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Introduction
The years following World War I were ones filled with disillusionment for American blacks. American involvement in that war encouraged a new wave of African-American migration out of the South. As northern industries supplied the needs of the allies and with European immigration closed off, the nation had a demand for both skilled and unskilled labor. But black hopes raised by these opportunities were dashed as relations between blacks and whites worsened in the 1920s. After the United States Supreme Court declared municipal segregation ordinances unconstitutional in 1917, restricted residential covenants were drawn up by many white real estate agents. These same discriminatory practices carried over into the labor force where African-American workers were given the more menial, lower paid or arduous jobs.1
In response to the increased white racism and black disillusionment, many African Americans developed an intensified racial awareness and militancy. Nationalists such as WE.B. Du Bois and A. Philip Randolph advocated African-American resistance to white mobs as well as to the policies of many white-owned corporations.2 But as conditions worsened, earlier black migrants blamed new arrivals for the increasing discrimination that all African Americans north of the Mason-Dixon line had to endure.3 Nativism was evident in Harlem where tensions between African-American and Caribbean immigrants began to erupt. Many native-born blacks resented the increasing competition from West Indians.4 Differences in cultural, religious, and social mores contributed to the schism between the Northern blacks and Caribbean newcomers as well.
In literature, arts, and music, the Harlem renaissance signified the emergence of the "New Negro"-aggressive, somewhat ethnocentric, and on a mission to uncover the greatness of both himself and his people.5 Into this restless climate emerged a Caribbean agitator and visionary who introduced a compelling option to urban African Americans entrapped in a social environment already resembling a separate society: Marcus Garvey.
Marcus Garvey was born in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica. He was the youngest of eleven children. As a child he had playmates of various ethnicities; however, as he grew older, he quickly became aware of the color line that existed around the entire world.
At the age of fourteen, Garvey experienced his first brutal encounter with the ugly stain of racism. He had played with the children of a Wesleyan minister...