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By Root 1719 0

class, religion, nationality, and ethnicity that had traditionally divided their communities. People of African descent were all part of a transnational “nation,” a global race with a common destiny. The UNIAʹs initial manifesto of 1914 called for people of Negro or African parentage “to establish a Universal confraternity among the race; to promote the spirit of race, pride and love . . . [and] to assist in civilizing the backward tribes of Africa.” Later, many middle-class blacks dismissed Garveyism as a hopelessly utopian back-to-Africa movement, which underplayed its radical global vision. What Garvey recognized was that the Old World and the New were inextricably linked: blacks throughout the Caribbean and the United States could never be fully free unless Africa itself was liberated. Pan-Africanism—the belief in Africa’s ultimate political independence, and that of all colonial states in which blacks lived—was the essential goal.

Garvey also recognized that creating a mass movement required a cultural revolution. Generations of blacks had endured slavery, segregation, and colonialism, producing a widespread sense of submission to white authority. Black power depended on activities that could restore both self-respect and a sense of community—essentially the development of a united black culture. For these reasons, “cultural nationalism” occupied a central role in his project. Garveyites sponsored literary events and published the writings of their followers; they organized debates, held concerts, and paraded beneath gaudy banners of black, red, and green. They were encouraged to write nationalist anthems, most popular among these being the “Universal Ethiopian Anthem,” which featured the powerful if ungainly chorus:

Advance, advance to victory,

Let Africa be free;

Advance to meet the foe

With the might

Of the red, the black and the green.

Garvey used pageantry to great effect in building the culture of his movement. Exalted titles and colorful uniforms created a sense of historical import and seriousness, and gave poor African Americans a sense of pride and excitement. At a 1921 Harlem gathering, six thousand Garveyites launched the “inauguration of the Empire of Africa.” Garvey himself was crowned president general of the UNIA and provisional president of Africa, who with one potentate and one supreme deputy potentate constituted the royalty of the empire. Garveyite leaders were bestowed titles as “Knights of the Nile, Knights of the Distinguished Service Order of Ethiopia and Dukes of Niger and of Uganda.” The fact that Garvey’s movement controlled no territory in colonial Africa or the Caribbean did not matter. Blacks were identifying themselves as a nobility in exile, working toward the day when Europeans would be expelled from the Motherland and they would claim inheritance.

The UNIA assimilated themes from various African-American religious rituals. Although a nominal Catholic, Garvey held that people of African descent had to embrace a black God and a black theology of liberation. This was not an open rejection of Christianity, although he did declare at one rally, “We have been worshipping a false god. . . . We just create a god of our own and give this new religion to the Negroes of the world.” In 1929, Garvey went so far as to say that “the Universal Negro Improvement Association is fundamentally a religious institution.”

Garveyism created a positive social environment for strengthening black households and families that confronted racial prejudice in their everyday lives. As in any all-encompassing social movement, enthusiastic members often find the best companionship within the group. Whatever initially brought Earl Little and Louise Norton together, they shared a commitment to Garvey’s ideals that would sustain them in the future. They made their first home among Philadelphia’s black community, where they would reside for nearly two years. By 1918, Philadelphia had become the hub of extensive UNIA activities, and soon the chapter’s growth exploded; between 1919 and 1920, more than ten thousand