Marcus Garvey ignited one of the most phenomenal social movements in modern history and was admired around the world, yet few today understand his quest to promote the economic and cultural advancement of Black people. As diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are under attack, it is time for Black Americans to reconsider Garvey’s vision.
In January, former President Biden’s posthumous pardon of Garvey created a moment for the vision of the pan-African pioneer to resurface. President Trump’s efforts to dismantle inclusive policies in federal and corporate workplaces — and punish South Africa for reclaiming land stolen by white settlers — provides new urgency for applying Garvey’s cooperative strategies to the challenges of today.
Garvey came to the U.S. in 1916 during a period of reactionary politics in opposition to a growing Black urban migration. It was a time of mob lynching in the South, campaigns to deny housing and jobs in the North, and hooligan riots to eliminate Black settlements in cities across the country. President Woodrow Wilson took steps to resegregate the federal workplace and erode the Black civil service even as he called on Black men to enlist during World War I.
In the midst of despair, Garvey found a way to lift the spirits of urban folk by nurturing an affirming statement of Black pride and achievement. His organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), advocated for Pan-African awareness and progress with the slogan “Up, you mighty race, accomplish what you will.”
UNIA was centered in Harlem, with branches across the country and overseas. By 1920, it had grown to become the largest Black organization ever developed. It was not a civil rights group seeking integration — members viewed that agenda as impractical and potentially fatal — but an omnibus syndicate for self-help in the urban community. A remnant of UNIA exists today but is no longer essential to achieving Garvey’s vision.
UNIA provided laborers, cooks, porters, messengers, and other common folk with an organization for cooperative action and the confidence of belonging to an association with a diasporic reach. Economically, Garvey’s program went beyond small community outlets and appealed to UNIA members and the Black community to collectively invest in larger ventures.
In 1920, he founded UNIA’s financial arm, the Negro Factories Corporation, to underwrite community enterprises. It was capitalized at $1 million through the sale of 200,000 shares of common stocks at $5 per share. Working-class people bought stock by combining savings, according to Juliet Walker’s book, “The History of Black Business in America.” It was a practice of cooperative enterprise that could still be effective today under conditions of organized Black communities and accountable practices.
The corporation invested in an array of companies to serve the needs of urban consumers, such as a textile factory in Harlem to make uniforms for UNIA members and dolls for Black children. It opened three grocery stores, two restaurants, a steam laundry, and a printing press for the weekly “Negro World” newspaper, which had a circulation of 200,000. UNIA owned modest clubhouses and encouraged branches to provide mutual aid to members in need, including small loans, death benefits, and employment assistance. The support was intended to counter the notion that people can only get by alone or with government assistance.
Culturally, Garvey was a master of the symbolic gesture and developed popular imagery, such as the red, black, and green Pan-African flag. He used parades and rallies to excite the imagination and attract thousands of dues-paying members. His cry of “Africa for the Africans at home and abroad” was a counter to the colonization by European powers.
He intended the “Back to Africa” strategy as a cultural and commercial act rather than a migration. In these times, it would mean a priority to learn about the continent, travel as tourists, buy imported products, and support favorable trade and immigration policies.
Established leaders dismissed Garvey’s ornate uniform and grandiose ambitions as preposterous. What critics failed to appreciate was that he modeled the garb of the victorious 18th-century revolutionary leaders of Haiti. He adapted the military uniform of Jean Jacques Dessalines — the first leader of an independent Black republic — to create a spectacle of sovereignty. When UNIA anointed Garvey as the “Provincial President of Africa,” it was no more audacious than when the Belgium King Leopold II claimed to be the founder and owner of the Congo.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey was born in Jamaica in 1887, then still under British rule. He left Jamaica in 1910 to work on British-owned plantations and in London. According to the “Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey,” he was appalled at the abuse of Black workers, wondering, “Where is the Black man’s government? Where are his men of big affairs? I could not find them, and I will help to make them.”
He was inspired by Booker T. Washington’s memoir “Up from Slavery,” his development of a program of industrial education at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and support of Black towns and businesses through the National Negro Business League. Garvey hoped to start a similar school in Jamaica and established UNIA as the management arm. He was invited to visit Tuskegee to learn the operation, but Washington died a few months before Garvey arrived in America.
During his visit, Garvey toured 38 states and was disenchanted with the racial conditions he saw — but found that people were receptive to appeals for collective action. He opened a UNIA chapter in Harlem as urban migration fostered a cosmopolitan community, then expanded to 30 other cities.
In 1920, he hosted an international conference that drew 25,000 members to Madison Square Garden. At the event, he issued the poignant “Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World,” which demanded independence for Africa from European and Arab colonization and justice for Blacks of the diaspora. UNIA influenced the development of the African Orthodox Church, founded in 1921 to promote the reverence of Black deities.
UNIA’s rapid expansion exceeded its managerial expertise and aggravated financial missteps and poor business decisions. Such was the case with Garvey’s ill-fated idea to start the Black Star Steamship Line in 1922, a shipping company to carry goods to seaports in the Caribbean and travelers to Liberia, the first African republic and the adopted home of “Garveyites.” Today, Liberia remains a destination of historical importance for Black Americans and travelers can stay at a resort built by former Black Entertainment Television (BET) owner Robert Johnson.
In 1923, in a trial that supporters viewed as politically motivated, Garvey was convicted on a single charge of federal mail fraud involving a $25 contribution to the steamship line. In 1925, he was sentenced to the maximum term of five years; in 1927, President Calvin Coolidge commuted the sentence and deported him to Jamaica. As a convicted felon, he was prevented from returning to America. He died in 1940 in London at the age of 53, but his pan-African vision survived.
During an earlier period of reactionary politics in America, Garvey created a movement that enabled Black people to be proud of their cultural heritage, engage in meaningful cooperative economics, and embrace a common destiny for “Mother Africa.” As America rejects Black equality under Trump, his vision should be adapted to serve the diverse needs of the folk once again.
Roger House is professor emeritus of American studies at Emerson College and the author of “Blue Smoke: The Recorded Journey of Big Bill Broonzy” and “South End Shout: Boston’s Forgotten Music Scene in the Jazz Age.” His forthcoming book is “Five Hundred Years of Black Self-Governance: A Call to Conscience.” A version of the commentary was published in the Hill.
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