ABSTRACT
Marcus Garvey was born in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, 1887 and lived on the island for twenty years attending the Church of England school although a Roman Catholic. He learned the printing trade and followed it for years until he went abroad, although he had the reputation of never sticking to one job long. He attended [Birkbeck] College in England graduating in 1913. He travelled in England, France and the Central European countries, returning to Jamaica shortly after graduating from [Birkbeck]. While abroad he conceived his idea of organizing the Negro Improvement Society. On his return to Jamaica he organized, together with his sweetheart Amy Ashwood, the Jamaica Improvement Association which appears to have been a sort of Forum for the agitation of Negro questions. Garvey acquired debts he could not pay and moved from place to place fmally leaving for Port Limon, Costa Rica, coming to New York in 1916. He arrived penniless and devoted himself at once to matters affecting his race. He announced himself to be Marcus Gar[ ve]y Jr. of the Jamaica Improvement Association, Kingston, Jamaica, W.1. and collected some money for schools to be established on the Island for colored girls. He posed as a Roman Catholic, securing the use of their churches to lecture in, acquiring the confidence of colored people and even their fmancial support and that of the Catholic
Church. The schools were never built. At the same time he started his soap box campaign for the "back to Africa" idea and for the Negro control of the continent. He next raised "a large sum of money" to build a school for colored children in New York to teach them anti-white ideas. The school was never built. He obtained loans to start a negro daily paper and then bought out "The Negro World," a weekly. Until June 1919 he was about bankrupt and had seven "convictions" for non-payment of wages.
