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Marcus Garvey: Black Moses · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and here's Jerry and
0:19
Speaker 1: this is Stuff you Should Know. And over there the
0:24
Speaker 1: ghost of Marcus Garvey. Yes, who if if you are say, um,
0:33
Speaker 1: not black, and you or you are black and you
0:38
Speaker 1: weren't raised to know your black history, you may still
0:40
Speaker 1: be familiar with that name if you're even tangentially interested
0:44
Speaker 1: in reggae music, because he pops up a lot. There's
0:49
Speaker 1: a great Burning Spears song called Marcus Garvey that Sat
0:53
Speaker 1: O'Connor covered. It's not it's not that good. Um. And
0:57
Speaker 1: then there's also a great uh well he just not
1:02
Speaker 1: only him, but also like his teachings pop up a
1:04
Speaker 1: lot in in reggae, like in the Peter Tosh song African.
1:07
Speaker 1: It's a hundred percent based on the ideas of Marcus Garvey,
1:10
Speaker 1: as we'll see. So that's fun to make sure. The Rastafarianism, yes, so,
1:16
Speaker 1: as we'll talk about later, he's basically considered a profit
1:19
Speaker 1: of Rastafarianism, like he basically has thought of among rastafari
1:23
Speaker 1: as predicting the rise of Rastafarianism ten years before it happened,
1:29
Speaker 1: so very prophetic. Um, And he did a lot of stuff,
1:34
Speaker 1: a huge amount of stuff. And in fact, Chuck what
1:37
Speaker 1: I didn't realize because I've heard of him before, because
1:39
Speaker 1: I do like Peter Tosh and Burning Spear, But Um,
1:44
Speaker 1: I had no idea that you could put him up
1:46
Speaker 1: as possibly the most impactful um black activists in in
1:53
Speaker 1: world history. One. He's up there in the top three easily. Yeah.
1:59
Speaker 1: I was reading essay by one professor that said when
2:02
Speaker 1: he starts his his teachings on Garbi, he said he
2:06
Speaker 1: tries to get the students attention by saying like this
2:10
Speaker 1: man started a movement that was that dwarfed the civil
2:13
Speaker 1: rights movement in number, and you know, students are like,
2:17
Speaker 1: huh who and uh. You know, depending, he's a very
2:20
Speaker 1: polarizing figure. So depending on who you talked to, I mean,
2:23
Speaker 1: everyone will agree that he was a great orator and
2:27
Speaker 1: rally or of people, But depending on who you talked
2:30
Speaker 1: to that you might find both black and white historians
2:34
Speaker 1: say that he was a P. T. Barnum esque Charlatan
2:38
Speaker 1: uh and a bit pompous and full of himself. And
2:41
Speaker 1: other people might say Uh, No, he was the real deal.
2:44
Speaker 1: And he was a great leader of men and very
2:48
Speaker 1: forward thinking progressive views on women at a time where
2:52
Speaker 1: especially black women were not thought of as much beyond
2:54
Speaker 1: you know, domestic workers. Right. I noticed that about him too. Yeah,
2:58
Speaker 1: and he propped them up. And you know, he was
3:01
Speaker 1: a teetotaler, he didn't believe in alcohol. He was he
3:05
Speaker 1: was a lot of things. Yeah, I saw it put
3:07
Speaker 1: very succinctively. He was complicated. He had a lot of
3:10
Speaker 1: views that even if you agreed with his general outlook,
3:13
Speaker 1: you probably view as abhorrent. Um. And you said he
3:17
Speaker 1: was polarizing, He wasn't just polarizing between like the black
3:21
Speaker 1: community and the white community in the in America, in
3:26
Speaker 1: South America and the Caribbean and Africa. Um. He was
3:29
Speaker 1: polarizing within the black community as well. He made enemies
3:33
Speaker 1: out of a lot of people, including some really prominent
3:37
Speaker 1: black thinkers and eventual civil rights leaders. UM. And one
3:43
Speaker 1: of the reasons why, you know, if you're stepping back
3:46
Speaker 1: as like a person living decades and decades after Marcus
3:50
Speaker 1: Garvey lived, and there was this transition between you know, um,
3:55
Speaker 1: blacks under enslavement in America and then like black people
3:59
Speaker 1: trained existing into you know, free citizens and having to
4:04
Speaker 1: go through the Jim Crow gauntlet and eventually get to
4:07
Speaker 1: civil rights living decades and decades after that. It's it's
4:11
Speaker 1: really easy to see, you know, the black community in
4:14
Speaker 1: America the turn of the last century or the last
4:17
Speaker 1: last century year up to the twenties and thirties. Times
4:20
Speaker 1: we're talking about as like this homogeneous group that all
4:23
Speaker 1: basically subscribed and thought about the same things. But Marcus
4:26
Speaker 1: Garvey is a really great instruction and the fact that
4:29
Speaker 1: there's that that's just such a you can't paint any
4:34
Speaker 1: one group of people with one brush, and Marcus Garvey
4:37
Speaker 1: represents that, and that he was very conservative, um and
4:40
Speaker 1: he represented a conservative way of thinking, you know, of
4:42
Speaker 1: philosophy of how Black Americans could move forward in a
4:46
Speaker 1: conservative way, and that put him at odds with like
4:48
Speaker 1: progressive thinkers like W. B. Du Boys, who you know,
4:52
Speaker 1: had different ideas for how black people could you know,
4:55
Speaker 1: rise up and and um raise themselves in America as well.
5:00
Speaker 1: It's a it's good he there's just so much wrapped
5:03
Speaker 1: up in his story that I think it's just gonna
5:06
Speaker 1: be difficult to get it all into one episode. Yeah.
5:09
Speaker 1: And you know, I guess we should say off the
5:11
Speaker 1: bad that the main lightning rod in his his style
5:15
Speaker 1: of radicalism and why he went up against a lot
5:18
Speaker 1: of leaders in the black community was while they were
5:21
Speaker 1: saying like, hey, we need to find a way to
5:24
Speaker 1: to work within the politics of white America and we
5:27
Speaker 1: need to have white America um assist us with these
5:31
Speaker 1: things so we can pick ourselves up by the bootstraps,
5:34
Speaker 1: he was saying, no, no, no, no no, Uh, we
5:36
Speaker 1: should go back to Africa and we need our own
5:39
Speaker 1: space and we shouldn't try to fit into white America
5:43
Speaker 1: and white society. And this was a radical thing too.
5:47
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about all this in detail, but to
5:49
Speaker 1: to do something like hey, I'd like to meet with
5:51
Speaker 1: a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Atlanta because
5:55
Speaker 1: we have similar views on uh going back to Africa
5:58
Speaker 1: and back to Africa movement, and that did not sit
6:00
Speaker 1: well within a lot of people in the black community
6:03
Speaker 1: for obvious reasons. But he was a radical thinker and uh,
6:07
Speaker 1: just you know, every time I thought they should make
6:09
Speaker 1: a movie about him, like we were always saying, I
6:11
Speaker 1: finally found one where they are making a movie. Oh
6:14
Speaker 1: that's good. Who's playing him? Do you know? I believe
6:16
Speaker 1: it's the guy that was in Black Panther and Us.
6:22
Speaker 1: I can't remember his name. Oh, he'd be great, I
6:25
Speaker 1: think he would. And uh because Garvey was a sort
6:28
Speaker 1: of a a large fellow. And I think that it's
6:32
Speaker 1: gonna focus on something we'll talk about later in the episode,
6:35
Speaker 1: which were the years that, um, who is? Why am
6:40
Speaker 1: I completely blanking on the worst American uh in history? Hoover? Okay, yeah,
6:47
Speaker 1: jar Hoover, j Edgar Hoover's uh, you know, planting of
6:51
Speaker 1: of spies within his own within his own organization. So
6:55
Speaker 1: I think it focuses on those years that I can't
6:59
Speaker 1: wait to see it because that was a pretty it's
7:02
Speaker 1: a pretty insidious set of years for Marcus Garvey. For sure.
7:05
Speaker 1: Who are the worst American? He's one of them. For
7:08
Speaker 1: he's up there, he's up there with Kissinger and I
7:11
Speaker 1: could go on, but every time he uh, every time
7:14
Speaker 1: we do which episode where Hoover pops up, it's just like,
7:17
Speaker 1: and here's this awful thing he did. Yeah, I wish
7:21
Speaker 1: we could just paddle him once in a while. Sure,
7:24
Speaker 1: just bring him back in, give him a spanking. And
7:27
Speaker 1: I know that's not cool. But we're talking about Jay
7:29
Speaker 1: Grew Hoover here, Okay. Should we just start with sort
7:33
Speaker 1: of the nuts and bolts of who he was and
7:35
Speaker 1: where he was born and raised and all that good
7:37
Speaker 1: stuff tots. He came from Jamaica, and he lived in
7:41
Speaker 1: Jamaica while it was still under British colonial rule. It
7:43
Speaker 1: was under colonial rule for three hundred seven years, and
7:47
Speaker 1: he was born relatively towards the end of it, but
7:49
Speaker 1: still full squarely in it. Um. And he was born
7:53
Speaker 1: in Marcus Garvey Sr. Who was a Stonemason, and his mom,
7:56
Speaker 1: Sarah Jane Richards, who was a household servant. He was
7:59
Speaker 1: born in St. Anne's Bay, Jamaica, which sounds like an
8:02
Speaker 1: idyllic place, uh in eighteen eighty seven. And um, although
8:06
Speaker 1: he wasn't, you know, born to wealthy parents, he was
8:09
Speaker 1: educated um at a colonial school, and he knew how
8:13
Speaker 1: to read and he was kind of bitten by the
8:16
Speaker 1: reading bug from a very early age and that helped
8:19
Speaker 1: develop him starting pretty young. Yeah, and the fact that
8:23
Speaker 1: he was Jamaican is one thing that uh turned a
8:26
Speaker 1: lot of African Americans off. Like some of the African
8:29
Speaker 1: American leaders would point out later in life. It's like this,
8:32
Speaker 1: it was just Jamaican guy even, Like what does he
8:35
Speaker 1: know about the American experience because it's not like he
8:38
Speaker 1: moved to the United States when he was, you know,
8:41
Speaker 1: five years old or something like that. Like he was
8:43
Speaker 1: born and raised Jamaican, right, I don't think he moved
8:47
Speaker 1: to the US until he was in his late twenties. Maybe, Yeah,
8:50
Speaker 1: So that was sort of a h a bit of
8:53
Speaker 1: a knock against him in the eyes of some African
8:56
Speaker 1: American leaders at the time. But he was one of
8:59
Speaker 1: many kids, but the only one who survived into adulthood
9:03
Speaker 1: and moved to Kingston at fourteen, and he would get
9:08
Speaker 1: a job in a print shop there, which is I
9:10
Speaker 1: guess he learned the trade pretty well because this was
9:12
Speaker 1: the kind of work that he did off and on
9:14
Speaker 1: over the years to support himself, working in different print shops.
9:17
Speaker 1: He always considered himself a journalist. I read and heways
9:21
Speaker 1: started his own paper, yeah, many of them in magazines.
9:24
Speaker 1: And um he was very sharp, dude, um, as demonstrated
9:27
Speaker 1: by that first print shop job because he he started
9:30
Speaker 1: out with no experience whatsoever and within two years he
9:33
Speaker 1: was the foreman of the printing shop. So he was
9:36
Speaker 1: a quick learner. UM. And at some point he decided
9:40
Speaker 1: to start traveling abroad and UM and during some formative
9:44
Speaker 1: years he ended up in in Costa Rica. UM because
9:47
Speaker 1: apparently Costa Rica, Panama, these were places that people in
9:51
Speaker 1: the America's kind of freely traveled to and moved to
9:53
Speaker 1: and from what I can tell at the time, much
9:56
Speaker 1: the same way that like Europeans move around the EU today. Yeah.
10:02
Speaker 1: So he moved to Costa Rica. Yeah, he had at
10:04
Speaker 1: least an uncle there, right, and he got a job
10:08
Speaker 1: on a banana plantation as a timekeeper. UM. And while
10:12
Speaker 1: he was carrying out this work like basically making sure
10:15
Speaker 1: people were moving as fast as as possible to keep
10:18
Speaker 1: everything nice and efficient, UM, he was witnessing and learning
10:24
Speaker 1: at the same time that like these banana plantations owned
10:27
Speaker 1: by American and European corporate interests were having a direct,
10:31
Speaker 1: deeply negative impact on individual you know, Black Caribbean, West
10:37
Speaker 1: Indian UM people's lives, Central American people's lives too. He
10:41
Speaker 1: was in Costa Rica that he he just traced a
10:45
Speaker 1: line directly between that. It was a very eye opening
10:47
Speaker 1: experience and so we founded a paper uh there in
10:51
Speaker 1: Costa Rica and started basically railing against the evils of
10:54
Speaker 1: this stuff, and um made a pretty bad name for
10:56
Speaker 1: himself among the authorities there quickly. And that's where his
10:59
Speaker 1: uncle step down. I was like, you need to get
11:01
Speaker 1: out of Costa Rica right now. Yeah, uh, and he did.
11:05
Speaker 1: He went to London, one of a few different times
11:07
Speaker 1: he would live in London throughout his life, and this
11:10
Speaker 1: was in nineteen twelve. I don't think we actually said
11:12
Speaker 1: that he was born in eight seven, so I think
11:16
Speaker 1: really frames where, you know, kind of the time period
11:19
Speaker 1: that he was learning all this stuff. Uh. He studied
11:22
Speaker 1: law and philosophy at Burbeck College under the University of
11:26
Speaker 1: London and again started working for a newspaper there, and
11:31
Speaker 1: this is where he started to sort of learn about
11:34
Speaker 1: Pan Africanism a little bit more because the newspaper was
11:38
Speaker 1: one that you know, just sort of championed that idea
11:41
Speaker 1: and that is just sort of the notion of bringing
11:44
Speaker 1: together people of African descent from all over the world
11:48
Speaker 1: under one cultural identity. And that's you know, there's a
11:51
Speaker 1: lot to it, but that's sort of a simplified way
11:53
Speaker 1: to say it. Yeah, Like a lot of times you
11:55
Speaker 1: hear it referred to as the African diaspora, Black Africans
11:59
Speaker 1: who moved from Africa, who were forcibly removed from Africa
12:03
Speaker 1: to become enslaved in the Caribbean, um in America, um
12:09
Speaker 1: in Canada, even um and and that over time these
12:13
Speaker 1: people just grew more and more separate. Pan Africanism was
12:17
Speaker 1: an idea of bringing them back together at the very
12:20
Speaker 1: least intellectually emotionally um as a as a nation among
12:25
Speaker 1: other nations, but spread out or as Garvey would later,
12:29
Speaker 1: really kind of take up this idea, like you were
12:31
Speaker 1: saying earlier, of actually moving everybody back to Africa and
12:34
Speaker 1: being like, Okay, Africa's black, you guys, Europe, America, you
12:38
Speaker 1: guys can have your your white continents. This is the
12:40
Speaker 1: Black continent, but we're co really ruling the world with you.
12:45
Speaker 1: That's just how it is. That was his ultimate dream,
12:47
Speaker 1: and that that was kind of what pan Africanism envisioned
12:50
Speaker 1: in in Garvey's eyes at least. Yeah, and that would
12:53
Speaker 1: become sort of the basis of his entire movement as
12:57
Speaker 1: as far as like just a cultural idea. Uh So,
13:01
Speaker 1: then he goes back to Jamaica, he got married to
13:05
Speaker 1: a woman named Amy Ashwood, it was a pretty rough marriage.
13:10
Speaker 1: They were separated just after a few months, I think
13:15
Speaker 1: in his mind, legally divorced a few years later, but
13:19
Speaker 1: she always held onto the notion that they were never
13:21
Speaker 1: like the The divorce was not legal, and so she
13:25
Speaker 1: went to her grave saying that she was like the
13:27
Speaker 1: true wife of Marcus Scarvey. But it got pretty ugly.
13:30
Speaker 1: They accused one another infidelity. He accused her of being
13:34
Speaker 1: an alcoholic and like I said, as a teetotal or,
13:37
Speaker 1: it was something that he did not believe in at all. Um.
13:40
Speaker 1: But you know, I think it says something about him
13:43
Speaker 1: and his ideas that regardless of this sort of nasty divorce,
13:48
Speaker 1: she stayed and worked h with his with his group
13:52
Speaker 1: he founded along with her, the Universal Negro Improvement Association
13:57
Speaker 1: and African Communities League of the World. But the Universal
14:00
Speaker 1: Negro Improvement Association UNIA is the one that really stuck
14:04
Speaker 1: and is even still around the day. And she stayed
14:07
Speaker 1: and even as we'll see later, tried to protect him
14:09
Speaker 1: when there was an attempt on his life taken. Yeah,
14:12
Speaker 1: and probably did save his life from what I read
14:15
Speaker 1: um by putting herself in between him and his assassin's bullets.
14:18
Speaker 1: So yeah, She definitely did a lot of the early
14:21
Speaker 1: work that he became very well known for, because once
14:24
Speaker 1: he started to take off his his name and his ideas,
14:28
Speaker 1: Garvy is um is what it's called, just shot off
14:30
Speaker 1: like a rocket, and she was there for most of
14:32
Speaker 1: the groundwork of it. And then they split up shortly
14:34
Speaker 1: after that, so I could see how she'd be a
14:36
Speaker 1: little bitter about that, and then in short order he
14:40
Speaker 1: kind of gave her something else to be unhappy about,
14:42
Speaker 1: and that was he married Amy Jack's spelled like Jacques Um,
14:46
Speaker 1: who was a Kingston native Um and was his personal
14:51
Speaker 1: secretary but also was Amy Ashwood's close friend and maid
14:56
Speaker 1: of honor at their wedding. Awkward, So I think that's
14:59
Speaker 1: when reason why Amy Ashwood was a little upset about
15:02
Speaker 1: the whole thing, in addition to doing a lot of
15:05
Speaker 1: the groundwork that he later got, you know, so much
15:07
Speaker 1: credit for and still does today. But um, he has
15:11
Speaker 1: an Amy Jacques Amy Jack's Um marriage lasted I believe
15:15
Speaker 1: until his death, correct until nineteen Yeah, I mean they
15:18
Speaker 1: married a nineteen nineteen uh, And I didn't see anywhere
15:22
Speaker 1: that they ever split up. No, I think that they did.
15:24
Speaker 1: And they had two sons, Marcus Mosiah Garvey the third
15:27
Speaker 1: and Julius Winston Garvey and Amy Amy Jacks was Um
15:31
Speaker 1: was very accomplished in her own right. She came from
15:34
Speaker 1: an aristocratic Kingston family. I think her father grandfather was
15:37
Speaker 1: Mayor of Kingston, and um, she was very well educated,
15:41
Speaker 1: very well read, very intelligent, and as we'll see, she
15:44
Speaker 1: helped continue Marcus Garvey's work while he was otherwise occupied
15:47
Speaker 1: for a while in the twenties. Yeah, and that, you know,
15:50
Speaker 1: that led to a little bit of which is really
15:52
Speaker 1: good documentary from PBS. PBS experience as are always really good.
15:57
Speaker 1: And uh, apparently that caused a little bit of um
16:00
Speaker 1: internal strife within UNIA was when they eventually found it.
16:04
Speaker 1: I think it was pretty much their most popular newspaper, uh,
16:08
Speaker 1: the Negro World. He had a page dedicated to women,
16:12
Speaker 1: and she ran that page and uh she you know,
16:17
Speaker 1: she ran it like somebody should run their own page
16:19
Speaker 1: in the newspaper, and apparently caused a little bit of
16:22
Speaker 1: strife within the organization because as much as he was
16:25
Speaker 1: had these progressive ideas about women and uh you know,
16:29
Speaker 1: propping them up. Uh, not everyone at the time, even
16:32
Speaker 1: within UNIA, had those same ideas. I think he tried
16:35
Speaker 1: to sort of spread that message, but you know, there
16:38
Speaker 1: were some there were some men in the organization still
16:40
Speaker 1: they were a little bit like, who is this lady?
16:41
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, sure, good thing that's over and done with. Yeah, right, solved.
16:48
Speaker 1: You want to take a break and then come back
16:49
Speaker 1: and talk a little more about UNIA. Yeah, let's do it. Okay.
17:06
Speaker 1: Stuff you should know, stuff you should know, alright, Chuck.
17:16
Speaker 1: So we're talking about UNIA, the United Negro Improvement Association,
17:20
Speaker 1: which was the brainchild of Marcus Garvey and something he
17:23
Speaker 1: attempted first in Kingston, I believe in nineteen sixteen something
17:28
Speaker 1: like that, maybe nineteen fifteen, um, and it did not
17:32
Speaker 1: quite take off. He had been inspired by Booker T.
17:35
Speaker 1: Washington's Tuskegee Institute, and in fact, he was kind of
17:38
Speaker 1: like the intellectual and probably cultural air to book Or T.
17:44
Speaker 1: Washington's ideas because Washington was a conservative. He believed in UM,
17:50
Speaker 1: black self enterprise, black self sufficiency, in that black Americans
17:54
Speaker 1: working UM hard and creating a life of their own
17:58
Speaker 1: amidst white Americans would show white Americans that blacks weren't inferior.
18:05
Speaker 1: They just wouldn't be able to ignore it anymore. And
18:07
Speaker 1: then thus white Americans Black Americans would treat one another equally,
18:11
Speaker 1: and the the issue of you know, bringing Black America
18:16
Speaker 1: out of enslavement and from under Jim Crow would be
18:20
Speaker 1: solved once and for all. That was the very conservative
18:22
Speaker 1: view of book or t. Washington, and that inspired Marcus
18:25
Speaker 1: Garvey so much that he started corresponding with book or
18:28
Speaker 1: t Um and he, uh, he was invited to America
18:33
Speaker 1: by by Washington. Um, but he arrived about a year
18:37
Speaker 1: after Washington died, never got to meet him, but he
18:40
Speaker 1: was deeply inspired by him and in a lot of
18:42
Speaker 1: ways carried on his work. Yeah, so he was a
18:45
Speaker 1: little bit late. Uh, and you know, his intention was
18:47
Speaker 1: definitely to meet with Washington, but it was you know,
18:51
Speaker 1: this was nineteen sixteen when he moved to New York,
18:54
Speaker 1: so it's not like it is today, like, uh, you know,
18:57
Speaker 1: you can't just catch a flight up there real quick
18:59
Speaker 1: if someone's not doing too well healthwise. So he missed
19:01
Speaker 1: his opportunity there. But he had those same ideas and
19:05
Speaker 1: he he basically you know, would ask himself and this
19:08
Speaker 1: is a quote, where's the black man's government? And he
19:12
Speaker 1: came to the conclusion that there was none. They had
19:14
Speaker 1: no representation basically, and so he went on to say
19:18
Speaker 1: I will help make them and that was his aim
19:21
Speaker 1: with Unia UH And like he said, it did not
19:24
Speaker 1: go over too well in Jamaica, but when he got
19:27
Speaker 1: to the US, it really really started to spread pretty quickly.
19:30
Speaker 1: I think the first uh US chapter was in nineteen seventeen. Uh.
19:36
Speaker 1: They only had seventeen members in a basement in Harlem,
19:39
Speaker 1: but he would eventually go on to buy a building
19:41
Speaker 1: in Harlem that hosted you know, like six thousand people
19:45
Speaker 1: at a time, and at the peak of his movement,
19:48
Speaker 1: he would claim that there were six million members. Uh.
19:51
Speaker 1: You know, it's tough to give a direct count. People
19:53
Speaker 1: in history say that he had a knack for just
19:56
Speaker 1: sort of and this is the PiZZ Barnum side sort
19:58
Speaker 1: of over inflating everything. So they say it probably wasn't
20:02
Speaker 1: six million, but I definitely saw you know, it numbered
20:05
Speaker 1: in the millions worldwide over the course of the movement. Yeah,
20:09
Speaker 1: because to say that his message resonated with people is
20:13
Speaker 1: the understatement of the year. He came along at a time,
20:17
Speaker 1: he came to New York at a time where in
20:19
Speaker 1: America there was a real um discord and unhappiness and
20:24
Speaker 1: uneasiness going on with black Americans, a number of whom
20:29
Speaker 1: who had just returned from fighting in World War One
20:32
Speaker 1: for America, yes huge and like rightfully so, like they
20:38
Speaker 1: served for their country, UM, and were rewarded with more
20:44
Speaker 1: racism than than ever, including race riots and massacres at
20:49
Speaker 1: the hands of um, you know, white neighbors who you know.
20:52
Speaker 1: We talked about the Tulsa massacre, UM, and plenty of others,
20:55
Speaker 1: and in several of our episodes. This is the time
20:58
Speaker 1: that this was going on. And so I think I
21:02
Speaker 1: have the impression that black Americans were getting more despondent
21:06
Speaker 1: after losing hope so suddenly and violently UM, and also
21:10
Speaker 1: more upset at that idea. And so Marcus Garvey came
21:13
Speaker 1: along also at a time where the scientific community was
21:17
Speaker 1: saying like, oh, by the way, if you're black, you're
21:19
Speaker 1: genetically uh, inferior to white people. Sorry, that's just science. Uh.
21:24
Speaker 1: And Marcus Garvey came along and said, you know what,
21:27
Speaker 1: these people could not be wronger. But the one thing
21:29
Speaker 1: about Garvey was, and this is what kind of separated
21:33
Speaker 1: him from some of his peers that were highly educated
21:38
Speaker 1: and sort of a little more of the UH like
21:41
Speaker 1: the the initial back to Africa movement was started by
21:43
Speaker 1: the first African American millionaire. So a lot of times
21:47
Speaker 1: these people had money and they were sort of in
21:49
Speaker 1: a higher financial class, but he really championed the working class.
21:54
Speaker 1: That's where he came up. And his whole thing was,
21:58
Speaker 1: you know, these the women that were working in domestics,
22:01
Speaker 1: which his mother did, and I think that had big
22:03
Speaker 1: impact on his views of progressive ideas toward women. But
22:07
Speaker 1: then the men, you know, they were they were working classmen,
22:10
Speaker 1: and he said that their official seal for union should
22:13
Speaker 1: be a washtub, a frying pan, a bail hook, and
22:16
Speaker 1: a mop. Right. So these these were the people he
22:19
Speaker 1: was speaking to, yep so, and so ultimately he created
22:23
Speaker 1: this this um idea, this concept that's referred to as
22:27
Speaker 1: Garvy is um in it in a nutshell, is basically
22:30
Speaker 1: taking America's um you know, faith in the ability to
22:36
Speaker 1: succeed through hard work and enterprise and ingenuity and um
22:42
Speaker 1: you know, self respect, and combined it with the yearning
22:46
Speaker 1: of um black Americans, black Caribbeans, black Africans to be
22:51
Speaker 1: treated as equals, to live free from oppression, and and
22:55
Speaker 1: mix those two things together and that's what Garvey ISUM
22:57
Speaker 1: was and and again it rang all over the world.
23:01
Speaker 1: And um one of the ways that that it kind
23:04
Speaker 1: of drew people in is he created almost like a
23:08
Speaker 1: shadow culture in Harlem at the at Union where like
23:14
Speaker 1: you would go to these meetings. He had like nightly meetings, right,
23:17
Speaker 1: but they were also like you know, larger, bigger almost conferences.
23:22
Speaker 1: And then there were huge conferences, but the smaller conferences
23:24
Speaker 1: might be like a day long thing where like the
23:26
Speaker 1: whole family comes and you have meals there and you
23:29
Speaker 1: see like a vaudeville show there, and there's like a
23:31
Speaker 1: fashion show and like that. You split off into like
23:34
Speaker 1: breakout sessions to use horrific corporate buzz speak UM where
23:38
Speaker 1: you would learn like a trade or maybe be like
23:41
Speaker 1: drilled in military techniques, or you would um learn nursing
23:46
Speaker 1: and then be sent off to aid in natural disasters,
23:48
Speaker 1: Like you would learn stuff that the rest of society
23:52
Speaker 1: had shut you out from. This is where you could
23:54
Speaker 1: go learn it and you know, lift yourself up and
23:57
Speaker 1: in turn lift the whole culture up as everyone collectively
24:01
Speaker 1: was doing this. Yeah, it was. It's the idea was
24:03
Speaker 1: really cool, I think, and that you wouldn't just go
24:06
Speaker 1: to a meeting and while there were for short debates
24:09
Speaker 1: and Marcus Garvey just speaking about things. Uh, I think
24:13
Speaker 1: he wanted to make it more interesting and inclusive, and
24:16
Speaker 1: that's why they would have concerts and fashion shows and
24:19
Speaker 1: stuff like that. The Black Cross and Nurses was a
24:22
Speaker 1: big part of this progressive idea for black women that
24:26
Speaker 1: he had. And obviously it's with a lot of the
24:29
Speaker 1: as you'll see the naming conventions for things he did.
24:31
Speaker 1: It was a play on something that white people had done.
24:34
Speaker 1: So they had the Red Cross. He started the Black
24:36
Speaker 1: Cross Nurses and uh, they were a large organization that
24:40
Speaker 1: did like so much good work and there was a
24:43
Speaker 1: lot of pride within that movement of the Black Cross Nurses.
24:47
Speaker 1: They had you know, their own slogans, they had their
24:49
Speaker 1: own songs that they wrote. He had his fit very
24:52
Speaker 1: famous phrase, up you Mighty Race, and it was you know,
24:56
Speaker 1: I think he nailed it on the head. It wasn't
24:58
Speaker 1: just um, it was a culture within a culture almost
25:02
Speaker 1: like he was starting into the years that he was
25:05
Speaker 1: doing this in nineteen twenties. I think just makes it
25:08
Speaker 1: all that more impressive what he was able to do. Absolutely,
25:11
Speaker 1: and another thing that he's credited with is if not UM.
25:14
Speaker 1: I don't know if he invented it, but he certainly
25:16
Speaker 1: popularized the what's called the Pan African flag. UM. Usually
25:22
Speaker 1: it's a three bars or three stripes. Yeah, red, green,
25:27
Speaker 1: and black. I love those colors together in high school
25:30
Speaker 1: and go by those stores. Something about the those colors
25:34
Speaker 1: being together just like spoke to me. I was like, man,
25:35
Speaker 1: that's really a nice color. Combo. You'd be like, could
25:38
Speaker 1: I pull it off? No, It's like I can't go there,
25:41
Speaker 1: but it was. I just always liked those colors together,
25:45
Speaker 1: always loved looking into those stores. UM. So with the
25:49
Speaker 1: Pan African flag is also called the African Liberation flag UM,
25:53
Speaker 1: and it's also the colors of Quanza that would later
25:56
Speaker 1: be founded in nineteen sixty six. UM. The red represented blood, UM,
26:00
Speaker 1: the blood that was that united everybody of African ancestry,
26:04
Speaker 1: but also blood that had been spilled through enslavement, war, colonization. UM.
26:10
Speaker 1: The black represented Black people as a whole nation, and
26:14
Speaker 1: the green was for the natural wealth of Africa. And
26:17
Speaker 1: that was a really big important point that I think
26:19
Speaker 1: UM Garvey tried to educate UM, Black Caribbeans, black Americans,
26:24
Speaker 1: and even black Africans, but probably to a lesser extent
26:27
Speaker 1: about that was like, this is our homeland and it's
26:29
Speaker 1: probably the most naturally wealthy continent on Earth, and we're
26:34
Speaker 1: all being treated like second class human beings and yet
26:37
Speaker 1: this is our homeland. What are we doing here? Let's
26:40
Speaker 1: we have to right this wrong, basically, And I think
26:43
Speaker 1: that was also like a big driver for why they
26:45
Speaker 1: was saying we all need to go back to Africa
26:46
Speaker 1: and basically just say thank you for caring for this land.
26:50
Speaker 1: It's ours again now. Uh. He authored the paper Declaration
26:56
Speaker 1: of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, which
26:59
Speaker 1: was ratified with twenty thousand people in attendance at Madison
27:04
Speaker 1: Square Garden in n which is an amazing accomplishment in
27:09
Speaker 1: and of itself. And this is where he was bestowed
27:13
Speaker 1: the title of Provisional President of Africa. And I don't
27:16
Speaker 1: think we've said yet. One of the cool things about
27:19
Speaker 1: Marcus Scarfy was the way he would dress and he
27:23
Speaker 1: would outfit himself in this sort of military regalia with
27:27
Speaker 1: these uh hats with ostrich plumes, big ostrich plumes, and
27:33
Speaker 1: he was a big guy, so it was you know, this,
27:35
Speaker 1: this imposing figure comes in wearing this huge Ostrich plume
27:39
Speaker 1: Like this was a part of sort of the P. T.
27:42
Speaker 1: Barnum side, which was to come into a room and
27:45
Speaker 1: grab everyone's attention and to make a statement and you know,
27:50
Speaker 1: try and ignore me basically was what he put forward
27:52
Speaker 1: with how he carried himself right, right, But at the
27:56
Speaker 1: same time it also made him really easy target of
28:00
Speaker 1: it a cool among his rivals in in UM, the
28:03
Speaker 1: Black cultural leadership UM because I mean W B. D.
28:08
Speaker 1: Boys wasn't wearing Ostrich blue and said it was an
28:13
Speaker 1: embarrassment that he would dress up like that, But right
28:16
Speaker 1: he was. He was, he was rocking his style. He
28:19
Speaker 1: totally was, and I'm with you, I respect that style
28:22
Speaker 1: as well. UM. But again it did make him a target,
28:25
Speaker 1: and so did things like being being named the provisional
28:28
Speaker 1: President of Africa Unia Convention in Madison Square Gardens. These
28:32
Speaker 1: were things that like people could like pick on him for,
28:35
Speaker 1: but he was his his idea was so strong because
28:41
Speaker 1: it was appealing to While he was a polarizing figure,
28:47
Speaker 1: his ideas were unifying. They could take all different kinds
28:51
Speaker 1: of um, you know, black concepts and black thoughts and
28:55
Speaker 1: black thinkers and black leaders and bring them all together
28:58
Speaker 1: and basically say yes, despite our differences, we are all
29:02
Speaker 1: in agreement. We this is a great way to lift
29:05
Speaker 1: people up. We might not agree with going back to
29:07
Speaker 1: Africa or not, but like, yes, we can come together
29:10
Speaker 1: as a culture and lift ourselves up. That, like his
29:13
Speaker 1: ideas were unifying, while he himself was polarizing. Should we
29:17
Speaker 1: go ahead and talk a little bit about the origins
29:19
Speaker 1: of the back to Africa movement? Yeah, let's see that,
29:22
Speaker 1: all right, So this goes back. He is not He's
29:25
Speaker 1: far from the first person to have this idea. Uh.
29:27
Speaker 1: And like I mentioned earlier, one of the first people
29:30
Speaker 1: was the first African American Millionaire's name was Paul Cuffey
29:34
Speaker 1: or Cuffey c Ufe. He was a mixed race, uh,
29:39
Speaker 1: Massachusetts sea captain and his father was an enslaved African,
29:44
Speaker 1: and he had this idea that in in fact did so.
29:48
Speaker 1: He actually returned at least several dozen African Americans to
29:53
Speaker 1: Africa and to Sierra Leone. And this was an eighteen
29:56
Speaker 1: fifteen and then later and I think we should totally
30:00
Speaker 1: do a whole podcast on Liberia because the more I
30:03
Speaker 1: read about it, just the more interesting it is. But
30:06
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixteen, the American Colonization Society, which you know
30:11
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson and James Monroe were members. They worked with
30:15
Speaker 1: West African leaders to basically say less established this colony.
30:19
Speaker 1: It would eventually be Liberia, and over the course of
30:22
Speaker 1: about forty years, I saw anywhere from ten to twenty thousand, uh,
30:26
Speaker 1: free black Americans moved back to Africa, yes, and and
30:31
Speaker 1: lived in this new country that was granted to them, Liberia,
30:36
Speaker 1: And so like you could totally get you know, um, krusty,
30:40
Speaker 1: musty old racists like nineteenth century Andrew Jackson and his
30:44
Speaker 1: cronies being like, yeah, let's let's set up a country
30:46
Speaker 1: in Africa and send black people back there. Um. But
30:50
Speaker 1: this also appealed to like you said, I mean, twelve
30:53
Speaker 1: thousand free black Americans said, I'm out of here. So
30:56
Speaker 1: there was definitely there was definitely Again, there was It's
31:00
Speaker 1: so so strange to look at, but there was agreement
31:03
Speaker 1: between racist white people and some black people who are like,
31:07
Speaker 1: we we just don't even want to be around you anymore.
31:11
Speaker 1: Let's just live separately. While there was also a very
31:14
Speaker 1: i would say much stronger thread uh in the black
31:17
Speaker 1: community is like, um, I'm a tenth generation American. Even
31:21
Speaker 1: though a lot of those ancestors of mine were enslaved,
31:24
Speaker 1: I was still born and raised in America, so are
31:26
Speaker 1: my parents and my grandparents. I really don't have any
31:29
Speaker 1: connection to Africa aside from my further back ancestors having
31:34
Speaker 1: been enslaved there and brought over here. I don't really
31:36
Speaker 1: have any interest in going back to Africa. Can I
31:39
Speaker 1: support the idea of rising up as a as a
31:41
Speaker 1: black community, as a culture without having to go back
31:45
Speaker 1: to Africa? And Garvey was like, not really, No, we
31:49
Speaker 1: need to go to Africa. The races should not be intermingled.
31:52
Speaker 1: And that makes him a very polarizing figure, not just
31:55
Speaker 1: among the black community, among the white community as well. Yeah,
31:59
Speaker 1: and you know, I think Liberia definitely deserves its own
32:02
Speaker 1: episode because I was reading into and it was just
32:04
Speaker 1: really interesting sort of the ups and downs and what
32:06
Speaker 1: happens when you have uh, you know, twenty tho African
32:11
Speaker 1: Americans moving to Africa with their cultural identity that's somewhat
32:16
Speaker 1: confused and and melding with the locals there, because it was, uh,
32:21
Speaker 1: it was just really interesting to see what happened over
32:23
Speaker 1: the years, like through the you know, mid two thousands
32:26
Speaker 1: in Liberia. So I'm gonna put that one on the list. Okay,
32:30
Speaker 1: it is officially on the list. On the list. You
32:34
Speaker 1: made the sound and everything I did. Should we take
32:37
Speaker 1: another break before we talk about, um, the Black Star
32:40
Speaker 1: Line and then some troubles. Yeah, things get really interesting
32:44
Speaker 1: here after the breaks, A stick around spoken. Should know
33:02
Speaker 1: sh stuff you should know. All right, So you mentioned
33:10
Speaker 1: the Black Star Line, and if you're listening, you might think,
33:15
Speaker 1: doesn't Josh mean the White Star Line. No, he didn't,
33:18
Speaker 1: because this is the naming convention that I talked about.
33:20
Speaker 1: The White Star Lines was the I mean it was
33:23
Speaker 1: the Titanic, right was part of the White Star Lines. Uh.
33:27
Speaker 1: And so Garvey said, you know what, we need our
33:29
Speaker 1: own industry. We needed our own business, We need our
33:31
Speaker 1: own shipping. We need to be able to get people
33:34
Speaker 1: to Africa. So I'm gonna start the Black Star Line
33:37
Speaker 1: in nineteen nineteen, which was the steamship shipping company to
33:41
Speaker 1: facilitate shipping goods around the African diaspora and to literally
33:48
Speaker 1: transport I mean, the ideal was to transport Black Americans
33:53
Speaker 1: back to Africa. Um. Sadly, they never made it back
33:56
Speaker 1: to Africa on those ships. There are a host of problems, uh,
34:00
Speaker 1: including the fact that the ships that he ended up
34:03
Speaker 1: buying were almost all in pretty bad state of repair,
34:08
Speaker 1: like former World War One ships. So you know he
34:12
Speaker 1: was he was working with the money that he had,
34:14
Speaker 1: which he raised selling five dollar shares at a time
34:17
Speaker 1: at meetings, uh, and then getting into trouble selling them
34:21
Speaker 1: through the mail. Yeah. So with that five dollars share,
34:24
Speaker 1: that was a big deal because that was a low
34:27
Speaker 1: enough price, about eighty one dollar money, thank you west
34:31
Speaker 1: Egg Um, that a working class black family could could
34:36
Speaker 1: afford to buy a share in the Black Star line,
34:40
Speaker 1: and they were buying a share in like this actual
34:42
Speaker 1: like enterprise that had the had the legs to knit
34:47
Speaker 1: black people around the world together economically and physically, like
34:51
Speaker 1: very everybody around and around and again, like you said,
34:54
Speaker 1: ultimately help everyone move back to Africa. Um. But this
34:58
Speaker 1: was even at a time that, like the average weekly
35:01
Speaker 1: wage earned by the vast majority of Black Americans in
35:04
Speaker 1: northern cities was less than five dollars a week. So
35:06
Speaker 1: it wasn't an easy five dollar or share to buy.
35:09
Speaker 1: But you can imagine how many families that were in
35:11
Speaker 1: unia Um that scraped together the money or saved up
35:15
Speaker 1: for it to buy a share in the Black Star Line.
35:17
Speaker 1: And nothing I've read seems like the Black Star Line
35:22
Speaker 1: was ever meant to be anything but what it was
35:25
Speaker 1: stated to be. It's just that things went south because
35:29
Speaker 1: one of the things Marcus Garvey wasn't by all accounts,
35:32
Speaker 1: is a shrewd businessman. He is not a biz whiz
35:36
Speaker 1: by any stretch of the imagination, and that, from what
35:39
Speaker 1: I understand, is ultimately what brought along the Black Star
35:43
Speaker 1: Lines downfall. Yeah, I mean there was mismanagement. I read
35:46
Speaker 1: one story where when they were doing some you know,
35:49
Speaker 1: because they were trying to make money with this, like
35:51
Speaker 1: you know, as a shipping company too, so where a
35:56
Speaker 1: huge shipment of coconuts had gone rotten. But as he
36:00
Speaker 1: insisted on making these sort of high profile political stops
36:04
Speaker 1: along the route, whereas the I guess the sea captains
36:07
Speaker 1: were saying, and these these were completely operated by African Americans,
36:12
Speaker 1: captain and crewed by African Americans, and they were like,
36:16
Speaker 1: we need to you know, if you want these coconuts
36:18
Speaker 1: to be sold and to actually profit in this company,
36:21
Speaker 1: we need to go straight there. And he insisted on
36:23
Speaker 1: stopping at different places along the way and he would
36:26
Speaker 1: you know, things like that would happen kind of time
36:28
Speaker 1: and time again. It seems like, uh and you know,
36:31
Speaker 1: like I said, these ships were in disrepair. The first
36:34
Speaker 1: one he bought was the Yarmouth I think re christen
36:37
Speaker 1: the Frederick Douglas and it was a thirty year old ship.
36:40
Speaker 1: One was called the Shady Side. End buying two more.
36:43
Speaker 1: It eventually sank from a leak because of storm damage
36:46
Speaker 1: from an ice storm. But you know, they had some successes.
36:50
Speaker 1: I think I saw in the end it ended up
36:52
Speaker 1: in in modern dollars, being like a twenty million dollar outfit.
37:00
Speaker 1: It it just didn't succeed financially, but you know it,
37:04
Speaker 1: that's a that's a lot of dough. So it wasn't
37:06
Speaker 1: like something he went into lightly, you know, no, and
37:08
Speaker 1: it was I mean, it just goes to show you
37:10
Speaker 1: what an enormous enterprise it was that that that making
37:14
Speaker 1: twenty million dollars couldn't even allow them to break even. UM.
37:18
Speaker 1: In addition to the Black Star line, he also helped
37:22
Speaker 1: found the Negro Factories Corporation UM, which created grocery stores,
37:28
Speaker 1: restaurant UM, Moving Vans, publishing house obviously UM and all
37:34
Speaker 1: sorts of other UM black owned businesses that not only
37:37
Speaker 1: were run directly from the Negro Factories Corporation, but also
37:42
Speaker 1: we're just affiliated with it. And so part of the
37:45
Speaker 1: trouble that that Marcus Garvey ran into was and that
37:48
Speaker 1: demonstrates he wasn't a very good businessman. He was shuffling
37:51
Speaker 1: money from one enterprise to another to keep them all afloat.
37:54
Speaker 1: And some were doing better than others from what I understand,
37:57
Speaker 1: like the grocery store was doing really well, but say
37:59
Speaker 1: the restaurant wasn't. So he had to um move money
38:02
Speaker 1: from the grocery store of the restaurant and then maybe
38:04
Speaker 1: from the restaurant to the Black Star Line. And there
38:06
Speaker 1: was nothing that that was so monumentally successful it could
38:10
Speaker 1: keep everything else going. And so even knowing that like
38:14
Speaker 1: the Black Star Line was in serious financial trouble, UM,
38:19
Speaker 1: he he would stop on those coconut runs to to
38:22
Speaker 1: try to sell shares. That's one of the reasons why
38:24
Speaker 1: he was stopping was that you know, um rustle up
38:28
Speaker 1: membership in UNIA and membership in UNIA, subscriptions to the
38:32
Speaker 1: Negro World UM and appearances by him. UM all also
38:36
Speaker 1: kind of came with pitches for buying shares in the
38:39
Speaker 1: Black Star line. And that's ultimately what got him in trouble.
38:42
Speaker 1: He was continuing to sell shares in an enterprise that um,
38:46
Speaker 1: he may or may not have thought was was in jeopardy.
38:50
Speaker 1: And the FEDS, who have been trying to get him
38:52
Speaker 1: for years at this point, UM, finally said I think
38:56
Speaker 1: we can get him now. Yeah. What they got him
38:58
Speaker 1: for ultimately was male fraud. And what I saw was
39:02
Speaker 1: it was specifically the fact that he was sending mailers
39:05
Speaker 1: for donations, or not donations, but investment opportunities, uh that
39:11
Speaker 1: featured ships that they did not yet own. So uh,
39:17
Speaker 1: there was one ship in particular that he was trying
39:19
Speaker 1: to buy, but the deal wasn't closed, but it was
39:22
Speaker 1: prominently featured. And they said, wait a minute, this is
39:25
Speaker 1: mail fraud. You can't. You're misrepresenting the company essentially by
39:29
Speaker 1: having a ship on there that you don't have yet.
39:32
Speaker 1: And we've got you. And he ended up serving um
39:36
Speaker 1: how many years just a few? Right, He was sentenced
39:39
Speaker 1: to five, but I believe he served two, right, and
39:42
Speaker 1: his sentence was commuted and he was deported back to Jamaica. UM,
39:46
Speaker 1: we're still gonna talk about other stuff. Before this, but
39:48
Speaker 1: that's he ultimately ended up back in Jamaica. But when
39:52
Speaker 1: you were just talking a second ago, I think one
39:54
Speaker 1: of the things that is pretty clear was that he
39:57
Speaker 1: was a He wasn't the best of businessman, but he
39:59
Speaker 1: was also a victim of over being overly ambitious because
40:04
Speaker 1: he had health problems through his whole life. He had
40:06
Speaker 1: pneumonia quite a few times, and I think he had asthma,
40:11
Speaker 1: and I think he'd had a feeling maybe that he
40:13
Speaker 1: was not long for this world. So that's why he said,
40:17
Speaker 1: let's start theaters, and let's start grocery stores, and let's
40:20
Speaker 1: start restaurants, and let's start a shipping line. I think
40:22
Speaker 1: he was overly ambitious and tried to move a little
40:24
Speaker 1: too fast maybe, whereas if he might have slowed down
40:28
Speaker 1: and put his efforts uh into fewer things, it might
40:32
Speaker 1: have been a little bit more successful. Yeah, But also
40:34
Speaker 1: imagine being like, Okay, we really need to make up
40:37
Speaker 1: for lost time, you know, and then feeling like your
40:40
Speaker 1: time on earth was was going to be shortened. I mean, yeah,
40:45
Speaker 1: I know, not at all, but so he um he
40:47
Speaker 1: did his time in Atlanta, Federal penn which is at
40:51
Speaker 1: the end of Grant Park now, UM, which is one
40:54
Speaker 1: of the scariest buildings you can never drive past. UM.
40:59
Speaker 1: And like he said, he thought his time in this
41:02
Speaker 1: world was gonna be fairly short. And he actually wrote
41:04
Speaker 1: a letter from prison saying that you know, um, he
41:08
Speaker 1: basically expected to die in prison and if he did die,
41:11
Speaker 1: then he was going to come back. He said, look
41:14
Speaker 1: for me in the whirlwind. He's gonna bring with him
41:16
Speaker 1: the souls of all the dead Africans who died enslaved
41:20
Speaker 1: um and uh, basically right, all the wrongs, if you
41:25
Speaker 1: know what I mean. The documentary by the way, yeah,
41:29
Speaker 1: I like our title more Black Moses. I think that's
41:31
Speaker 1: such an amazing name for him, So awesome. But um,
41:36
Speaker 1: so he he didn't die in prison. He got out,
41:38
Speaker 1: like you said. Calvin Coolidge, under tremendous pressure from Union
41:43
Speaker 1: UM members and his wife Amy Jacks Uh, finally said okay, fine,
41:48
Speaker 1: he can come out, but he's going to Jamaica. And
41:50
Speaker 1: that's where he went. And when he went to prison,
41:52
Speaker 1: I mean, that was just not a good look. Like
41:54
Speaker 1: this guy who was leading the movement to prop up
42:00
Speaker 1: and raise up the black community going to prison, Um,
42:05
Speaker 1: it just made him any even easier target, not just
42:08
Speaker 1: among the black community, but also among like white observers
42:11
Speaker 1: now to like, look, he went to jail, like, this
42:13
Speaker 1: is your this is your leader. Come on, give me
42:15
Speaker 1: a break. But we haven't really kind of explained it enough.
42:20
Speaker 1: And and there's a whole other podcast we could do
42:22
Speaker 1: just on this, but suffice to say he was very
42:26
Speaker 1: much the victim of government harassment, again at the hands
42:29
Speaker 1: of Jay Hoover, who somebody said once that he became
42:33
Speaker 1: so fixated on Garvy it became basically a vendetta. He
42:36
Speaker 1: just wanted to get rid of Marcus Garvey and tried
42:39
Speaker 1: for years to do it, and the government sabotaged Black
42:42
Speaker 1: Star line fuel um fuel supplies so the ships would
42:46
Speaker 1: would break down. Um, Like, he was harassed. He he
42:50
Speaker 1: had like every reason to feel persecuted, and then finally
42:53
Speaker 1: put in prison on a pretty weak charge to begin with,
42:59
Speaker 1: because of his ideas and because he represented a threat
43:02
Speaker 1: to you know, white dominance in America and elsewhere. Yeah,
43:07
Speaker 1: in nineteen nineteen, Hoover hired And by the way, I
43:10
Speaker 1: thought you were going to quote me a second ago
43:12
Speaker 1: when he said someone once said about Hoover, I thought
43:15
Speaker 1: you canna say that he was the worst American. That
43:20
Speaker 1: would have been the most boss referential joke you've ever
43:22
Speaker 1: pulled off. Uh So, in nineteen nineteen, Hoover hired the
43:26
Speaker 1: bureau's first black agent, James Wormley Jones. And you might think, oh, great,
43:31
Speaker 1: he's being progressive. No, no, no. He hired him specifically
43:35
Speaker 1: to be a mole and infiltrate Garvey's movement. And I
43:39
Speaker 1: think he was the one that actually poisoned the fuel lines.
43:42
Speaker 1: And he had other UH moles that he would install
43:46
Speaker 1: within the organization. And it wasn't just um, I mean,
43:50
Speaker 1: it's bad enough if you're doing that just to keep
43:52
Speaker 1: tabs and report back, but he sent people in there
43:54
Speaker 1: to agitate and to cause disruption. And I remember reading
43:59
Speaker 1: one story where there was something about letters being sent
44:03
Speaker 1: back and forth between different Union UH offices in different cities,
44:09
Speaker 1: like pretty far apart, and that they were agitating one
44:12
Speaker 1: another and with these letters, and it turned out that
44:16
Speaker 1: none they were all written by Hoover or you know,
44:19
Speaker 1: Hoover's cronies. Yeah, that's a playbook that little Putts would
44:22
Speaker 1: be using for decades to come. He did that to
44:24
Speaker 1: the Black Panthers. He tried to do it to the
44:26
Speaker 1: civil rights leaders, like, yeah, that was he would just
44:29
Speaker 1: he wouldn't put moles in just to like listen and
44:31
Speaker 1: report back. He was like he put them in there
44:34
Speaker 1: to destroy them from within, which is just you know, reprehensible, man,
44:39
Speaker 1: what a snake. Yeah, and also don't write in I
44:43
Speaker 1: know what the word putts means and I meant it
44:45
Speaker 1: with Jay. Uh, we should mention them attempt on his
44:50
Speaker 1: life that we kind of referenced earlier. Uh, this was
44:54
Speaker 1: back in nineteen nineteen and October. Uh, he had by
44:58
Speaker 1: this time, this was kind of I guess hooever was
45:00
Speaker 1: sort of already getting involved. But the New York d
45:03
Speaker 1: A Edwin Edwin Kay, I'm sorry, Edwin P. Kilroe started
45:08
Speaker 1: investigating UNI at first. In October of nineteen nineteen, a
45:13
Speaker 1: man named George Tyler showed up basically kicked in the
45:17
Speaker 1: door downstairs and demanded to speak with Garvey. Garby came
45:20
Speaker 1: out and see what was going on. He opened fire.
45:23
Speaker 1: H you mentioned that Amy Ashwood got between him and
45:26
Speaker 1: the bullets. But Garvey was hit three times, I think,
45:29
Speaker 1: once in the scalp and twice in the legs. And
45:33
Speaker 1: the rumor was, uh, and this is you know, I
45:35
Speaker 1: think what Garvey believed was that Tyler was sent by
45:38
Speaker 1: the d A. That was never proven. There were also
45:42
Speaker 1: people that said, no, this was a guy who was
45:45
Speaker 1: had restaurant dealings with him that was angry about how
45:49
Speaker 1: that business went down. So I don't think we'll ever
45:51
Speaker 1: know for sure what happened. But there wasn't an assassination attempt.
45:56
Speaker 1: So um, like I was saying before, when he when
46:00
Speaker 1: he went to prison, like, it was not it was
46:02
Speaker 1: not a proud day for UNIA, and union membership started
46:05
Speaker 1: to drop off fairly precipitously. Amy Jackson's wife was trying
46:10
Speaker 1: to keep things going, publishing his letters, like giving speeches
46:14
Speaker 1: on his behalf lobby and Calvin Coolidge to let him
46:16
Speaker 1: out of prison. Um, but it's just like the the
46:21
Speaker 1: death blow was kind of struck. Although that's not to
46:23
Speaker 1: say there's still UNIA today and Marcus Garvey's views and
46:27
Speaker 1: Garvey is um and a lot of his teachings and
46:29
Speaker 1: writings and thoughts are still very much espoused and followed
46:34
Speaker 1: right and and not just in the reggae world. But
46:37
Speaker 1: um he he uh basically spent the rest of his life,
46:42
Speaker 1: and his life was relatively short. He died at age
46:44
Speaker 1: fifty two. In he moved back to Jamaica, where he
46:48
Speaker 1: was deported, he decided to move back to London. I
46:51
Speaker 1: could not find what kind of connection he had to
46:53
Speaker 1: London to live there twice. Um, but that's where he
46:56
Speaker 1: lived out the rest of his days, and because he
46:59
Speaker 1: schooled there maybe, but he well, no I knew he
47:02
Speaker 1: had an actual connection to London. I meant, like on
47:05
Speaker 1: a an emotional level, like what drew him back to
47:07
Speaker 1: London a second time? But um, but he died there,
47:10
Speaker 1: and he died just kind of like um, a bit
47:13
Speaker 1: of an outcast. And one of the things that really
47:17
Speaker 1: didn't help, you know, he was kind of losing a
47:20
Speaker 1: lot of followers and adherents because he went to prison
47:23
Speaker 1: and then later on he he um, he criticized Holla
47:26
Speaker 1: Selassie after he was deposed by Mussolini, and he also
47:30
Speaker 1: looked up to Mussolini for being a strong authoritarian leader.
47:34
Speaker 1: But the thing that really kind of like sealed his
47:37
Speaker 1: fate among um, the black cultural leaders is what you
47:41
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, the bonkers meeting between him and the leader
47:45
Speaker 1: of the KKK, Right, Yeah, I mean, uh talk about
47:49
Speaker 1: a radical idea um for him just to sit down
47:53
Speaker 1: with a leader of the clan in Atlanta and in
47:56
Speaker 1: exchange views of agreement on the fact that they each
48:00
Speaker 1: thought that black Americans should that belonged in Africa. To
48:05
Speaker 1: say that did not sit well within the leaders of
48:08
Speaker 1: the black community is is a pretty big understatement. Yeah,
48:11
Speaker 1: so that was I mean, that was the probably the
48:13
Speaker 1: biggest thing of of Marcus Garvey's downfall. But you know,
48:17
Speaker 1: because of that, his his image like really kind of
48:20
Speaker 1: he he died as an outcast in London, um and
48:24
Speaker 1: he um he Over the years though like he was,
48:29
Speaker 1: he seems to have been first picked up and rehabilitated
48:32
Speaker 1: by the Rastafarians who said, like, hey, no, this guy,
48:36
Speaker 1: this guy had some amazing ideas. This guy was speaking truth,
48:39
Speaker 1: like his his teachings were important, and they kind of
48:42
Speaker 1: picked up his um, his his image and dusted him
48:45
Speaker 1: off and rehabilitated him. And people have kind of taken
48:48
Speaker 1: like a closer look at him again and been like, yes,
48:50
Speaker 1: this guy was one of the most important black activists
48:53
Speaker 1: in the history of the world. Yeah, I saw. I
48:56
Speaker 1: think in the PBS documentary they put it like this
48:59
Speaker 1: that uh in the early nineteen hundreds provided a template
49:04
Speaker 1: for everybody that came after basically whether it was Malcolm
49:08
Speaker 1: X or Martin Luther King Jr. Uh, the Rastafarianism, the
49:13
Speaker 1: Nation of Islam, Like, there were so many organizations and
49:16
Speaker 1: people that sort of used his life and his uh
49:21
Speaker 1: cultural ideas as that template that um, it's it's it's
49:25
Speaker 1: hard to believe that this is something. And we say
49:28
Speaker 1: this all the time, of course, especially about black history.
49:31
Speaker 1: But I don't think I ever heard the words Marcus
49:35
Speaker 1: Garvey in a high school or college history class, not
49:39
Speaker 1: unless Peter Tosh was teaching. Oh man, I miss uh.
49:44
Speaker 1: We had this great radio station called album ADI eight Atlanta,
49:47
Speaker 1: the George State radio station that every Sunday morning they had, uh,
49:51
Speaker 1: like the best reggae show ever. Uh. And it wasn't
49:54
Speaker 1: you know, they weren't like, let's play Redemption song by
49:57
Speaker 1: Bob Marlin. Great song, but it's where you it here
50:00
Speaker 1: got all the early uh, all the early ska and
50:04
Speaker 1: like Lee Perry and the Upsiders. Man, it's so good.
50:07
Speaker 1: And now when we go to the lake on Sunday mornings,
50:10
Speaker 1: we just dial up a good like fifties and sixties
50:13
Speaker 1: ska playlist in honor of what what once was at
50:17
Speaker 1: Georgia State. I think you can still stream it online,
50:19
Speaker 1: but it was a big deal with they shut it
50:22
Speaker 1: down basically and said, let's have two NPR stations in
50:25
Speaker 1: Atlanta the exact same thing at the same time. It
50:28
Speaker 1: was a terrible, terrible decision that I hope one day
50:31
Speaker 1: they reversed because I hope maybe eight was so good.
50:34
Speaker 1: That was the more fire show. By the way, yeah,
50:36
Speaker 1: and that boy that just openised to so much good
50:39
Speaker 1: reggae win I was in college and there was a
50:42
Speaker 1: lot of bad reggae, and then there was like that
50:45
Speaker 1: was Saturday, I guess you said. That was Saturday around noon,
50:48
Speaker 1: and before that, in the mornings they would have a
50:50
Speaker 1: Saturday Morning cartoon music show where they play like Strawberry
50:54
Speaker 1: Shortcake songs and like just like the most random stuff
50:58
Speaker 1: that they would get off the kids records. But it
51:00
Speaker 1: was great. And then the night before that, I don't
51:02
Speaker 1: know if you remember Adam Bomb, remember, yes, like the
51:07
Speaker 1: soul like, oh my goodness, that like album Adia eight
51:10
Speaker 1: had it going on that dash that was like trance
51:13
Speaker 1: and all that, and then uh, the relent in the
51:17
Speaker 1: years was sort of you know for the old white folks.
51:20
Speaker 1: I don't remember that it was. It was really good
51:21
Speaker 1: deep cuts of of classic rock, so that it's not
51:25
Speaker 1: like here's Boston's more than a feeling. It's like, here's uh,
51:28
Speaker 1: this deep cut from Steven Still's second solo album, right exactly. Yeah,
51:31
Speaker 1: that was that was album A D eight man Man
51:34
Speaker 1: r I P album R I P. Dare we do
51:36
Speaker 1: one on Rastafarianism at some point, absolutely, because then my
51:40
Speaker 1: list it's just it's a tough one. I think, Yeah,
51:42
Speaker 1: I think so too. But with it, I mean, it's
51:45
Speaker 1: sufficed to say that Marcus Garvey was a prophet of
51:47
Speaker 1: Rastafarianism because he predicted the rise of Hollia Selassie, who
51:51
Speaker 1: became the god of Rastafarianism. And we'll talk more about
51:55
Speaker 1: that in a different map. How about that, it's good stuff.
51:57
Speaker 1: I look forward. I believe it's Amazon is making the
52:01
Speaker 1: Marcus Garvey movie, but definitely see if you can find
52:05
Speaker 1: the PBS experience American experience. I think it is on
52:11
Speaker 1: Marcus Garvey. It's good stuff. And the guy who's gonna
52:13
Speaker 1: play Marcus Garvey that was Winston Duke, You're right, the
52:16
Speaker 1: dude from US. Yeah, and Black Panther too. Um well,
52:20
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about Winston Duke, go
52:22
Speaker 1: check him out on IMDb. But if you want to
52:24
Speaker 1: know more about Marcus Garvey, um, yeah, like you said,
52:27
Speaker 1: check out the American Experience on him. But there's so
52:30
Speaker 1: much stuff in great articles and interesting scholarship to read
52:34
Speaker 1: about Marcus Garvey and his legacy. So go check it
52:37
Speaker 1: out because it's pretty interesting. And since I said that
52:41
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this short
52:46
Speaker 1: and sweet because this was a longer episode. So this
52:48
Speaker 1: is perfect. Uh. When we did the episode on the
52:52
Speaker 1: church Choir that didn't explode, we felt bad because we
52:56
Speaker 1: could not find Reverend Kimple's wife's first name. And wouldn't
53:01
Speaker 1: you know it, the stuff you should know, Army comes
53:03
Speaker 1: through for us. Hey, guys, love the show. Been listening
53:06
Speaker 1: for years. I heard the episode on the church Choir
53:09
Speaker 1: that didn't explode, and you said you couldn't find Reverend
53:11
Speaker 1: Kimple's wife in her first name, And I was excited
53:13
Speaker 1: because I knew that the nineteen fifty census had just
53:17
Speaker 1: been released on April one, So I guess in our defense,
53:21
Speaker 1: we recorded that before people first, right. Absolutely, I went
53:25
Speaker 1: and searched and they were listed in the census. Walter's
53:28
Speaker 1: wife's name. Can we get a drum roll here is
53:32
Speaker 1: Eunice Jay Climpole. We probably could a guest in the
53:37
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. Units was probably a top five name, uh
53:41
Speaker 1: for Evelyn in in uh in Beatrice, Nebraska, for sure. Yeah,
53:46
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it's them right county and right profession
53:50
Speaker 1: and the only Walter Climpole. Yeah, I mean Climpole with
53:53
Speaker 1: without an e L. It's got to be it. Keep
53:55
Speaker 1: up with a good work. And that was from a
53:57
Speaker 1: couple of people in it. But this was from Sue.
54:00
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Sue. Yeah, I did notice a couple
54:02
Speaker 1: of people wrote in, so it's pretty sharp. The n
54:05
Speaker 1: censes just come out, and Sue sat bolt upright in
54:08
Speaker 1: bed and said, I gotta look. Thanks, And that makes you,
54:11
Speaker 1: uh an official research assistant. Right, So if you want
54:17
Speaker 1: to be like Sue and send us some unpaid research
54:20
Speaker 1: where we'd love that, that'd be great, especially if it's accurate. Um,
54:25
Speaker 1: you can put it in an email and send it
54:27
Speaker 1: off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
54:34
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For
54:36
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
54:39
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.