most striking example was that of M. L. T. De Mena. Following cessation of publication of the Negro World in October 1933, De Mena, Garvey’s official representative in the United States, became a supporter of Father Divine and began publishing a newspaper for the Peace Mission movement. As a result, Garvey gave her former UNIA title and position to S. A. Haynes, who received credentials from Garvey to operate as Garvey’s personal representative in America in January 1934.

Depression-era black nationalist religous sects also made successful appeals to UNIA members—some by claiming Garvey as a precursor or early prophet. The black Hebrews and Moorish Americans drew a sizeable part of their membership from among former Garveyites. Garvey distanced himself from these new black nationalist religious faiths and rejected the terms they used to refer to people of the African diaspora—Moors, Ethiopians, Hamites, black Jews, Moslems, etc.—making it known that he would not depart from Negro as the preferred usage when referring to blacks.

By the summer of 1932, the UNIA’s ranks were also penetrated by proJapanese elements working under the direction of the Pacific Movement of the Eastern World and its principal agent, the Filipino Policarpio Manansala, known in the United States as Ashima Takis. Takis offered Garveyites the message that Japan was the champion of the darker races. His views gained a considerable following among UNIA members.

The 1930s was also the period when the Communist party reached its peak of influence in Harlem. Some disillusioned Garveyites joined the party or were active in various Popular Front organizations, such as the League of Struggle for Negro Rights. They worked in coalition with the party in