Back to Africa movement
In the early twentieth century, Marcus Garvey and his movement, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), founded in his native Jamaica in 1914, boosted emigration sentiment. Three years later, Garvey immigrated to New York and set up headquarters in Harlem.
Though scorned by the black middle and professional classes, his "Back to Africa" mantra and charismatic leadership rallied many African Americans. The UNIA became the largest mass movement in African-American history, and attracted followers throughout the Caribbean, Africa, South America, and Great Britain.
Garvey's version of Black Nationalism argued that African Americans' quest for social equality was a delusion. They were fated to be a permanent minority who could never assimilate because white Americans would never let them. African Americans, therefore, could not improve their condition or gain autonomy in the United States. Only in Africa was self-emancipation possible.
Garvey drew his following largely from the lower end of the economic scale. Southerners who had come North during the Great Migration that accompanied World War I, servicemen returning from the European battlefields, and his fellow West Indians seemed particularly attuned to his philosophy.
The UNIA's first convention, held in 1920 in New York, lasted for thirty-one days with many thousands in attendance. It issued a manifesto, the Declaration of Rights for the Negro People of the World, and developed plans for a settlement in Liberia. The UNIA sold millions of shares in the Black Star Line, its own shipping company, to its members. Three steamships were purchased, and black officers and crew were contracted to sail the emigrants across the Atlantic.
Though scorned by the black middle and professional classes, his "Back to Africa" mantra and charismatic leadership rallied many African Americans. The UNIA became the largest mass movement in African-American history, and attracted followers throughout the Caribbean, Africa, South America, and Great Britain.
Garvey's version of Black Nationalism argued that African Americans' quest for social equality was a delusion. They were fated to be a permanent minority who could never assimilate because white Americans would never let them. African Americans, therefore, could not improve their condition or gain autonomy in the United States. Only in Africa was self-emancipation possible.
Garvey drew his following largely from the lower end of the economic scale. Southerners who had come North during the Great Migration that accompanied World War I, servicemen returning from the European battlefields, and his fellow West Indians seemed particularly attuned to his philosophy.
The UNIA's first convention, held in 1920 in New York, lasted for thirty-one days with many thousands in attendance. It issued a manifesto, the Declaration of Rights for the Negro People of the World, and developed plans for a settlement in Liberia. The UNIA sold millions of shares in the Black Star Line, its own shipping company, to its members. Three steamships were purchased, and black officers and crew were contracted to sail the emigrants across the Atlantic.