How Did Marcus Garvey Influence The Civil Rights Movement

Soon after World War I, Garvey concluded that the anger that engulfed many Black communities after the war could be used as a catalyst to end both imperialism in Africa and discrimination in the United States. He combined the economic nationalist ideas of Booker T. Washington with various Pan-Africanist idealists of the time. Garvey’s goals were modern and urban. He wanted to end imperialist rule and create modern societies in Africa. He formed black communities on three continents with his newspaper the “Negro World ,” and in 1919 he established the Black Star Line, an international shipping company to provided transportation and encourage trade among the Blacks in Africa and Blacks in the United States. In the same year he founded the Negro Factories Corporation to establish such

After World War I ended, the 1920’s brought on dramatic political and social changes. For most people, the 1920’s brought them more conflict. They did not like the new changes and were trying to keep them from happening. However, for a small group of young people the 1920’s was a great time to make progress and move forward from the conservative norm. After women got suffrage, they pushed through the double standards and tried and got jobs in factories and offices, instead of only doing domestic work. African Americans pushed through the discrimination they were facing and moved to the northern states, where they got better jobs and better opportunities to pursue their dreams in literature, art, music, and stage performance.

Uplifting the Race is a rather confusing yet stimulating study that goes over the rising idea and interests in the evolution of "racial uplift" ideology from the turn and through the twentieth century. In the first part of the book, Gaines analyzes the black elite obsession with racial uplift ideology and the tensions it produced among black intellectuals. Gaines argues for the most part that during the nineteenth-century racial uplift ideology was part of a "liberation theology" as stated by Gaines, which stressed a group struggle for freedom and social advancement.

African-Americans attempted to establish themselves and prove to whites that they were capable citizens. Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association emphasized racial pride and economic self-help, and Booker T. Washington, leading spokesperson for the plight of African-Americans, told blacks to ignore racial slurs and inferiority comments while working to build self-dignity and worth. Washington believed that in order to identify themselves, they had to cooperate with whites and gain respect over time. In Addition, many African-Americans began to define themselves as a race in the nineteenth century by leaving white churches and creating their own. They worshiped according to their own customs, chose leaders, managed religious affairs, and established a lifestyle of their own. The African-Americans as a race attempted to define themselves as dignified, economically independent citizens.

By 1919 the UNIA reached its peek with about 2,000,000 members and hundreds of branches worldwide. Marcus also founded the Negro Factories Corporation (NFC) which its purpose was to promote black economic independence by providing money and labor to black business owners. It also helped to build factories in the United States, Africa, Central America, and the West Indies. He also founded the first and, to this day, the largest black-owned multinational businesses, the Black Star Line (BSL), which focused on purchasing boats and serving an international shipping triangle that would return black people to their homeland of Africa. The shipping triangle revolved around the United States, West Indies, and Africa. Marcus Garvey not only founded companies or groups, but he also founded the Negro World in 1918, which was the leading black weekly and soon had 50,000 readers in the United States, Latin America, the West Indies, and Africa. Due to it’s content of black equality and freedom, the British and the French banned it from their African colonies. Even leaders who did not agree with Garvey’s ideas appreciated his efforts to build black pride and political independence (Kranz, Koslow 86).

Also during this time Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), in which they both aimed to bring opportunities into the African American community. Not only did this help make African Americans feel proud of their race, but it also brought them together, not only in New York, but all over the country. They soon began to create a lifestyle for themselves that was equivalent to the White Americans and began to advance in the areas of jazz music, art, and literature. All this is what was starting to become known as the Harlem Renaissance.

In the 1920’s American Society was a decade of exciting social changes and profound cultural conflicts. In the other way, the 1920’s also called “The Roaring Twenties” is because after the World War I, the economic growth were increasing more than double than before in the social life of the United States. Moreover, many companies grew larger and many new jobs opportunities created by the government with the high wages, so that the American had enough money to buy the new good stuff. When the Americans were getting the high wages, the government limited the immigration to come into the United States. At the same time, the African Americans were segregated by the white people such as Jim Crows’ Law.

In document 1, Rollin Lynde Hartt talks about the blacks during the 1920’s. The term Hartt uses is “The New Negro”, and he explains how blacks want their rights and simply don’t care about the segregation process as long as they cut to the chase. The black community is tired of being treated like they don’t belong and they don’t see a reason to continue fighting a losing battle. Soon Marcus Gravey establishes the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Jamaica. Marcus later comes to the United States and tells blacks that it’s time for them to separate themselves from the whites and know where they stand. The blacks had understood that it was a call for them to return to Africa. This is an example of social and cultural division during the 1920’s. The whites saw them as if they were less after all they had fought for and, the whites still managed to be racist even after the 1920’s.

The 1920s were just a time of great economic success, there were also very positive social movements too. The main social movement that took place was the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a time of increased African American literature and art that formed a movement. This movement, the Harlem Renaissance, came from the Harlem areas of New York City and was the first cultural specific movement in this era. Due to the mass migration to the urban cities of the northeast from 1914-1918, many blacks began to establish themselves in certain areas, such as Harlem. Those

According to Marcus Garvey, the “Negro’s greatest enemy” were white people and politicians. Essentially, politicians, of every race, were blocking his efforts. Garvey communicated that there was no solution to this problem, unless black people created their own country. This would have given them economical and social freedom. Since God was their inspiration, it was always intended that everyone was free, and not was not to be enslaved by others. Garvey thought that no one should ever feel superior, when it came to race. Although, Garvey did not outright convey who the “enemy” was, it can be interpreted that white people were the enemy.

The 1920’s were a time of change for African Americans. They were beginning to retain a sense of pride in their background and culture, were becoming more independent socially and economically, and were becoming more militant. Part of this was because of the Great Migration, in which a proliferation of African Americans moved from the Southern states to the Northern states, and the excessive levels of racism and prejudice they faced during the process. African Americans were really starting to make their voices and identities prevalent, especially through movements like the Harlem Renaissance and Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). This mentality of independence and militance that African Americans adopted which is represented through the actions of Ossian Sweet is what makes up the 1920s cultural construct of the “New Negro” which allowed me to understand the realness and effectiveness of cultural constructs.

Nonetheless, Garvey’s vision for Negroes was that we can do anything that we set our minds to regardless of the circumstances that we could face. Garvey writes, “ Let no man pull you down, let no man destroy your ambition, because man is but your companion, your equal; man is your brother; he is not your lord; he is not your sovereign master”. (p.1003) Garvey’s vision to the Negroes was that man is not the one you live for, God is the one who will be their with you to the end and he will never leave you.

This idea has taken on many different forms over the past century and a half, and its discourse has evolved alongside the major works of prominent figures like W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Delany, and Marcus Garvey. A common theme among these thinkers is the notion of historicizing the development of black culture relative to diasporic movements in the preceding centuries. However, they differ significantly in their visions and aspirations for the culture at large, as well as in their interpretations of how peoples of African descent should behave with respect to the dominant (primarily white) societies in which they live and function. In particular, earlier scholars like Du Bois tended to “sustain their faith in a partnership with white allies, wagering that [their] commitments to ‘civilization building’ ... would hasten the day when they and their race would be respected as equal partners” (Ewing 16). In contrast, Garvey, a contemporary of Locke, supported a radical agenda for African independence, and a mass migration to bring peoples of African descent back to Africa (Ewing 76).

1. The Martin Luther King Center for Non-violence was very informative. There is a wonderful statue of Gandhi out front (one of MLK's role models). I was confused that the National Park movie showing inside was about Selma, which I already knew about having seen the Hollywood movie. Would have preferred something more about MLK's early life and Sweet Auburn. However, I was amazed by the wealth of information on Civil Rights movement, which in my opinion is a great achievement.

In many ways it could be argued that Marcus Garvey was the most significant African American civil rights leader of this time because of his role in tackling the social issues African American’s faced. He aimed to improve the lives of African Americans by encouraging them to take control of their own affairs and education. His role surrounding this issue is illustrated by his founding of the UNIA. This Universal Negro Improvement Association was an organisation dedicated to racial pride, economic self sufficiency and the formation of an independent black nation in Africa. Through this and the magazine the ‘Negro World’ he urged African Americans to be proud of their race, and argued “a people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”. It has been said that through Garvey’s dedication to social improvement for his race he managed to capture the imagination of many blacks for whom the American Dream was a dirty joke.