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Marcus Garvey

Marcus Moziah Garvey (17 August 1887-10 June 1940) was a Jamaican and African-American activist who founded and led the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) during the 1910s and 1920s. Garvey was a supporter of racial segregation and was condemned by many American black leaders, and he would be convicted of attempted fraud in 1923, deported to Jamaica, and died of two strokes in London.

Biography[]

Marcus Garvey was born in Saint Ann's Bay, Jamaica on 17 August 1887. He was born and educated in Jamaica, and he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914. He aimed to encourage racial pride and black unity through the slogan "Africa for the Africans at Home and Abroad". He failed to attract a following and in 1916 went to New York to campaign for the repatriation of African-Americans who could take over and govern former German colonies.

By 1919 UNIA claimed a membership of 2,000,000, and had founded a newspaper, Negro World, a Negro Factories Corporation, and a shipping line called Black Star Line. Deeply resented by W.E.B. Du Bois, Garvey's followers clashed with more moderate blacks in the 1920s. Garvey believed that he and his followers were the "first fascists", and that Benito Mussolini had copied fascism from him, but that black reactionaries had sabotaged it; he supported the breeding-out of mixed-race people and supported the creation of a one-party and authoritarian state in Africa.

Although personally honest and sincere, he mismanaged his movement's finances and was convicted of attempted fraud in 1923. After serving part of a prison sentence, he was deported to Jamaica, and he died of two strokes in London.

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