Marcus Garvey

 Spent early life in Jamaica  Began working as a printer’s apprentice at age 14, where he participated in an unsuccessful printer’s strike that sparked his passion for political activism.  Traveled through Central America while working for a newspaper and wrote about exploited migrant workers

 Attended college in London and worked for African Times and Orient Review, which advocated Pan- Africanism  Pan-Africanism is the belief that black people should be collectively self-reliant; that is, black people should be unified as both a continent and a people group

 Returned to Jamaica and founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1912 in hopes of establishing a country and government for blacks.  The UNIA: 1. Promoted African Americans 2.Advocated resettlement in Africa (Back to Africa Movement) 3.Promoted a separate black nation in the U.S.

 Garvey traveled to the U.S. in 1916 and worked with Booker T. Washington. He then established a UNIA chapter in Harlem  In 1918, Garvey began publishing Negro World.  In 1919, he created Black Star Line, a shipping company specifically for black people in America, Canada, the Caribbean, South American, Central America, and Africa  By 1920, the UNIA had 4 million members and had its first convention in NYC.

 While many praised Garvey and his philosophy, several established black leaders disagreed. W. E. B. Dubois was one of those leaders.  WEBD said Garvey was, “the most dangerous enemy of the negro race in America.” Garvey said WEBD was a agent of the white elite.

 In 1922 Garvey was charged with mail fraud and found guilty. After spending 5 years in jail, he was released and deported to Jamaica  He moved to London in 1935 and tried to revive his influence, but could not.  Garvey worked with Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo, a white supremacist who heavily supported segregation.  The two created The Greater Liberia Act of 1939, which would deport 12 million African-Americans to Liberia (at federal expense) in an attempt to relieve unemployment problems. Congress did not pass the act.

Ida B. Wells

 Ida B. Wells was an African-American investigative journalist and newspaper editor  She was also active in the fight for women’s rights and suffrage  After her parents died in 1878 when Ida was 16, she became a teacher to provide the finances necessary to keep all of her siblings together  Ida became interested in fighting racial discrimination and improving education for blacks when she learned that white teachers made more than double what she made

 In 1883, Ida and two of her siblings moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where they had family and Ida could make more money as a teacher.  In 1884, Ida was forced to give up her train seat to a white person. Ida attempted to sue the railroad company, but lost the court case when the Tennessee Supreme Court declared that she was just trying to harass the RR company.  After this event, Ida began to frequently write about racial injustice  In 1889, Ida became the co-owner and editor of the anti- segregationist newspaper Free Speech and Headlight ran out of the Beale Street Baptist Church in Memphis

Lynching  Lynching: to murder by mob, most often by hanging, shooting, or burning at the stake  March 1892: Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and William Stewart (three friends of Ida) were lynched just outside of Memphis.  They owned and operated a black grocery store, Peoples Grocery Store, which took some of the business of the white grocery store across the street.

 The owner of the white grocery store, Barrett, was unhappy to lose business to black people and started a riot at Peoples Grocery Store  Police came and charged Moss, McDowell, and Stewart with starting a riot  The three were jailed. Soon after, a mob stole them from the jail, took them outside the city limits and lynched them.

 Ida spoke out about the injustice of her friends being murdered in her newspaper. She tells black people to leave Memphis, stating that “There is, therefore, only one thing left to do; save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons.”  Shortly thereafter, while Ida was out of town, a mob destroyed her newspaper office and threatened her life  Ida studied lynching in New York, began her anti- lynching campaign, and published her book Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws In All Its Phases.

 While studying the patterns of lynching, Ida found that most people were lynched because they were accused of crimes  Often a white person would claim a black person committed a crime (he stole from me, she tried to murder me, etc.) just so the black person would be lynched; many of these accusations were completely fabricated.

In 1892, there were 241 people lynched.  Alabama 22  Arkansas 25  Florida 11  Georgia 17  Tennessee 28  Texas 15  Louisiana 29  Mississippi 16

 Of the 241 people lynched, 156 were blacks living in the South.  The top three charges for these 156 were:  Murder (58)  Rape (46)  Attempted rape (11)  (Information found at l)

 One particularly sick case of lynching was that of a black man named Hastings. He was accused of murdering a white man. When Hastings could not be found, his teenage son and daughter were lynched by hanging and their bodies were repeatedly shot before Hastings was found and lynched.

 In 1895, Ida published The Red Record, a pamphlet based off her her research that concluded that many lynches happened on false accusations of black men attempting to rape white women because white people were threatened by blacks’ economic progress.  Ida helped found the National Association of Colored Women in 1896  Ida participated in the founding of the NAACP, but quickly left due to the largely white leadership  In 1910, Ida forms the Negro Fellowship League in Chicago to help provide shelter, employment, and other services to blacks migrating to Chicago for factory jobs

 From , Ida fought for suffrage for both black and white women  In 1916, Ida speaks to Marcus Garvey’s UNIA and congratulates Garvey on uniting black people  From 1918 until the late 1920’s, Ida challenged racism and the other issues of her time