The Black Star Line sets sail

MARCUS GARVEY travelled to the United States in 1916 while World War 1 was raging in Europe. Upon arriving at the port in New York on March 24, he headed straight for Harlem. With limited funds, he moved in with a Jamaican family, and found work as a printer with the help of his friend, Wilfred Domingo.

Soon, he started speaking in public about the Universal Negro Improvement Association/African Communities League (UNIA/ACL) and its aims. In May, he began his tour of 38 states, promoting the organisation. In America, he found a problem different from what he had experienced in Jamaica. When he visited the black leaders, he discovered that they had no plans to make life better for black people.

Garvey had arrived in America at a time when there was a vacuum in black leadership. He underscored the need for blacks to interpret their own history and control their own destiny. Harlemites and black Americans loved and adored him for what he was saying. He was the first to preach boldly and unabashedly that “black is beautiful”. He awakened in black America an awareness of what slavery and oppression had robbed from black people, the concept of “nationhood”.

Garvey established the New York division of the UNIA in May 1917. He had intended to return to Jamaica to complete the setting-up of the UNIA in Kingston, but, encouraged by the reception he had received from some black Americans, he decided to stay. Within a month, the UNIA had more than two million members across the country. Very few blacks who encountered the UNIA could resist the excitement surrounding this growing movement.

WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON

In 1918, nine years after the failure of his first newspaper, The Watchman, Garvey and the UNIA established The Negro World, first published on his birthday, August 17. It quickly grew from a New York weekly into a worldwide phenomenon with a peak circulation of 200,000. Colonial authorities felt threatened by The Negro World because of its strong pan-African and anticolonial sentiments. It was confiscated and banned in many countries, including Belize, Trinidad, British Guiana, Jamaica, and several African colonies.

Yet, by June 1919 there were over two million UNIA members in 30 branches in different cities. In that same year Marcus Garvey established the first Liberty Hall at 120-140 West 138th St in Harlem. Referred to by Garvey as the ‘Cradle of Negro Liberty’, Liberty Hall, New York, was the first official international headquarters and meeting place of the UNIA. Black people worldwide flocked the Liberty Halls because they had a voice, felt important, and the freedom to engage in discussions about their well-being.

The UNIA established several affiliates including The Black Cross Nurses, who provided health and social services to the local black communities; The African Legion, an all-male paramilitary group; African Motor Corps, a female group trained in mechanics and military discipline; and The Juveniles, comprising children.

There were also various artistic and cultural groups. The Negro Factories Corporation (NFC) was created in 1920. However, by 1922, most of the businesses that had operated under the NFC had been closed, though local UNIA divisions worldwide continued to operate their businesses.

At the end of 1919, Marcus Garvey had built up UNIA branches all over the world. By August 1920, over four million people had joined the movement. And the UNIA was to have eight conventions in Garvey’s lifetime. However, the first convention was the most significant as it was the first real glimpse of the magnitude of the UNIA and Garvey’s influence.

The convention adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, one of the earliest and most complete documents advocating human rights and detailing the abuse against black people worldwide. The colours – red, black and green – were selected as the official colours of the black race.

Yet, Garvey was more than promoting symbolism; he wanted the black race to prosper economically, so in April 1919, he announced plans to launch a steamship venture known as the Black Star Line Shipping Company (BSL) to transport cargoes of African produce to the United States, and to give people a sense of freedom to travel.

Black passengers often complained of second-class treatment on ships, even if they paid first-class fares. Garvey held a mass meeting at Carnegie Hall to promote the sale of the BSL stock; he wanted to give them shares in the corporation. On June 27, 1919, the Black Star Line of Delaware was incorporated.

Black people greeted the news of the establishment of the BSL with great enthusiasm. Frequent travellers saw in it the opportunity of travelling free from racial discrimination. Missionaries welcomed it because it promised a shorter route to Africa.

Black merchants saw in it the opportunity to trade independently without relying on white shipping companies. It was Garvey’s most ambitious business idea yet, but, nobody could imagine that the establishment of the BSL was the beginning the end of Garvey in America.