Black Star Line sinks, black opposition rises

IN SEPTEMBER 1919, the Black Star Line (BSL) Corporation bought the SS Yarmouth, which was later unofficially renamed SS Frederick Douglass after the African-American abolitionist. Several weeks later, thousands of supporters lined the 135th Street pier in Harlem to watch its launch. It eventually made two voyages to the West Indies and Central America where vast crowds gathered to welcome it.

Black people invested in the corporation by purchasing stock shares at US$5 each. In the first year of its activities, the Black Star Line sold several US$100,000 worth of shares. From 1919 to August 1920 alone, stock sales reached 96,285 shares. In 1920, the Black Star Line purchased the SS Shadyside and the SS Kanawha in 1920. Although both had been deemed seaworthy by maritime experts, they later suffered gross mechanical problems causing great financial loss to the corporation.

Almost from the beginning, the corporation faced deceit and trickery from merchants, crew members, and even some UNIA officers. Unsound recommendations came from advisors. Staff and outsiders stole money from the corporation. Unscrupulous BSL officers surreptitiously piled up thousands of dollars in debts against the company. Ships were damaged at sea and workers who were dismissed joined the ranks of Garvey’s enemies.

While Garvey was on a business trip to the West Indies in the spring of 1921, the Black Star Line received a devastating blow from which it was never able to recover. A sum of $25,000 was paid by one of the officers of the corporation to a man to purchase a ship, but the ship was never delivered, and the money was never returned. The company was defrauded of a further sum of $11,000.

Garvey once declared that the movement he had started would never be crushed. Yet, by April 1922, the Black Star Line Shipping Company was dissolved due to financial difficulties. Its collapse did not affect the larger vision of the UNIA which had 900 branches at the time with an estimated global membership of more than six million.

In 1924, Marcus Garvey and the UNIA launched the Black Cross Navigation and Trading company, a second steamship venture with similar aims as the Black Star Line. But, after losing money due to high operating costs and being deceived by the ship’s freight agent, the UNIA had to sell the Booker T. Washington in 1926. Garvey’s dream of owning a shipping line finally stopped floating.

Yet, Garvey’s black unity and race pride vision was still very much alive. Ironically, for some black people, it might as well be dead. The opposition started within his own organisation from the very beginning, that he had to break away from some black politicians who divided the organisation and robbed it of much-needed money. Office records were stolen, and sensitive and confidential information were communicated to US authorities.

Many of his own associates and employees were jealous of his power and influence. This Jamaican’s rise to fame and prominence did not sit well with them. Chief among them were WEB DuBois, Wilfred Adolphus Domingo, and A. Philip Randolph. Domingo and Randolph were early associates and supporters of Garvey and the UNIA.

WEB DuBois was Garvey’s earliest and most persistent critic. He was a noted black scholar, civil-rights activist, and editor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) Crisis magazine. He became Garvey’s bitter and unrelenting nemesis. DuBois once published a harsh report of an investigation of the finances of the Black Star Line in 1922.

In August of that year, Randolph, NAACP representatives, and other leaders formed the Friends of Negro Freedom, which organised a ‘Garvey-must-go’ campaign. The group openly accused Garvey of being a fraud and urged the federal government to investigate the Black Star Line and allegations of violence by Garvey’s followers.

While some coloured people in America were adamant to bring Garvey down, there was also much opposition towards him and the UNIA outside of America. Garveyites in parts of Africa and the Caribbean were heavily persecuted by colonial authorities. In 1921, United States Marines barged into a UNIA meeting in the Dominican Republic and arrested everyone in attendance.

In several countries, possession of the UNIA’s The Negro World newspaper carried severe penalties. In Cuba, the government, headed by President Gerardo Machado, declared the UNIA illegal and closed all Liberty Halls. When they were finally re-opened, they were closely monitored.

On February 22, 1921, Garvey left America to raise much-needed funds in the Caribbean and Central America. But the Bureau of Investigation was on his trail, even alerting immigration officials to be on the lookout for his departure from the United States. He went to Cuba, first, then to Port Limon in Costa Rica, where 10,000 people showed up to greet him and showered him with more than US$50,000 cash.

In Panama, Garvey was less successful in getting financial assistance. There, he was still without a visa to return to America, so he sailed to Jamaica, where he waited for several months as US authorities delayed his return. He found his way back to America where the government was plotting with some black and brown people to send him to jail.