A Jamaican printer with a gift for oratory, Marcus Garvey built in the 1910s and 1920s what is widely regarded as the largest organized Black mass movement in history — chapters from Harlem to Lagos, a newspaper crossing oceans. His message: Africa's scattered people were one, with a proud past and a future to seize. He founded the Black Star Line to link the diaspora. The ships were bought badly, the money ran out, and a contested 1923 mail fraud conviction led to deportation. He died in London in 1940; his pride ran into African independence and the Rastafari faith.
Marcus Garvey told millions of Black people to look up. A Jamaican printer with a booming voice, he built in the 1910s and 1920s the largest organized movement of people of African descent the world had ever seen, on a message electric and simple: Africa’s scattered children were one people, with a proud past and a future they could seize. His steamship line went bankrupt, a contested fraud conviction sent him to prison and then into exile, and he died in London in 1940 with his empire scattered. But the pride he planted outlived him — into African independence, the civil rights movement, and the Rastafari who took his words as prophecy.