The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Vol. I, Volume 1: 1826-August 1919

Marcus Mosiah Garvey (1887- 1940) led an extraordinary mass movement of black social protest. His Universal Negro Improvement Association and his "back to African" program of racial nationalism introduced many ideas that emerged again during the Black Power years of the 1960s: pride in black roots, pride in black physical features and African culture, and rejection of assimilation into white America. Yet the charismatic black Jamaican who roared his credo before huge audiences on the st reet corners of Harlem remains an enigma. His image as an honest idealist urging blacks to build their own nation has been clouded by accusations that he was a con man who, in the name of black pride, perpetrated one of history's greatest swindles. The Marcus Garvey And Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers clarifies the Garvey phenomenon. This is the first volume in a monumental ten-volume survey of thirty thousand archival documents and original manuscripts from widely separated sources, brou