Latest news with #UniversalNegroImprovementAssociation
![‘Kill The Boer' sung by ‘African Americans'?[video]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesouthafrican.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2025%2F06%2FA-viral-video-showed-a-group-of-African-Americans-singing-Kill-The-Boer.jpg.optimal.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
![‘Kill The Boer' sung by ‘African Americans'?[video]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fall-logos-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fthesouthafrican.com.png&w=48&q=75){kind=small}
The South African
a day ago
- Politics
- The South African
‘Kill The Boer' sung by ‘African Americans'?[video]
A viral video showed a group of 'African Americans' singing 'Kill The Boer'. Images via X : @ali_naka/ @effsouthafrica A clip of a group of black people singing Kill The Boer – presumably in the US – has gone viral on social media. Recently sung by Economic Freedom Fighter leader Julius Malema, the anti-Apartheid song has been accused of having 'racist' connotations. Last month, US President Donald Trump publicly condemned the 'call to action'. Pretoria-born billionaire businessman and UK media personality Piers Morgan have also criticised the song. 'KILL THE BOER' SUNG ABROAD On social media, a clip of black people singing along to Kill The Boer has gone viral. In the video, the crowd, many of whom wear traditional African garments, are seen dancing and singing the tune to the anti-struggle song. Although some claim that the people in the video were African Americans, it's unconfirmed if the video was taken in the US. However, a flag representing Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) – an organisarion celebrating black Americans in the US – was spotted in the background. The video has many social media users questioning Julius Malema's influence as far as the US. 'FREEDOM OF SPEECH' According to a 2022 ruling, the Equality Court found that Kill The Boer was not considered hate speech. In March, the Constitutional Court – the highest in South Africa – rejected AfriForum's appeal, stating that the song deserved to be protected under freedom of speech. Julius Malema sings Kill The Boer at a political rally. This comes after US President Donald Trump called for his arrest. Images via X: @effsouthafrica WHO SANG IT FIRST? Kill The Boer – titled Dubul' ibhunu – made headlines when anti-Apartheid activist Peter Mokaba sang the song at a memorial for his assassinated comrade, Peter Mokaba, in 1993. It was also sung by former South African President Jacob Zuma during many ANC events. Over the years, Malema has also sang the controversial song at various EFF political rallies. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON 'KILL THE BOER' Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1. Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X, and Bluesky for the latest news.
Black America Web
19-05-2025
- Black America Web
Malcolm X's Childhood Trauma And The Case For Abolishing Family Policing
Source: Michael Ochs Archives / Getty As we celebrate the centennial birthday of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz—known to the world as Malcolm X—let us resist the urge to sanitize his legacy. We shouldn't spend this moment only posting his image or quoting his speeches stripped of their revolutionary meaning. We must also remember him as the boy this country tried to annihilate—long before he became the man Ossie Davis eulogized as 'our living, Black manhood… our own Black shining prince—who didn't hesitate to die, because he loved us so.' Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, into a household steeped in Black nationalist politics and resistance. Malcolm's father, Earl Little, was a Baptist preacher and an outspoken organizer with Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). His sermons lifted up Black pride, economic independence, and Pan-Africanist solidarity. His mother, Louise Norton Little, was equally formidable: a Grenadian-born writer who contributed to Garvey's Negro World newspaper and kept the Garvey movement's flame alive in their family home. Together, they taught their children that Black people could—and must—liberate themselves. For these beliefs, the Littles were marked, surveilled, and terrorized. Before Malcolm could even speak, white supremacists were at his family's doorstep. The Ku Klux Klan threatened the Little family home in Omaha, forcing them to flee to Lansing, Michigan. There, their home was firebombed by white vigilantes. And in 1931, Earl Little was found dead on the street, nearly severed by a streetcar. Though officials ruled his death an accident, the family believed he had been murdered by the Black Legion, a local terrorist white supremacist group. With that ruling, the insurance company denied Louise the life insurance that might have kept the family afloat. The trauma of this brand of racial violence was only the beginning. What followed would be no less devastating: a slow dismantling of the Little family through a state apparatus masquerading as 'child welfare.' After Earl Little's death, Louise Little struggled to support her eight children. She turned to public assistance, but help came only with strings, surveillance, and contempt. Welfare caseworkers, all white, visited constantly, undermining her authority, probing her parenting, and prying into the family's home. Malcolm later recalled that they 'acted as if they owned us… as if we were their private property.' Rather than offer support, the child welfare system became a hostile presence in their lives. Louise, proud and politically conscious, resisted their intrusions. She 'talked back,' defended her children, and demanded dignity. For this, the state labeled her unstable. The relentless surveillance wore her down. In 1939, the state committed Louise to the Kalamazoo Mental Hospital. She would remain there for 26 years. Soon after, Malcolm and his siblings were stolen from their family and community and scattered into foster homes, institutions, and detention centers. 'They were as vicious as vultures,' Malcolm later wrote of the state welfare workers. 'They had no feelings, understanding, compassion, or respect for my mother.' He did not mince words: 'A judge had authority over me and all my brothers and sisters… nothing but legal, modern slavery, however kindly intentioned.' What was framed as child protection was, in fact, racialized family policing—a brutal, bureaucratic dismantling of a proud Black family committed to liberation. What happened to Malcolm X's family wasn't an isolated tragedy of the 1930s. It was—and remains—standard operating procedure for a system built on controlling Black families, not caring for them. Today, Black families are still disproportionately targeted by the family policing system. According to a landmark study from the American Journal of Public Health , over 50% of Black children in the U.S. will experience a child welfare investigation before age 18, nearly double the rate for white children. Black children are also more likely to be removed from their homes, with nearly 10% being placed in foster care at some point during childhood. Though Black children make up only about 14% of the U.S. child population, they represent 22% of all children in foster care. This overrepresentation isn't due to higher rates of abuse. In fact, the vast majority of child removals stem from vague accusations of 'neglect'—a category that overwhelmingly reflects poverty, not harm. In 2019, 75% of confirmed child maltreatment cases were neglect-related. Parents who lack stable housing, childcare, or access to food are labeled unfit, and their children are taken. The state punishes poverty but calls it protecting children. The family policing system is not only racist—it is profoundly ableist. Louise Little was institutionalized, not because she posed a danger, but because she was a Black woman in mourning, under immense pressure, and because she refused to be silent about it. Instead of receiving mental health care or support, she was disappeared into a psychiatric facility. Her children were removed under the guise of her 'unfitness,' and the system never looked back. Today, this ableist logic remains intact. Parents with disabilities—especially Black parents—are far more likely to have their children removed. A national survey found that parents diagnosed with serious mental illnesses are eight times more likely to face CPS involvement, and 26 times more likely to have their children taken from them. Disabled Black mothers live with the compounded fear that asking for help will result in punishment, not support. It is a vicious cycle: state neglect begets trauma, and trauma becomes the justification for more state violence. Malcolm X's early life—shaped by racist terrorism and family separation—planted the seeds of his radicalism. He saw through the lie of state benevolence. He called it what it was: legal slavery, white domination, institutionalized cruelty masked as care. If Malcolm's story teaches us anything, it is that our families need solidarity, not surveillance. Louise Little didn't need to be stripped of her children; she needed respite, mental health support, and community. What the Littles needed was care, not cages. Had neighbors, kin, or even public resources been offered without strings, Malcolm might have grown up more whole. Instead, he grew up in fragments—and forged those fragments into a fire the world could not ignore. Today, abolitionists build on that fire. We demand a world where no parent is punished for being poor or disabled. A world where no child is disappeared into the system for loving their mother too fiercely. Abolition isn't about the absence of safety; it's about building real safety rooted in care, not coercion. As Malcolm once said, 'Our home didn't have to be destroyed.' And as we honor his 100th birthday, we say: no more destroyed homes, no more destroyed families, and no more destroyed communities. Josie Pickens is an educator, writer, cultural critic, and abolitionist strategist and organizer. She is the director of upEND Movement, a national movement dedicated to abolishing the family policing system. SEE ALSO: Malcolm X's Plans Before He Was Killed Malcolm X's Estate Sues FBI, CIA Over Assassination SEE ALSO Malcolm X's Childhood Trauma And The Case For Abolishing Family Policing was originally published on Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE
Al Arabiya
01-03-2025
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Jamaican government urged to ‘fully decolonize' with bill to ditch King Charles
Many Jamaicans want their country to ditch King Charles as head of state but a bill presented by the government to do just that has frustrated some critics of the monarchy who believe the change should go further to slash colonial ties. Jamaica gained independence in 1962 but - like 13 other former British colonies - it still retains the British monarch as its head of state. Public opinion on the Caribbean island of nearly 3 million people has been shifting for years, and in December the government of Prime Minister Andrew Holness presented a bill to remove King Charles. Hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans were shipped to Jamaica during transatlantic slavery, and many scholars and advocates say the legacy of slavery and colonialism has resulted in or played a role in enduring inequities. Growing calls by African and Caribbean nations for reparations to address past wrongs have added to a shift in sentiment across the region. Britain has so far rejected calls for reparations. On the issue of removing the monarchy as head of state, Buckingham Palace usually says such matters are for the local people and politicians to decide. On a visit to the Bahamas in 2022, Prince William - who is now heir to the throne - said he supports and respects any decision Caribbean nations make about their future. The Jamaican bill - which could be debated in parliament as early as this month or next - would have to be ratified in a referendum if passed. Before that, some critics - including the opposition People's National Party (PNP) - are raising objections to how a future president would be selected, what his or her role would be, and which court should be Jamaica's final court of appeal. Steven Golding, head of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, founded more than a century ago by Jamaican civil rights leader Marcus Garvey, said the group and others had long advocated for the removal of 'the last vestiges of the colonial umbilical cord'. But he added: 'We must make sure that it's not a cosmetic surgery being done... we don't want to swap having a British monarch... to having a titular president. I would like to see an executive president, directly elected by the people.' Longstanding calls by some Jamaicans to abolish the monarchy picked up steam after Barbados, another former colony in the Caribbean, removed the late Queen Elizabeth as head of state in 2021. Holness told Prince William during a visit by the royal in 2022 that his country wanted to be 'independent'. A survey by pollster Don Anderson in 2022 showed 56 percent of people in Jamaica wanted the monarch removed, up from 40 percent a decade earlier. A president as head of state According to the government's bill, Charles' representative in Jamaica - the governor general - would be replaced by a president nominated by the prime minister in consultation with the opposition leader. If the two could not agree on a candidate, the opposition leader could recommend a name, and if that were not accepted, the prime minister could choose a nominee who would then be elected with a simple parliamentary majority. Donna Scott-Mottley, a spokesperson on justice for the PNP, said removing Charles would be the 'final birth of a true nation' but the way the president would be chosen under the bill 'compromised everything'. 'If you (PM) wanted your right-hand man to become president, you simply do the nomination,' Scott-Mottley told Reuters. Former Prime Minister P. J. Patterson has also voiced opposition, saying the president would be a 'puppet of the prime minister'. The government did not reply to a request for comment on the criticism. 'Full decolonization' The bill is likely to pass the lower house of parliament as the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) currently has the two-thirds majority required, but it will need at least one opposition vote when it moves to the upper house. Even if rejected by the upper house, the bill can still be put to a national referendum, which the government hopes to hold by next year. To pass, the referendum would need two-thirds of the vote, rather than just a simple majority. A general election due this year may delay the process. Another point of contention is the London-based Privy Council, the final court of appeal for UK overseas territories and some Commonwealth nations. Critics say this should be replaced by the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). Accessing the Privy Council can be expensive and cumbersome as those who wish to argue their cases there need a visa to travel to Britain. Caribbean nations such as Barbados, Belize and Guyana have replaced the Privy Council with the CCJ. The Jamaican government has said matters related to the court would feature later in the 'phased reform', and that Jamaicans would be able to weigh in on the matter. Christopher Charles, professor of political and social psychology at the University of the West Indies, said keeping the Privy Council was like wanting to get divorced while keeping 'a room in the matrimonial home'. Scott-Mottley said it would be 'anachronistic' to drop Charles as monarch but still use his court. Constitutional change advocate Haile Mika'el Cujo said keeping the Privy Council could put people off from voting in the referendum: 'People are not going to sign off on that.' Disagreements over the Privy Council have led the PNP to pause its participation in the committee working on the bill.
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
More Than a Century After His Conviction, Marcus Garvey Receives Pardon for Mail Fraud
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." 1887–1940 Marcus Garvey was granted a posthumous pardon by former President Joe Biden on his last full day in office, January 19. The late Jamaican-born activist, who was a prominent proponent of Black nationalism, was convicted of mail fraud in 1923. Garvey served two years of his five-year prison sentence before he was deported back to Jamaica. Civil rights leaders, lawmakers, and his descendants have long requested he be pardoned, claiming his conviction was unjust and politically motivated. Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) to help advance economic opportunities for people of African descent with the goal of establishing an independent government for Black people in Africa. While in the United States, the orator was targeted by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who hired Black agents to infiltrate Garvey's UNIA, leading to his conviction and eventual Garvey was a prominent orator and activist who advocated for Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism. Born in Jamaica, Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association that was dedicated to promoting African Americans and their resettlement in Africa. This reflected his philosophy of Black separation and the establishment of Black nations in Africa, known as Garveyism, which sparked a global movement and went on to inspire members of the Nation of Islam and the Rastafari and Black Power movements. After launching several businesses in the United States, Garvey was convicted of mail fraud and deported back to Jamaica. He continued his work for Black repatriation to Africa until his death in 1940 at age 52. Garvey received a posthumous presidential pardon in his mail fraud case in January 2025. FULL NAME: Marcus Mosiah Garvey August 17, 1887DIED: June 10, 1940BIRTHPLACE: St. Ann's Bay, JamaicaSPOUSE: Amy Ashwood Garvey (1919–1922) and Amy Jacques Garvey (1922–1940)CHILDREN: Marcus III and JuliusASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Leo Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was born on August 17, 1887, in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica. He was the last of 11 children born to Marcus Garvey Sr. and Sarah Jane Richards. His father was a stonemason, and his mother was a domestic worker and farmer. Marcus Sr. was a great influence on young Marcus, who once described his father as 'severe, firm, determined, bold, and strong, refusing to yield even to superior forces if he believed he was right.' His father was known to have a large library where Marcus Jr. learned to read. At age 14, young Marcus became a printer's apprentice. In 1903, he traveled to Kingston, Jamaica, and soon became involved in union activities. In 1907, he took part in an unsuccessful printer's strike, and the experience kindled in him a passion for political activism. Three years later, he traveled throughout Central America, working as a newspaper editor and writing about the exploitation of migrant workers in the plantations. In 1912, Garvey moved to London, where he attended the University of London's Birkbeck College and worked as a messenger for the African Times and Orient Review. It was there he was exposed to Pan-African nationalism, an ideology that promotes unity among people of African descent. During this time, Garvey also discovered Booker T. Washington's autobiography, Up From Slavery, which greatly influenced his philosophy. He believed that Black people should be economically self-sufficient and establish an independent nation in Africa. This ideology became known as Garveyism. Garvey returned to Jamaica after two years in London. In August 1914, he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA), with the goal of uniting all of African diaspora to 'establish a country and absolute government of their own.' Inspired by Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, Garvey traveled to the United States in 1916 to raise funds for a similar vocational school in Jamaica. He settled in New York City and formed a UNIA chapter in Harlem to promote a separatist philosophy of social, political, and economic freedom for Black people. In 1918, Garvey began publishing the widely distributed newspaper Negro World to convey his message. He later purchased Harlem's Liberty Hall auditorium, where he held meetings to help spread his philosophy. In 1919, Garvey and UNIA launched his most well-known business venture, a shipping company called the Black Star Line that established trade and commerce between people of African descent around the globe and transported passengers to Africa. He viewed the shipping company as a symbol of tangible success and economic potential for Black people. At the same time, Garvey started the Negros Factories Association, a series of companies that would manufacture marketable commodities in every big industrial center in the Western hemisphere and Africa. While these ventures helped facilitate the spread of Garveysim, they ultimately failed as businesses due to mismanagement and corruption. In August 1920, UNIA claimed an estimated 4 million members and held its first International Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Before a crowd of 25,000 people from all over the world, Marcus Garvey spoke of having pride in African history and culture. Many people found his words inspiring but not all. Some established Black leaders thought his separatist philosophy ill-conceived. W.E.B. Du Bois, a prominent Black leader and cofounder of the NAACP, called Garvey 'the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America.' Garvey, meanwhile, felt Du Bois was an agent of the white elite. W.E.B. Du Bois wasn't the worst adversary of Garvey; history would soon reveal FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's fixation on ruining Garvey on account of his radical ideas. Hoover felt threatened by the Black leader and feared he was inciting Black people across the country to stand up in militant defiance. He referred to Garvey as a 'notorious negro agitator' and, for several years, desperately sought ways to find damning personal information on him, even going so far as to hire the first Black FBI agent in 1919 to infiltrate Garvey's ranks and spy on him. 'They placed spies in the UNIA,' historian Winston James said. 'They sabotaged the Black Star Line. The engines... of the ships were actually damaged by foreign matter being thrown into the fuel.' Decades later, Hoover would use similar methods to obtain information on Black leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. In 1922, Garvey and three other UNIA officials were charged with mail fraud involving the Black Star Line. Trial records indicate several improprieties occurred in the prosecution of the case. It didn't help that the shipping line's books contained many accounting irregularities. On June 23, 1923, Garvey was convicted and sentenced to prison for five years. Claiming to be a victim of a politically motivated miscarriage of justice, Garvey appealed his conviction but was denied. He served two years of his five-year sentence, starting in 1925, before he was released from prison and immediately deported to Jamaica. More than a century after his conviction, Garvey was posthumously pardoned by President Joe Biden in January 2025. Also in the 1920s, Garvey wrote three books. His first was The Philosophy and Opinion of Marcus Garvey, initially published in 1923. He went on to pen Aims and Objects of Movement for Solution of Negro Problem the following year before delivering his final work, The Tragedy of White Injustice, in 1927.$12.73 at Garvey continued his political activism and the work of UNIA in Jamaica and then moved to London in 1935. But he didn't command the same influence he had earlier. Perhaps in desperation or maybe in delusion, Garvey collaborated with outspoken segregationist and white supremacist Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi to promote a reparations scheme. The Greater Liberia Act of 1939 outlined a plan to deport 12 million African Americans to Liberia at federal expense to relieve unemployment. The act failed in Congress, and Garvey lost even more support among the Black population. Garvey was married twice. He met his first wife, Amy Ashwood, at a debate program in Jamaica in 1914. The two were a decade apart in age, and she was 17 years old at the time of their meeting. Ashwood later became Garvey's personal secretary and a member of the UNIA board of management. The two became secretly engaged in 1916 but were briefly separated when Ashwood's parents sent her back to Panama, where she spent much of her childhood. After reuniting in the United States, the pair got married in a private Catholic ceremony in December 1919, followed by a public ceremony and reception at Liberty Hall. Just months after their wedding, however, Garvey filed for an annulment, citing his new bride's infidelity as the cause of the split. Their divorce was finalized in July 1922. That same month, Garvey married his second wife, Amy Jacques, who was Ashwood's friend and maid of honor. At the time of their marriage, Jacques had already taken over Ashwood's secretarial duties and later became Garvey's personal representative while he was in prison. In 1930, she gave birth to their first child, Marcus Mosiah Garvey III. Three years later, their second son, Julius, was born. Garvey died in London on June 10, 1940, after several strokes. Due to travel restrictions during World War II, his body was interred in the United Kingdom's capital city. In 1964, his remains were exhumed and taken to Jamaica, where the government proclaimed him Jamaica's first national hero and reinterred him at a shrine in the National Heroes Park. His memory and influence remain—his message of pride and dignity inspired many Americans in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. In tribute to his many contributions, Garvey's bust has been displayed in the Organization of American States' Hall of Heroes in Washington D.C. The country of Ghana named its shipping line the Black Star Line and its national soccer team the Black Stars, both in honor of Garvey. In addition, a park in Harlem, New York, was named after him in 1973. Hungry men have no respect for law, authority or human life. If you have no confidence in self you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence you have won even before you have started. [Poverty is] a hellish state to be in. It is no virtue. It is a crime. Our union must know no clime, boundary, or nationality... let us hold together under all climes and in every country. We were the first Fascists, when we had 100,000 disciplined men, and were training children, Mussolini was still an unknown. Mussolini copied our Fascism. The question may start in America, but [it] will not end there. Just at that time, other races were engaged in seeing their cause through—the Jews through their Zionist movement and the Irish through their Irish movement—and I decided that, cost what it might, I would make this a favorable time to see the Negro's interest through. My garb is Scotch, my name is Irish, my blood is African, and my training is half-American and half-English, and I think that with that tradition I can take care of myself. The Negro's chance will come when the smoke from the fire and ashes of 20th century civilization has blown off. There are two classes of men in the world, those who succeed and those who do not succeed. Be not deceived. Wealth is strength, wealth is power, wealth is influence, wealth is justice, is liberty, is real human rights. If the Negro is not careful he will drink in all the poison of modern civilization and die from the effects of it. Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! You Might Also Like Nicole Richie's Surprising Adoption Story The Story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Her Mother Queen Camilla's Life in Photos
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
More Than a Century After His Conviction, Marcus Garvey Receives Pardon for Mail Fraud
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." 1887–1940 Marcus Garvey was granted a posthumous pardon by former President Joe Biden on his last full day in office, January 19. The late Jamaican-born activist, who was a prominent proponent of Black nationalism, was convicted of mail fraud in 1923. Garvey served two years of his five-year prison sentence before he was deported back to Jamaica. Civil rights leaders, lawmakers, and his descendants have long requested he be pardoned, claiming his conviction was unjust and politically motivated. Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) to help advance economic opportunities for people of African descent with the goal of establishing an independent government for Black people in Africa. While in the United States, the orator was targeted by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who hired Black agents to infiltrate Garvey's UNIA, leading to his conviction and eventual Garvey was a prominent orator and activist who advocated for Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism. Born in Jamaica, Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association that was dedicated to promoting African Americans and their resettlement in Africa. This reflected his philosophy of Black separation and the establishment of Black nations in Africa, known as Garveyism, which sparked a global movement and went on to inspire members of the Nation of Islam and the Rastafari and Black Power movements. After launching several businesses in the United States, Garvey was convicted of mail fraud and deported back to Jamaica. He continued his work for Black repatriation to Africa until his death in 1940 at age 52. Garvey received a posthumous presidential pardon in his mail fraud case in January 2025. FULL NAME: Marcus Mosiah Garvey August 17, 1887DIED: June 10, 1940BIRTHPLACE: St. Ann's Bay, JamaicaSPOUSE: Amy Ashwood Garvey (1919–1922) and Amy Jacques Garvey (1922–1940)CHILDREN: Marcus III and JuliusASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Leo Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was born on August 17, 1887, in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica. He was the last of 11 children born to Marcus Garvey Sr. and Sarah Jane Richards. His father was a stonemason, and his mother was a domestic worker and farmer. Marcus Sr. was a great influence on young Marcus, who once described his father as 'severe, firm, determined, bold, and strong, refusing to yield even to superior forces if he believed he was right.' His father was known to have a large library where Marcus Jr. learned to read. At age 14, young Marcus became a printer's apprentice. In 1903, he traveled to Kingston, Jamaica, and soon became involved in union activities. In 1907, he took part in an unsuccessful printer's strike, and the experience kindled in him a passion for political activism. Three years later, he traveled throughout Central America, working as a newspaper editor and writing about the exploitation of migrant workers in the plantations. In 1912, Garvey moved to London, where he attended the University of London's Birkbeck College and worked as a messenger for the African Times and Orient Review. It was there he was exposed to Pan-African nationalism, an ideology that promotes unity among people of African descent. During this time, Garvey also discovered Booker T. Washington's autobiography, Up From Slavery, which greatly influenced his philosophy. He believed that Black people should be economically self-sufficient and establish an independent nation in Africa. This ideology became known as Garveyism. Garvey returned to Jamaica after two years in London. In August 1914, he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA), with the goal of uniting all of African diaspora to 'establish a country and absolute government of their own.' Inspired by Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, Garvey traveled to the United States in 1916 to raise funds for a similar vocational school in Jamaica. He settled in New York City and formed a UNIA chapter in Harlem to promote a separatist philosophy of social, political, and economic freedom for Black people. In 1918, Garvey began publishing the widely distributed newspaper Negro World to convey his message. He later purchased Harlem's Liberty Hall auditorium, where he held meetings to help spread his philosophy. In 1919, Garvey and UNIA launched his most well-known business venture, a shipping company called the Black Star Line that established trade and commerce between people of African descent around the globe and transported passengers to Africa. He viewed the shipping company as a symbol of tangible success and economic potential for Black people. At the same time, Garvey started the Negros Factories Association, a series of companies that would manufacture marketable commodities in every big industrial center in the Western hemisphere and Africa. While these ventures helped facilitate the spread of Garveysim, they ultimately failed as businesses due to mismanagement and corruption. In August 1920, UNIA claimed an estimated 4 million members and held its first International Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Before a crowd of 25,000 people from all over the world, Marcus Garvey spoke of having pride in African history and culture. Many people found his words inspiring but not all. Some established Black leaders thought his separatist philosophy ill-conceived. W.E.B. Du Bois, a prominent Black leader and cofounder of the NAACP, called Garvey 'the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America.' Garvey, meanwhile, felt Du Bois was an agent of the white elite. W.E.B. Du Bois wasn't the worst adversary of Garvey; history would soon reveal FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's fixation on ruining Garvey on account of his radical ideas. Hoover felt threatened by the Black leader and feared he was inciting Black people across the country to stand up in militant defiance. He referred to Garvey as a 'notorious negro agitator' and, for several years, desperately sought ways to find damning personal information on him, even going so far as to hire the first Black FBI agent in 1919 to infiltrate Garvey's ranks and spy on him. 'They placed spies in the UNIA,' historian Winston James said. 'They sabotaged the Black Star Line. The engines... of the ships were actually damaged by foreign matter being thrown into the fuel.' Decades later, Hoover would use similar methods to obtain information on Black leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. In 1922, Garvey and three other UNIA officials were charged with mail fraud involving the Black Star Line. Trial records indicate several improprieties occurred in the prosecution of the case. It didn't help that the shipping line's books contained many accounting irregularities. On June 23, 1923, Garvey was convicted and sentenced to prison for five years. Claiming to be a victim of a politically motivated miscarriage of justice, Garvey appealed his conviction but was denied. He served two years of his five-year sentence, starting in 1925, before he was released from prison and immediately deported to Jamaica. More than a century after his conviction, Garvey was posthumously pardoned by President Joe Biden in January 2025. Also in the 1920s, Garvey wrote three books. His first was The Philosophy and Opinion of Marcus Garvey, initially published in 1923. He went on to pen Aims and Objects of Movement for Solution of Negro Problem the following year before delivering his final work, The Tragedy of White Injustice, in 1927.$12.73 at Garvey continued his political activism and the work of UNIA in Jamaica and then moved to London in 1935. But he didn't command the same influence he had earlier. Perhaps in desperation or maybe in delusion, Garvey collaborated with outspoken segregationist and white supremacist Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi to promote a reparations scheme. The Greater Liberia Act of 1939 outlined a plan to deport 12 million African Americans to Liberia at federal expense to relieve unemployment. The act failed in Congress, and Garvey lost even more support among the Black population. Garvey was married twice. He met his first wife, Amy Ashwood, at a debate program in Jamaica in 1914. The two were a decade apart in age, and she was 17 years old at the time of their meeting. Ashwood later became Garvey's personal secretary and a member of the UNIA board of management. The two became secretly engaged in 1916 but were briefly separated when Ashwood's parents sent her back to Panama, where she spent much of her childhood. After reuniting in the United States, the pair got married in a private Catholic ceremony in December 1919, followed by a public ceremony and reception at Liberty Hall. Just months after their wedding, however, Garvey filed for an annulment, citing his new bride's infidelity as the cause of the split. Their divorce was finalized in July 1922. That same month, Garvey married his second wife, Amy Jacques, who was Ashwood's friend and maid of honor. At the time of their marriage, Jacques had already taken over Ashwood's secretarial duties and later became Garvey's personal representative while he was in prison. In 1930, she gave birth to their first child, Marcus Mosiah Garvey III. Three years later, their second son, Julius, was born. Garvey died in London on June 10, 1940, after several strokes. Due to travel restrictions during World War II, his body was interred in the United Kingdom's capital city. In 1964, his remains were exhumed and taken to Jamaica, where the government proclaimed him Jamaica's first national hero and reinterred him at a shrine in the National Heroes Park. His memory and influence remain—his message of pride and dignity inspired many Americans in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. In tribute to his many contributions, Garvey's bust has been displayed in the Organization of American States' Hall of Heroes in Washington D.C. The country of Ghana named its shipping line the Black Star Line and its national soccer team the Black Stars, both in honor of Garvey. In addition, a park in Harlem, New York, was named after him in 1973. Hungry men have no respect for law, authority or human life. If you have no confidence in self you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence you have won even before you have started. [Poverty is] a hellish state to be in. It is no virtue. It is a crime. Our union must know no clime, boundary, or nationality... let us hold together under all climes and in every country. We were the first Fascists, when we had 100,000 disciplined men, and were training children, Mussolini was still an unknown. Mussolini copied our Fascism. The question may start in America, but [it] will not end there. Just at that time, other races were engaged in seeing their cause through—the Jews through their Zionist movement and the Irish through their Irish movement—and I decided that, cost what it might, I would make this a favorable time to see the Negro's interest through. My garb is Scotch, my name is Irish, my blood is African, and my training is half-American and half-English, and I think that with that tradition I can take care of myself. The Negro's chance will come when the smoke from the fire and ashes of 20th century civilization has blown off. There are two classes of men in the world, those who succeed and those who do not succeed. Be not deceived. Wealth is strength, wealth is power, wealth is influence, wealth is justice, is liberty, is real human rights. If the Negro is not careful he will drink in all the poison of modern civilization and die from the effects of it. Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! You Might Also Like Nicole Richie's Surprising Adoption Story The Story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Her Mother Queen Camilla's Life in Photos
