ABSTRACT

The Rise and Fall of the Garvey Movement in the Urban South provides the first detailed examination of the Universal Negro Improvement Association's rise, maturation, and eventual decline in the urban South between 1918 and 1942. It examines the ways in which Southern black workers fused locally-based traditions, ideologies, and strategies of resistance with the Pan-African agenda of the UNIA to create a dynamic and multifaceted movement. A testament to the multidimensionality of black political subjectivity, Southern Garveyites fashioned a politics reflective of their international, regional, and local attachments. Moving beyond the usual focus on New York and the charismatic personality of Marcus Garvey, this book situates black workers at the center of its analysis and aims to provide a much-needed grassroots perspective on the Garvey movement. More than simply providing a regional history of one of the most important Pan-African movements of the twentieth century, The Rise and Fall of the Garvey Movement in the Urban South demonstrates the ways in which racial, class, and spatial dynamics resulted in complex, and at times competing articulations of black nationalism.

chapter |12 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|32 pages

“We Are Constantly on the Firing Line”

The Garvey Movement in New Orleans, 1920–1935

chapter 3|22 pages

“I Am a Stranger Here”

Black Bahamians and the Garvey Movement in Miami, Florida, 1920–1933

chapter |8 pages

Figures

chapter 4|24 pages

Virginia Garveyism, 1918–1942

chapter 5|11 pages

Life after the Garvey Movement