Negro with a Hat

by Colin Grant

  A conspicuous ‘munificent philanthropy’ had also marked the approach of the American Colonization Society less than a decade after Paul Cuffe’s trail-blazing: free transportation to Liberia was offered, along with a generous grant. The only significant drawback enumerated by the society was the peculiar African coast fever that every non-native was subject to, and though it was admitted that ‘in some cases it proves fatal’, the prospective settlers were assured that ‘after becoming acclimated, coloured people do not suffer from this disease’.9

  By the end of the nineteenth century, out of several million black candidates, fewer than 16,000 took up the offer of the American Colonisation Society and boarded ships to Liberia. Whilst this suggests that the society struggled to sell the idea of Africa to America’s black population, in practice they had more trouble selling the idea of themselves as ‘white friends’ of the Negro. Black Americans were sceptical, if not cynical, about the organisation’s aims. The arguments over their intentions still had not abated decades after the society had become defunct. The UNIA offices were packed with sceptics – not least among them was Hubert Harrison. The literary editor of the Negro World articulated the popularly held view that benign ‘white friends’ were then, as now, actually malignant and detrimental to Negro advance – whether it be the interracial NAACP of 1921 or its predecessor, the American Colonization Society. ‘Wide awake Negroes were able to show that its real purpose was to get rid of free Negroes because, so long as they continued to live here, their freedom was an inducement to the slaves to run away, and their accomplishments demonstrated to all white people that the Negro was capable of a higher human destiny than that of being chattels.’10

  Black Americans, then, held a concomitant ambivalence towards Africa. After three centuries on the continent, African-Americans considered themselves as American as any other hyphenate – and in many cases (compared to Eastern European migrants) even more so. In the euphoria that followed on from the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of the enslaved, the number of emigrants to Liberia trailed off considerably. The post-bellum years threw up formidable black leaders who saw the chance for black folk to stake their equal claim on America. Henry McNeal Turner, the chaplain of the 1st Regiment, United States Colored Troops, was one such man; he became the kind of national figure for which there had been no precedent. Turner bore striking similarities to Marcus Garvey. The Crisis was to write of him: ‘Turner was the last of his clan: mighty physically and mentally who started at the bottom and hammered their way to the top by sheer brute strength, they were the spiritual progeny of African chieftains and they built the African church in America.’ At the war’s end, Reverend Turner criss-crossed the country, imploring the black population to expand on its new-found freedom. In the period known as Reconstruction, Northern administrators travelled to the South and worked with these black leaders to establish an equitable new order. Within a few years, though, that enthusiasm began to wilt under the strain of a resurgent white oligarchy in the South, and the implementation of local ‘Jim Crow’ laws which ushered in legal segregation. Black euphoria turned to despair and Henry McNeal Turner was one of a number of senior figures who thought it prudent to reconsider the merits of a return to Africa. So ardent a proponent did Turner become that at one stage he accepted the vice-presidency of the American Colonisation Society. From the 1880s onwards he grew even more strident in his belief in the urgency of exodus: ‘There is no manhood future in the United States for the Negro,’ was Turner’s prognosis. ‘He may eke out an existence for generations to come, but he can never be a man – fully symmetrical and undwarfed.’ His prescription was repatriation: ‘I believe two or three million of us should return to the land of our ancestors and establish our own nation.’ Bishop Turner was convinced that a debilitating culture of complaint was evolving in black life. By embracing repatriation blacks would ‘cease to be grumblers and a menace to the white man’s country, or the country he claims and is bound to dominate’.11 Turner was thrilled on his arrival in Liberia, ‘one of the most paradisaical portions of earth my eyes ever beheld’.

  Turner, like Garvey, would be accused of mistaking propaganda for reality. Surgeon James Africanus Horton, also a champion of African sovereignty, did not offer such a misty-eyed view. In January 1866, he wrote with soldierly precision, ‘The entrance to Monrovia reminds one of the entrance to a purely native town, where the light of civilisation has never reached … it gives the idea of the existence of great inertia.’12 The inertia was unforgivable and Horton invoked the spirit of another champion, Hilary Teage, in reminding Liberians of their special responsibility: ‘Upon you … depends, in a measure you can hardly conceive, the future destiny of the race. You are to give the answer whether the African race is doomed to interminable degradation – a hideous blot on the fair face of creation, a libel upon the dignity of human nature; or whether they are capable to take an honourable rank amongst the great family of nations.’13

  But who were these migrants? In the first instance they were true believers. The idea of Liberia consistently fired the imagination of frustrated and ambitious intellectuals. In spite of the advocacy of its white supporters, the young colony attracted racially alert young men and women from North America and the Caribbean for whom it offered exciting possibilities of self-expression (stymied in their place of birth) and an outlet for their zeal. Early on, Liberia was to benefit from the altruism and pioneering spirit of men such as the Jamaican, John Russworm, and Edward Wilmot Blyden from the Virgin Islands. Russworm, who’d published Freedom’s Journal, the first black newspaper in America, emigrated to Liberia in 1829 and quickly established the Liberia Herald. The young scholar Edward Blyden would eventually assume the editorship of the Herald when he arrived in Liberia in the 1850s.

  Blyden developed a volatile and complex relationship with his adopted country. In his long life he would serve as a professor of classics at Liberia College, as Liberian Secretary of State and as a constant critic of political corruption, culminating in an unsuccessful presidential bid.14 Black readers in Africa and throughout the diaspora took vicarious pleasure in the prominence given to Blyden’s scholarship – even, or especially, when attached to some disquiet. Reviewing Blyden’s Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, John X. Merriman, prime minister of Cape Colony wrote, ‘If one thought that the cultivated writer represented any aspirations or ideas of a considerable section of black people, it would give one an uncomfortable feeling, but he is as much a “rara avis” [rarity] in his way as Toussaint L’Ouverture was. Blyden is successful in pointing out the failure of European enterprise to touch more than a fringe of the Continent and showing how climate enforces his demand of “Africa for the Africans”.’15

  In anticipating Garvey, Blyden clearly enunciated the need for Africans at home and abroad to reclaim the continent. And the Jamaican ‘Negro of unmixed stock’ must have thought himself the subject of Blyden’s prophetic black Moses when the Liberian scholar wrote, ‘The Negro leader of the exodus, who will succeed, will be a Negro of the Negroes, like Moses was a Hebrew of the Hebrews – even if brought up in Pharaoh’s palace – no half-Hebrew and half-Egyptian will do the work.’16

  Marcus Garvey was inspired by Blyden when he first discovered his work in the reading room of the British Museum in 1913. Now he looked to the nineteenth-century scholar when framing his own ideas, not just of a return to Africa but also of the importance of being alert to enemies within the race. If Blyden was a vindicator of the race, he was also a stern critic of what he saw as the treachery born of miscegenation. Blyden despised the brown Americo-Liberian elite that ran the country and was not averse to spelling out their failings. His tendency towards frankness sometimes got the better of learnt prudence. On one occasion, when commenting in a publication of the undesirability of mixed races, Blyden, who described himself as ‘pure Negro’, expressed the view that ‘decadent mulattoes in important positions accounted in part for Liberia’s want of enterprise and progr
ess’. The critical response to his article eschewed journalistic repartee. A mulatto-inspired crowd of ‘forty poverty-stricken and ignorant blacks’ set upon Blyden, tied a rope around his neck and dragged him through the streets of Monrovia. The scholar’s desperate pleas for mercy were drowned out by the baying mob; his life was only spared through the intervention of his highly regarded friend, D. B. Warner. Thereafter, Blyden temporarily fled to neighbouring Sierra Leone. His virulent antipathy towards the light-skinned rulers of Liberia remained with him throughout his life. In old age, as he prepared for the end, he is said to have remarked, ‘When I am dead – write nothing on my tombstone but … “He hated mulattoes.”’17

  Garvey hadn’t yet reached such a conclusion. At the start of 1921, he was busy courting the light-skinned members of the Liberian regime and offering up the tantalising prospect of a loan from the UNIA. The Liberian treasury was empty and the government had been locked into interminable negotiations with the Americans for a $5 million loan. Whilst arms were not yet outstretched towards the alternative offered by Garvey, the early indications were that the authorities in Monrovia were favourably disposed towards the UNIA. The organisation felt enthused enough to beat the drum for Liberia, to chastise Washington over its vacillation and to launch its own drive to collect $2 million towards a Liberian Construction Loan – replacing the earlier Liberian Liberty bonds promotion.

  Garvey was now working intensely on three fronts: negotiating to secure the transatlantic ocean liner; securing land for the UNIA repatriation project in Liberia, and the all-consuming fundraising drives. Movement on the latter was slow. As one insider put it, ‘the stock-selling scheme seems to have been worked to death’. In addition, the organisation suffered from stock-sales agents who developed a hitherto unknown condition – the ‘loss-of-stock-certificate-book’ syndrome or the ‘loss-of-briefcase-containing-stock-books’ syndrome. When not presenting with these unhealthy signs and symptoms, too many agents returned empty-handed with padded expenses for accommodation, road and rail travel that ate into profits.

  A range of novel ideas were dreamed up to further boost the UNIA coffers. One of the more colourful was the gold, silver and bronze Crosses of African Redemption. Garvey conceived of these medals as the Negro equivalent to the English Victoria Cross and the German Iron Cross. But they were not the reward for conspicuous courage; rather for extraordinary generosity. For a subscriber to qualify for such an honour he or she would need to pledge a loan: $50 for a Bronze Cross, $100 for a Silver Cross and $500 for a Gold Cross. The casting of these tributes never exceeded their initial run and made little dint in the organisation’s financial difficulties. Neither did the more modest subscriptions of $25 which would guarantee lenders that their names and photographs were published in the Negro World and Universal African Volume. Much, much more money was needed to keep the dream afloat.

  Garvey does not seem to have entertained nostalgia for his simpler earlier life. His anxiety over the monetary machinations necessary to manage his increasingly unwieldy organisation was overridden by a titanic confidence that is bestowed on few men, and the recognition that he himself was the movement’s greatest asset. With this in mind, he started putting together a plan to embark on yet another round of mass selling of BSL stock: this time he’d have to travel further afield to induce black folk in the untapped regions of Central America and the Caribbean to buy into his dream. For though the Black Star Line expected Negroes the world over to trade with one another, it had a larger purpose than transporting coconuts, whisky and figs: steaming between Africa, America and the Caribbean Garvey’s ships also aimed to ferry the likes of Josie Gatlin, daughters and sons of former slaves, back to Mother Africa.

  Stock selling was always going to be difficult during the economic depression that followed the post-war boom. That the movement managed to keep the tills ringing during these straitened times was in large part the result of the huge surge of interest that followed the August convention. In 1921 the UNIA secretary general recorded a four-fold increase in the number of divisions, rising from 95 to 418, with a similar number waiting on the New York branch to process their applications for charters.

  Nonetheless, the black workforce in America was hit particularly hard by the downturn in the economy. Garvey, much to the growing irritation of his Socialist allies, had very little time for the sentimental notions of class solidarity. He advised members to keep a wary eye out for the competition ‘because a Pole is just packing up his baggage in Poland coming over here after that job. An Irish girl is just packing her grip to come for that job you have now; and I am advising you to hold out until we can tell you from the platform of Liberty Hall we have better jobs for you in Liberia.’18

  It was neither an Irish girl nor a Pole who, after her ship docked at New York and once she’d cleared Ellis Island, made her way uptown to 129th Street in Harlem to enquire about a position as housemaid. Thirty-seven years old and recently married, Indiana Peart had last seen her brother Marcus four years ago. President-General Garvey, the provisional president of Africa, opened the door. He was heavier now; a little thicker around the jaw and waist. His jet-black, ackee eyes still twinkled and a warm easy smile broke out over his face. The familiar, commanding voice and manner was more studied than before; and his slight limp might have gone undetected but for his use of a walking stick.

  Back in Jamaica, though unfeignedly proud of him, Indiana had not foreseen that her brother, who then scratched out a living selling greeting and condolence cards, could have been capable of such mighty deeds. The scale of his fame she now saw reflected even in the decoration of his over-elaborate apartment. Indiana was petite and timid, and was dwarfed by the surroundings, the vases that lined all the walls, the large portrait of her brother in the parlour and the polished grand piano. Garvey offered Indiana and her husband, Alfred Uriah Peart, a room in the apartment. He put her in charge of its upkeep on a salary of $35 and found a place for Alfred in the organisation’s steam laundry. Garvey’s sister and brother-in-law would remain in the apartment at 129th Street for two years. The joy of reunion with her brother soon passed; gradually depression and despondency set in. Amy Jacques, who also had a room, recorded Indiana’s dismay at the exacting duties and misery brought upon her brother by his fame. ‘She grieved silently. After a time she tried to shut it out of her vision by withdrawing to her room when her brother was home; she persuaded [Alfred] to do the same.’

  Marcus Garvey had neither the time nor inclination to reflect on his sister’s pitying gaze, trained on him from the shadow of her bedroom door. Very little of Garvey’s personal correspondence from this time has been found. The many reported speeches, though, record the degree to which he was consumed by the vision of an African empire. He was a consummate dreamer; and the eternal longing for the African mother land was at the back of every thought. At the start of 1921 he continued to divine a plan for the continent on a scale that, to many, was unimaginable and unrealisable. Even Du Bois conceded that ‘the new cry of Africa for the Africans strikes with a startling surprise upon America’s darker millions’, and that Garvey was at the head of a movement that is ‘as yet inchoate and indefinite but tremendously human [and] piteously sincere’.19 It was not beyond possibility that the dream of Africa might yet be realised, perhaps not on the level he imagined but at least at some lower frequency.

  Marcus Garvey was not so naive as to proceed without sounding the depths of the problems the movement might encounter in Liberia – without testing the assurance of the Secretary of State, Edwin Barclay, that Liberia stood ready to ‘afford the Association every facility legally possible in effectuating industry, agriculture and business projects’.20 He had taken the precaution of commissioning a report from the organisation’s auditor-general, Elie Garcia, months before the August convention. Garcia, a neat and nimble, puckish Haitian, had approached the task with forensic gusto. He had actually produced two reports; one for public consumption which was detailed at the conventio
n, and the other confidential report for the eyes of Garvey only. The public document was a jaunty run through the honours bestowed upon him by enthusiastic audiences. Garcia was amused to report that two delegations from rival UNIA branches had greeted him upon arrival in Monrovia with both literally picking up his bags and pulling him in different directions; both beseeching him to endorse the one and repulse the other. Garcia neatly mediated and resolved the problem with some tactic to endorse the one group who had a substantial number of members and to encourage the other – which seemed to exist only on paper – to perhaps consider setting up a branch elsewhere.

  When it came to the real purpose of his confidential investigation in Liberia, Garcia was brutally frank about the Americo-Liberians’ shortcomings. They were the ruling class and ‘although educated, constitute the most despicable element in Liberia … To any man who can write and read there is but one goal: a government office, where he can graft.’ Above all, Garcia deplored the caste system that he observed. The love of liberty may have brought the African-Americans to Liberia but they had not extended those rights to the local indigenous population. The African-Americans had fled a slave system and transplanted much of the master/servant ethos to their new-found land; the iniquities and inequalities were pronounced. Garcia related an anecdote of a shopping expedition to Monrovia by way of example: ‘As I was stepping out of the store my companion [an Americo-Liberian] told me: “Why, I don’t suppose you are going to carry this bundle yourself?” “Why not?” said I. “It is a very small parcel.” He answered that it was not the custom in Liberia for any gentleman to carry parcels; therefore [defeating] the usefulness of having slaves.’ Garcia was also affronted by the obvious large-scale misappropriation of funds. Forty years on from James Horton’s description, Garcia observed that the infrastructure of the republic was not much changed: ‘There is not a mile of road in all Liberia and in Monrovia not a street worthy of the name. Bush grows in front and around the executive mansion. Yet the average Liberian is as proud as a peacock and boasts that [at least] he ‘never sang in a cornfield’.