Marcus Garvey -- Jamaica

By August 1920, the UNIA claimed four million members, the International Convention of the UNIA was held.  Delegates from all over the world filled Madison Square Garden on 1 August 1920 to hear Garvey speak.  Another of Garvey's ventures was the Negro Factories Corporation, his plan called for creating the infrastructure to manufacture every marketable commodity in every big U.S. industrial centre, as well as in Central America, the West Indies, and Africa. 

Convinced that blacks should have a permanent homeland in Africa, Garvey sought to develop Liberia.  The Liberia program, launched in 1920, and was intended to build colleges, universities, industrial plants, and infrastructure as part of an industrial base.  However, European powers with colonial interests in Liberia forced it to be abandoned in the mid-1920s. 

Garvey garnered the wrath of African American leaders when he met with the Ku Klux Klan leader, Edward Clark.  The NAACP leader W. E. B. Du Bois felt that the Black Star Line was "original and promising", but he added that "Marcus Garvey is, without doubt, the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America and in the world, he is either a lunatic or a traitor." Du Bois feared that Garvey's activities would undermine his efforts toward black civil rights. 

The Justice Department was seeking to discredit Garvey as it was felt he represented a threat to colonial interest and national security.  On the 11 October 1919, J. Edgar Hoover, special assistant to the Attorney General and head of the General Intelligence Division wrote a memo to Special Agent Ridgely regarding Marcus Garvey. "Unfortunately, however, he has not as yet violated any federal law whereby he could be proceeded against on the grounds of being an undesirable alien, from the point of view of deportation."

The Bureau of Investigation hired its first five African-American agents, and around November 1919 the BOI began an investigation into the activities of Garvey and the UNIA.  Although initial efforts by the BOI were to find grounds to deport Garvey as "an undesirable alien", a charge of mail fraud was brought against Garvey in connection with stock sales of the Black Star Line after the U.S. Post Office and the Attorney General joined the investigation.

The accusation centred on the fact that the corporation had not yet purchased a ship with the name "Phyllis Wheatley". Although one was pictured with that name on one of the company's stock brochures, it had not actually been purchased by the BSL and still had the name "Orion".  The prosecution produced as evidence a single empty envelope that it claimed contained the brochure. During the trial, Benny Dancy testified that he didn't remember what was in the envelope, although he regularly received brochures from the Black Star Line.  Another witness for the prosecution, Schuyler Cargill, perjured himself after admitting to having been told by Chief Prosecutor Maxwell S. Mattuck to mention certain dates in his testimony.  Furthermore, he admitted that he could not remember the names of any co-workers in the office, including the timekeeper who punched employees' time cards. Ultimately, he acknowledged being told to lie by Postal Inspector F.E. Shea.  He said Shea told him to state that he mailed letters containing the alleged fraudulent brochures. 

The Black Star Line owned and operated several ships over the course of its history and was in the process of negotiating for the disputed ship at the time the charges were brought.  Garvey was the only company official found guilty of using the mail service to defraud and was sentenced to five years in prison on 23 June 1923.  While on bail, he continued to maintain his innocence, travel, speak and organise the UNIA.  After numerous unsuccessful attempts at appeal, he began serving his sentence at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary on 8 February 1925.  Two days later, he wrote his well known "First Message to the Negroes of the World From Atlanta Prison", wherein he made his famous proclamation:

"Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you, for, with God's grace, I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for Liberty, Freedom and Life."

Various government officials felt that Garvey’s imprisonment had made the UNIA stronger, this being an election year, President Coolidge and the Republican Party felt that if Garvey was not released, that black people, being mostly Republican at the time, would vote for another candidate or party. President Calvin Coolidge eventually commuted Garvey's sentence and on his release in November 1927, he was deported to Jamaica.

In 1928 Garvey went on a lecture tour of Britain, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada.  On his return to Jamaica he established the People's Political Party and a new daily newspaper, The Blackman.  In September 1929, he founded the People's Political Party (PPP), which focused on workers' rights, education, and aid to the poor. Garvey was also elected councillor for the Allman Town Division of the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC).  However, he lost his seat because of having to serve a prison sentence for contempt of court for criticising the judiciary.  But, in 1930, Garvey was re-elected, unopposed, along with two other PPP candidates. In April 1931, Garvey launched the Edelweiss Amusement Company. 

In 1935, Garvey moved to London, he remained active and in touch with events in the West Indies and war-torn Abyssinia (Ethiopia).  In 1938, he set up the School of African Philosophy in Toronto to train UNIA leaders and continued to work on the magazine The Black Man.

On 10 June 1940, Garvey died after suffering two strokes, and due to travel restrictions during World War II, he was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery in London.  On 15 November 1964, the government of Jamaica, having proclaimed him Jamaica's first national hero, re-interred him at a shrine in National Heroes Park.

There are countless tributes, awards and memorials that honour Garvey’s name in Jamaica, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, the U.K, Canada and the United States.  They include Schools, colleges, highways, and buildings, the UNIA red, black, and green flag has been adopted as the Black Liberation Flag.  Garvey's bust has been housed in the Organisation of American States' Hall of Heroes in Washington, D.C. Since 1980,

Rastafarians consider Garvey a prophet, this is partly because of his frequent statements in speeches throughout the 1920s, and in particular his statement "Look to Africa, when a black king shall be crowned for the day of deliverance is at hand!" Rasta, took this as a prophecy of the crowning of Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia.