Garveyism

Garveyism is an aspect of black nationalism that refers to the social, economic, and political policies of UNIA-ACL founder Marcus Garvey. At the movement's peak of popularity, followers of Garveyism, known as "Garveyites", numbered in the millions, with almost a thousand local divisions in the United States, the Caribbean, Central America, Canada and Africa. The ideology of Garveyism centers on the unification and empowerment of African-American men, women and children under the banner of their collective African descent, and the repatriation of African slave descendants and profits to the African continent. Garvey was fought by the African-American establishment in the U.S. An investigation by the Justice Department, directed by J. Edgar Hoover, led to Garvey's arrest on charges of mail fraud in January 1922, and his projects collapsed.

Garvey put forward his dreams in response to the marginalization and discrimination of African Americans in the United States and the Caribbean at the time with the hopes of inspiring black Americans to proactively establish infrastructure, institutions and local economies rather than expecting such from the heavily prejudiced post-reconstruction American government. The movement had a major impact in stimulating and shaping black politics in the Caribbean and in parts of Africa.

See also

• Black Power
• Black nationalism

Further reading

• * Ewing, Adam, The Age of Garvey: How a Jamaican Activist Created a Mass Movement and Changed Global Black Politics (Princeton University Press, 2014), stresses his global impact.