“Revered and reviled in equal measure”, Garvey was one of the most enigmatic figures from the anticolonial movement in the early 1900s.
Garvey presided over the ‘Africa for the Africans’ lobby, and promoted black-owned business - epitomised in his steamship company, the Black Star Line, and restaurant and newspaper, the Negro World. However, before his infamous business ventures and leadership role in the 1920s Pan-African movement, Garvey’s early life in Jamaica played a key role in the development of his future political ideology.
“We desire the conquest of Africa; that land that is ours, the land that no one can dispute as being the heritage of the Negro, and for that land I live; for that land I will bleed; for that land I will die, that have made me its Provisional President” (Garvey 1920 in Wintz 1996, p.217).
Norman Girvan illustrates the historical context of Garvey’s early political thought, explaining how the development of capitalism into the twentieth century “generated a new expression of the racial division of labour both within…and between” countries of the global North and South. Even though ethno-cultural racism continued to exist as an oppressive tool in the early 1900s (even after the abolition of slavery) its corollary was black resistance - also predicated on the basis of race.
Colin Grant suggests “the memory of [slavery] was built into the cultural DNA” of Jamaica in the early twentieth century, when Garvey was in his late teens. Even from this age, Garvey detested the racial inequalities prevalent in Jamaican society. This helps to contextualise his role in the creation of Pan-African nationalism, which focused on the “universal colonial condition of black people” in the Americas and on the African continent.
Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914, and was initially concerned with relating black separatism to the civil rights movement in the U.S. Some historians such as Cary Wintz suggest the UNIA began by espousing typical missionary ideals, including “civilizing backward African tribes”, while others such as Horace Campbell assert that Garvey endeavoured to “reverse the falsifications” of racist, colonial representations of Africa which hindered its liberation.
This inherent tension at the core of Garvey’s ideas perhaps reflected his position as an elite member of the African diaspora. Although he seemed to be conditioned by the ‘psychology of colonialism’ (see Iweriebor) from his education, he still insisted on establishing an equal perception of continental Africans and the diaspora. For example Garvey (writing in 1923) envisaged the development of the “Negro Empire” in the spirit of “brotherly co-operation”, stressing that “any Negro who expects … to exercise a haughty superiority over the fellows of his own race, makes a tremendous mistake”.
"African nationalism broadly defined was the attempt to throw off the yoke of colonial domination, achieve political, cultural, and psychological freedom and economic independence, and build new nations from the varieties of people who comprised the colonial territories... [the movement was] organised and led by the nationalist intelligentsia" (Iweriebor 2002, p.477).
One of Garvey’s most vocal critics, W.E.B. Du Bois, asserted that the ambition of ‘Africa for the Africans’ (the famed slogan of the UNIA) was “inchoate and indefinite but tremendously human [and] piteously sincere”. As such, Garvey’s popular appeal and galvanizing energy should not be understated in his success as a figurehead of the 1920s Pan-African movement.
During the U.S.’ economic boom, the "roaring twenties", Garvey related black economic success to “the elevation of the race” and the redemption of continental Africa.
Popular support for these ideas was exemplified by the scale of the UNIA’s landmark 1920 international convention and Garvey’s editorial letter in the Negro World after the convention.
In the letter, Garvey’s assertion that “we desire the conquest of Africa; that land that is ours, the land that no one can dispute as being the heritage of the Negro” perhaps encapsulates the Pan-African dimensions of his political philosophy.
Girvan, N.P. 1994. The Political Economy of Race in the Americas: The Historical Context of Garveyism. In: Lewis, R. and Bryan, P. eds. Garvey: His Work and Impact. Trenton, N.J: Africa World Press, pp. 11-23.
Grant, C. 2009. Negro with a hat: the rise and fall of Marcus Garvey. London: Vintage, p.7.
Iweriebor, E.E.G. 2002. The Psychology of Colonialism. In: Falola, T. ed. The End of Colonial Rule: Nationalism and Decolonization. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press
Wintz, C.D. 1996. African American political thought, 1890-1930: Washington, Du Bois, Garvey, and Randolph Armonk. N.Y: M.E. Sharpe, p.1, 10.
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