Morbid Romantic

Book Review & Personal Blog

Title: The Rise and Fall of the Garvey Movement in the Urban South, 1918-1942¹
Author(s): Claudrena N. Harold
Genre: Nonfiction – History
Finished: February 17, 2010
Rating: 2 Stars

Historians writing of Marcus Garvey and the Garvey movement, according to Claudrena N. Harold, have paid scant attention to the work of the organization in the South. Though the Jim Crow South is not entirely ignored by historians, Harold states that there has yet to be a systematic study of Garveyism’s successes and failures in the urban South (3). Her effort to do so in her book The Rise and Fall of the Garvey Movement in the Urban South, 1918-1942 focuses on three major urban areas in the South: New Orleans, Louisiana; Miami, Florida; and Hampton Roads, Virginia. Not only does Harold intend to document the rise and fall of Garveyism in the three locations she has selected, but also to describe how each branch became individual entities within the larger movement as local communities and culture influenced the manner in which Garveyism was accepted and followed. It is the reception of Garvey’s ideals of racial purity, repatriation, race solidarity, and self-reliance in a cultural context as described by Harold that shows she made an attempt in each case to understand the political and social atmosphere Garveyism was entering as it flowed from its Parent Body in New York down South. Organized on geographical lines rather than chronological, Harold examines her cities one at a time, beginning in each where Garveyism takes off and following through until decline makes fall imminent.

While Harold shows an aptness for understanding cultural context and how this fit within the development of the movement, parts of The Rise and Fall of the Garvey Movement lack in information or description that would provide useful for understanding some of what that cultural make up was. For example, when describing the racial tensions in New Orleans, Harold states that American blacks were in conflict with Creoles of Color, yet she does not expound her point in the text itself to state why there was this racial fission, which would have helped the reader understand the complex scope of the social context UNIA members were enmeshed in (31-32). Instead, Harold pushes back her explanation to the notes for readers to dig out. Yet not every case of the unexplained is satisfied with note page clarification. Harold makes a point that elections of John M. Parker and Andrew McShane created tensions between the government and those working for better labor conditions (33). While it can be derived from this point that Parker and McShane had something to do with the labor movement, and in fact negatively, there is no further information given to explain how and why. It leaves a gap in understanding and Harold does not include information in her notes to fill in the gap left by these men’s names; we have their names and the setting, but not their true significance and therefore must question why they are important to mention at all.

In fact, a good portion of information is placed in the notes section, which varies in length from small sentences to at times being as extensive as multiple paragraphs per note. For the most part it appears that Harold made this a rational choice to keep her story on topic by placing explanatory information in the notes and leaving it out of the text lest the reader begin to lose focus of her intent. She manages to balance a delicate line between telling her story fluidly and fleshing out details by utilizing her endnotes to their purpose. For example, Harold tells the story of a woman named Laura Kofey who becomes quite popular among the Miami Garveyites for her own message of racial purity and repatriation (78). It is stated that there were issues about her fundraising schemes, but then without explanation as to where the controversy lies, Harold moves on to how Garvey and Garveyites reacted to Kofey. It is ultimately unimportant the exact problems people had with Kofey’s fundraising, so Harold leaves it out of her text. However, to satisfy the curiosity of those who want to fill in the blanks, Harold describes in her notes section just where the conflict was centered (149). Though this does not always work for Harold, and in some cases adding the information in the notes to the text instead of leaving in the back of the book would aid in understanding some of the importance of what is being said, as stated above with the example about the NOLA conflict between American blacks and Creoles of Color. Another example comes in when Harold makes mention of Garvey meeting with members of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan group in 1922 (38). She does not illuminate what the meeting was about or what happened, only that it causes contention. The reader must flip back to the notes to find out what the meeting was all about (139). Considering that Harold later places a lot of importance on blacks working with white supremacists in Virginia, it would have expanded on that point more to express that Garvey and Garveyites had been working through this route since early on and more widespread.

Harold leaves a lot of questions unanswered. It is certainly unfair to expect an author to be able to answer every question, especially since not every question can be addressed with available historical evidence. Yet to recognize the existence of the unanswerable question leads historians to new fields of study and sates the curiosity of readers who will ask the questions themselves and feel that the book has left out answers. In acknowledging the questions that still exist for which there are no satisfactory answers, Harold would have closed gaps that may arise in the minds of readers. Yet, effort must be made to fulfill the expectations of readers by giving answers that do exist. For example, Harold writes of the community medical project initiated by NOLA Garveyites of the NOD. In the relatively short section, Harold explains why the project was started and how, but she does not bother to detail ultimately how successful the project was (53). The issue of unaddressed questions and contradictions becomes more problematic later on in the text. Early on in her section on Miami Garveyites, a group made up mostly of Bahamians entering Florida, she points out that a cultural divergence existed between the immigrants and the native African Blacks. The Bahamians saw the natives as submitting to the power of whites because the native blacks were more likely to work within the white power structure (66). Harold does not address how the Miami Garveyites could reconcile this conflict with the fact that they too adopted conservative views in certain respects (72-73). She also fails to recognize the contradiction and difficulty Miami Garveyites faced within their mission statement, which claimed to desire the uniting of Africans all over the globe. Yet, they could not breech the gap between them and native African Americans (82). Her story is therefore a narrative and lacks analysis. The bulk of her sources are secondary, and her major primary source is an edited volume of the Negro World paper, which leads to the question of how much editing was involved in its compiling and how correct her information is

Ultimately, Harold’s greatest achievement is in the way she fused three different stories together as unique examples on one hand, but on the other hand part of the same movement and influenced by some of the same situations such as the end of the Black Star Line and Garvey’s arrest. In all three cases, her argument is that pervading difficulties aside, it was the Great Depression that acted as the true catalyst to the end of Garveyism. In each of the three cases, according to Harold, the Great Depression left such an economic mark throughout the country and changed ideals so much that Garvey’s organization could not be monetarily sustained and people fell out of line with many of Garvey’s points such as self-sufficiency and economic power. The message became irrelevant. The Garvey movement was damaged not only by the internal influences chronicles throughout, but one of many victims of an economic disaster that hurt many. This, of course, calls into question the scope of the title, dates which promise to trace events from 1918 to 1942. Since the Great Depression caused a general decline in the first portion of the 1930s, Harold continues the chronology of her narrative beyond to show how Garveyites used their political training to move on to different causes. Some formed new groups, some joined radical groups, and some grew increasingly supportive of the NAACP. According to Harold, it was the activity of the Garvey movement that trained participants for a political, activist life. In this way, Harold shows the lasting legacy of the Garvey movement to later pushes for civil rights, placing her work within this historical chronology.

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1. The following review was part of an assignment and was turned in for a grade. [↩]

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