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TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century
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TIME, Almanac of the 20th Century.ISO
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<text>
<title>
(1920s) Marcus Garvey
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1920s Highlights
People
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
Marcus Garvey
</hdr>
<body>
<p>(JUNE 11, 1923)
</p>
<p> In August, 1920, at Liberty Hall, Manhattan, a Jamaican Negro,
aged 36, with broad nose, and of the true Negro type, was
publicly married by 30 officiating clergymen in the presence of
3,000 Negro delegates from all over the world.
</p>
<p> He styled himself "Provisional President of Africa, Commander
of the Order of the Nile, Distinguished Son of Ethiopia." His
name was Marcus Garvey.
</p>
<p> Last week, the Federal Government rested its case against this
same Marcus Garvey for using the mails to defraud.
</p>
<p> Between these two events stands the betrayal of the most
ambitious effort the world has yet seen to organize the world's
400,000,000 Negroes with the aim of establishing world-wide
black supremacy and the freedom of Africa.
</p>
<p> Garvey was the leader of this movement; he possessed great
ambition; at the height of his power his organization (The
International Negro Improvement Association) numbered 4,000,000
members; he was President of the Black Star Line Company, which
aimed to run ships to Africa and the West Indies from America;
his career led him to great power, which he preferred to
exercise for his own aggrandizement, and thus defrauded and
discredited the legitimate activities of the people he pretended
to serve.
</p>
<p> In August, 1920, 3,000 delegates, from Abyssinia to Australia,
met in Manhattan. A Declaration of Negro Rights and a
Constitution of Negro Liberty were drawn up. A flag colored
black, red and green was adopted; a World Leader and Supreme
Deputy Potentate were elected; plans were made to build a "Black
House" in Washington for Marcus Garvey, newly elected
Provisional President of Africa.
</p>
<p> Disaster overtook the Line. Of the three ships operated two
went aground and the third was seized to meet claims of
$100,000. Garvey continued to solicit passage money to Africa
after he had no ships. On January 12, 1922, he was arrested and
later indicted, with three associates. The trial of the Black
Star Line Company revealed that the line has $31.75 in the bank
and liabilities of $731,432.
</p>
<p>(DECEMBER 12, 1927)
</p>
<p> Five years ago, Marcus Garvey, orotund Jamaican, paraded
through Harlem, the cultural capital of his race in the U.S.,
in uniforms brightly befitting "His Highness the Potentate of
the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the Provisional
General of Africa." Then he became a janitor of Atlanta
Penitentiary. Four years ago he was convicted of fraudulent use
of the U.S. mails in selling the stock of the Black Star Line,
by which he proposed to transport U.S. Negroes to their
aboriginal home and for which he actually purchased a
secondhand flagship. He began serving a five-year term in 1925.
</p>
<p> Last month Marcus Garvey's term was commuted by President
Coolidge, at the instance of Attorney General John Garibaldi
Sargent. Since Marcus Garvey had never taken out his final
citizenship papers, he was eligible for deportation as an
undesirable alien. Last week, to a chorus of "Amens" and
"Ain't-that-the-truths," Marcus Garvey made his farewell speech
from the top deck of the S.S. Saramacca, sailing from New
Orleans to Panama, whence Marcus Garvey was to be shunted along
to Jamaica. "His Highness, the Potentate" was in excellent form
and spirits.
</p>
<p> "I leave America fully as happy as when I came," he
elucidated, "in that my relationship with the Negro people was
most pleasant and inspiring, and I shall work forever in their
behalf.
</p>
<p> "The program of Nationalism is as important as it ever
was...The program I represent is not hostile to the white race
or any other race. All that I want to do is to complete the
freedom of the Negro economically and culturally and make him
a full man..."
</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>