Negro with a Hat

by Colin Grant

  For all of his criticisms, Elie Garcia was optimistic about UNIA involvement. In stating his belief that ‘our work is bound to be successful along all lines’, he added one caveat – the need for greater diplomacy: ‘The article [of the UNIA] Constitution dealing with powers of the Potentate and some references in the Negro World in regard to the election of a ruler for all black people have been a troublesome nightmare to them.’

  Diplomacy wasn’t the provisional president of Africa’s strongest card. Neither does discretion appear to have been inserted into the Negro World’s style book. Long before any formal contracts with Monrovia had been exchanged the organisation was calling for craftsmen to volunteer their services for the soon-to-be-established settlement.

  ‘Wanted Immediately,’ a UNIA advert blazed across the pages of the Negro World, ‘Architects and Contracting Builders to go to Liberia. Must be willing to sail between January 25 and February 20, 1921’.

  Adverts in the Negro World depicted Africa as the land of opportunity. And in truth, Liberia was rich in minerals and had vast tracts, millions of acres, of uncultivated fertile land, but it was nearly bankrupt. Garcia reckoned the Liberians were weighted down by debts of $1,700,000 which they could barely service. The terms of credit, so far proffered by the United States administration, had been too humiliating even for cash-strapped Liberians to accept. Garcia had read the American proposals which he considered ‘from beginning to end the most insulting and humiliating document ever presented to a free people’.

  Liberia hesitated to ratify the loan agreement with the USA and Garvey saw an opportunity to exploit the stalemate. In his eyes, a UNIA offer ‘to help the Government of Liberia out of its economic plights and to raise subscriptions all over the world to help the country to liquidate its debts to foreign countries’ would be an irresistible inducement. At first, with Pavlovian expectancy, the Liberian oligarchy (as represented by Gabriel Johnson) quietly salivated at the thought of an alternative source of funds coming its way.21

  The likelihood of the UNIA deal eventually being realised rested in part on the glad-handling Johnson, Mayor of Monrovia, whom Garvey had in his pocket, or at least on the payroll at $12,000 per year. With Johnson’s enthusiastic endorsement, Marcus Garvey sent the fastidious accountant and stenographer Cyril A. Crichlow, along with George Marke, to Monrovia to secure land and property on favourable terms and to put in place the foundations for the imminent recolonisation of Africa.

  If all went to plan, Liberia would serve as a vital beachhead from where the UNIA could extend its tentacles over the whole of Africa. Initially a six-man team of commissioners would be sent out to Liberia, including an agriculturist, a building engineer, a surveyor and a chemist. On 18 January 1921, Garvey wrote excitedly to Gabriel Johnson about the practical steps for ‘carrying out their construction plan for Liberia’. Johnson, the Supreme Potentate and Crichlow, the Resident Commissar (Garvey excelled in his use of their recently bestowed titles) were to be co-signatories on any large-scale expenditure: when Johnson was unavailable then His Highness the Supreme Deputy Potentate, George Marke, would sign on his behalf.22

  This business of titles was the cause of some initial anguish. On the voyage over to Liberia, Crichlow took possession of the $2,000 travelling expenses and had to assuage Marke (several ranks his senior) who was affronted at having to travel second class – just like Crichlow. At a reception in honour of Gabriel Johnson, it was made clear that the Liberian authorities were disturbed by their high-faluting, international titles which suggested an authority over the entire Negro race, in excess of the local remit of their hosts. When called upon to make the toast to his uncle-in-law, Gabriel Johnson (the UNIA’s supreme potentate), President King pointedly raised a glass ‘to the Mayor of Monrovia’.23

  Marcus Garvey was counting on Mayor Johnson to use his good offices with the president to secure a concession on 1,000 acres of arable land in order that they could ‘start immediately planting the earliest crop, so as to be able to take care of the other workmen, and also to enable [the building engineer] Mr Jermott to start putting up buildings to accommodate the men’.24 Johnson was happy to oblige. He would have Garvey understand, though, that finding property in or around the capital was out of the question. However, he proposed a ‘township near Monrovia which may be about 30 or 40 miles away, has some roads, partly built’, as the best available solution, and that a cheap workforce should be employed locally rather than sending to the USA for their expensive African-American counterparts. Johnson secured terms on the land, a farm owned by local Liberian Mrs Moort. The crops planted in the land, leased largely at Johnson’s say-so, failed to thrive. The UNIA’s agriculturist was suspicious, and Crichlow reported his complaints that ‘the land is poor and worn-out, and there is a feeling that the property was palmed off on the Association as a personal favour by His Highness to Mrs Moort’.25

  The immediate strains on the commissioners would soon become apparent. Lines of authority, clear on paper, were not so in practice on the ground in Monrovia. Crichlow, Marke and Gabriel Johnson all thought they were in charge. Crichlow quickly developed distaste for Liberian intrigue and nepotism. He had inadvertently been given a description of it when the commissioners met Edwin Barclay, Liberia’s secretary of state. Barclay warned them that Britain and France (with neighbouring colonies of Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast) had already expressed an unhealthy interest in the UNIA’s plans beyond Liberia and the bellicose propaganda and talk of ‘driving Europe out’ of Africa. Barclay advised the UNIA to learn from the Liberian approach, namely that ‘it is not always advisable nor politic to openly expose our secret intentions … our secret thoughts. That is the way we do … or rather don’t do in Liberia. We don’t tell them what we think; we only tell them what we like them to hear … what in fact, they like to hear.’ Crichlow, though, had come away with an unsettling thought: if Barclay had articulated Liberia’s sly and duplicitous approach to the French and British, why would it not be so for the UNIA?26

  Setting out his instructions for the mission, Marcus Garvey had encouraged Crichlow to keep a tight grip on expenditure and to ensure that everyone, including the potentate, gave value for money. The UNIA headquarters would cable over the funds for salaries for Crichlow to disburse each month. Marcus Garvey hadn’t built in any leeway for the local penchant for graft. The first sign of real trouble came with the appointment of the potentate’s son, Hilary Johnson, as a clerk in the office. It was Crichlow’s suggestion, calculated as a gesture of good faith to the potentate, and besides he was of ‘higher intelligence and ability than the average Liberian young men’. The move soon backfired. The son’s work ethic was second-rate: time sheets were an alien concept, and most often he would wander in late in the afternoon and occasionally not at all. Reluctantly Crichlow brought the son’s tardiness to the potentate’s attention and in doing so, ‘committed the unpardonable sin and have been persona non grata ever since with both father and son’. Soon after, Johnson’s son was signing correspondence as if he, and not Crichlow, was the resident commissar – an attitude encouraged by the potentate. As Crichlow’s perception became more selective, he started to glean the extent to which the potentate himself hardly carried out any duties in support of his $12,000 UNIA salary; instead his energies were given over to a number of money-making schemes that relied on the exploitation of the organisation. One was an ‘old leaky bui[l]ding on Broad St, that had funds come as requested, he would have repaired and sold or leased to the Association’. Crichlow seemed at a loss to know what to do other than ‘simply allow matters to take their course’. Even after several exhausting months, he was disinclined to break ranks.27

  Whilst Crichlow agonised over the little progress that was being made and the money squandered, Gabriel Johnson was sending cables to New York for the funds needed for keeping the good work going. On 24 March 1921 Johnson wrote, ‘have received favourable new concessions’, and added tantalisingly, ‘we cannot give you any information by
cable or letter. Remit by telegraph immediately $5,000 … Complete sawmill equipment needed immediately. Ship by an early steamer, the first if possible.’ Without the thousands of dollars asked for, Johnson later warned, work would be compelled to stop.28

  There was a strong case for monies to be directed to Liberia but the same could be said for the purchase of the next Black Star Line ship, the salaries of the crew of the Kanawha, and the maintenance of the headquarters. The organisation was haemorrhaging money.

  Notwithstanding the dramas swirling all around him, Marcus Garvey was not averse to even more self-dramatisation. Earlier in the year, he had whispered to a hushed Liberty Hall audience, ‘Two weeks from this I shall suddenly disappear from you for six weeks. You won’t hear from me during that time, but don’t be alarmed because we Negroes will have to adopt the system of underground workings like de Valera and other white leaders.’ BOI informants had already passed on the details of the secret manoeuvrings to which he was referring, namely that he was preparing for a fundraising tour of the Caribbean. The amateur sleuth need not rely on subterfuge to come to the same conclusion; all he had to do was pick up a copy of the Negro World on 18 January, read the announcement that the Black Star liner Antonio Maceo (Kanawha) was due to leave New York shortly for Bermuda, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and Panama, and make the not unreasonable deduction that one Marcus Garvey might be on board. Sir James Willcocks, the governor-general of Bermuda, certainly thought so. He wrote to the newly appointed British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Winston Churchill, proposing ‘to prohibit their landing … since the association is openly revolutionary’.29

  Garvey was determined to embark on the tour despite the protestations of some of his anxious inner circle who feared that once he’d left the shores of the United States the authorities would make it difficult for him to return. Their assumptions were correct; Hoover and the BOI especially anticipated his departure; telephone wires burned, and reams of telegrams were dispatched as speculation mounted that this most unwelcome guest would be sailing from Key West. There was a danger though that Hoover would be disappointed. In the weeks before he hoped to travel, Garvey appeared to do everything in his power to ensure that he was denied a British passport. On the podium at Liberty Hall, he delivered a series of spectacularly anti-British speeches, singling out Winston Churchill as ‘the greatest Negro hater in the British Empire’ whose appointment was due to his willingness ‘to carry out that savagery and brutality among the darker and weaker races of the world through a system of exploitation that will bring bankrupt Britain the solvency she so much desires’.30 Luckily for Garvey the official who interviewed him for a passport adopted a conciliatory line. Having pointed out ‘the benefits which have accrued to the Negro race under British administration’, the consul general stamped his passport and waved Garvey on, modestly pleased to have had the good sense to initiate a policy, ‘that will eventually have the effect of causing him to be less radical in his attacks on constituted authority’.31

  On 22 February Marcus Garvey bid farewell to his loyal supporters; they’d be able to follow the dramas of their leader’s progress through the Caribbean in the pages of the Negro World, and in six weeks he’d return in triumph amongst them. The UNIA leader’s mission was clear. The association’s fortunes rested on his ability somehow to raise extra funds in the Caribbean and Central America. Once more he’d have to roll out the old Garvey magic and through his powers of oration, rouse and inspire the poor black populations of Kingston, Havana, Colón and Limón to give over their tithes and widows’ mites in the hope of restoring the UNIA coffers. As well as Black Star Line stock, he’d be encouraging subscriptions to the Liberian Construction Loan.

  Garvey’s itinerary had been amended after the delays brought about by yet more repairs to the Kanawha’s boilers. The ship still wasn’t ready towards the end of February and, as the president of Liberia was due shortly on a state visit, Garvey was tempted to put back his date of departure from 28 February. In the event, financial urgency took precedence. There was also the anxiety on the part of the president’s advisers not to reveal his true, amicable feelings towards Garvey and UNIA lest it unsettle his American hosts.

  A number of BOI agents were drafted into raising the level of surveillance on Garvey. Hoover alerted the immigration authorities in Florida of the imminent arrival of the notorious Negro agitator ‘in order that should [he] actually depart from our midst the Labor Department may have their ports of entry scrutinised for his return’.32 The immigration officers were far less coy in their response, requesting that Hoover furnish ‘whatever facts you may have which might be used as a basis for excluding Garvey should he attempt to again enter the United States’.33 Marcus Garvey, accompanied by his secretary Amy Jacques and her younger brother Cleveland, duly arrived in Florida, having boarded a train for Key West, and took up berths on the USS Governor Cobb which slipped anchor on 28 February bound for Havana. A few days later the USS Panhandle pulled into New York harbour with the Liberian president, Charles D. B. King, among its passengers. An overly deferential but low-key delegation from the UNIA hurried to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on 7 March 1921 to welcome the president and to wish him success in his negotiations. The New York Times seemed as much concerned about President King’s elaborate regalia, especially ‘his hat, decorated with bird of paradise plumes’, as it was about the purpose of his visit. There was little journalistic excitement over the story of a president at the head of a mission still clinging to the belief that it might conclude negotiations begun in 1918 for the $5 million loan.

  Also on board the Panhandle was Roscoe Mitchell, returning from a six-month survey for the US Shipping Board. As reported in the New York Times, Mitchell had bleak news for the Black Star Line and other American-registered steamship corporations. But he reminded those ‘who feel doleful over conditions to keep in mind that England has more than 2,000,000 tons of shipping idle at present’. It was of little consolation to the Black Star Line. Marcus Garvey and his board hadn’t finished paying for the Yarmouth and yet it had probably sailed for the last time; the Kanawha looked impressive but it was still being fitted out with expensive repairs; and the directors’ board was urgently trying to acquire a much larger vessel to run from America to the West Coast of Africa. The BSL was, in effect, endeavouring to establish a shipping line in an overcrowded market in the midst of a slump in world trade. ‘The rates are so low,’ said Mitchell, ‘that if the ships are operated it would be at a loss, and the British ships do not pay their expenses.’34 Considering the US Shipping Board had so many unprofitable vessels on its books, it should have proved reasonably straightforward for the Black Star Line to acquire one.

  As far back as the convention in August 1920, the Black Star Line had promised its investors a transatlantic vessel that, once purchased, would be rechristened the Phyllis Wheatley. By March 1921 there was still no sign of the vessel. The dates announced in the Negro World for the launch were constantly being revised. After the disgraced Captain Cockburn’s services were dispensed with, the Black Star Line lacked a black entrée into the complicated world of the United States Shipping Board – the regulatory board overseeing all maritime acquisitions and charters. During the Great War America had built and acquired an enormous tonnage of ships. After the war, as part of its reparations, Germany was stripped of its merchant fleet, and the United States, not to be outdone by its European allies, had gained a share of the confiscated vessels. By 1921, America did not know what to do with all the ships it had acquired. As Edward Hurley recalled, ‘the war-built ships were “white elephants”. We had too many of them. Nobody wanted them.’35 Bidders were, therefore, in a strong position, but, even after acquiring three previous ships, the board of the Black Star Line were still largely naive in their grasp of the way things worked. Marcus Garvey had delegated Orlando Thompson, in his absence, to oversee any purchase, and Thompson approached the broker Anton Silverstone (who headed his own brokerage firm) to represent the c
ompany. His complexion (Silverstone was white) was unfortunate but where ideology rubbed up against practical concerns in UNIA circles, practicality won. There was no alternative; the idea of racial purity would be diluted as and when necessary.

  Silverstone’s style was breezy and direct – no-nonsense. Serious negotiations began in earnest in March. He first proposed to purchase a ship himself, the Hong Kheng, for $200,000 and then sell it on to the BSL, accepting instalments, and netting himself a healthy profit of over 50 per cent. That deal quickly fell through. Over the next few months, in negotiation with the United States Shipping Board, Silverstone made bids for two other ships. At the same time as inviting offers, the board was also considering requests for charters on each of these ships. The US Shipping Board was a vast organisation that was determined to liquidate its $3 billion worth of investments, yet it was prone to procrastination and vacillation. Silverstone would be invited to tender bids that were invariably rejected as too low; increased offers were tentatively accepted and then rejected in favour of the chartering firms whose interest in the ship fluctuated. That opposition would once more withdraw from negotiations, the Black Star Line offer would be approved, and a cheque for the deposit sent, but then further obstacles would drive negotiations into the sands. After several months of Black Star Line offers passing like shuttlecocks between the various departments (Sales/Operation/Construction and Repair) Silverstone rolled up his sleeves and exploded into print. The Black Star Line ‘cannot afford to do any more “Pusseyfooting”’, he complained to the chairman of the Shipping Board, Albert D. Lasker. ‘We have complied with all the requirements but it seems as if I am “bucking-up” against the “color line” or some other “underground” wires.’ Silverstone appealed to the fair-minded chairman that, ‘this is a business proposition and “parlour-politics” should be cut out’. He was also aware that his client was growing impatient with him. Elie Garcia went to Washington to check on the reliability of Silverstone’s version of events. At an emergency meeting a vote of no confidence in the broker was passed but then came the last-minute news that the papers had been signed and the vessel secured. The joyous directors of the Black Star Line paused only briefly to congratulate themselves. Stock-selling circulars were dispatched with photographs of the ship, with the original name, the Orion, scratched out and replaced with the Phyllis Wheatley. Preparations were quickly made for the Phyllis Wheatley to stop at Philadelphia and Norfolk to be shown to the faithful. A number of prominent men of the race were also sent a special invitation to lunch on board the ship on 4 July. A meal would unlock their enthusiasm, suggested Orlando Thompson, and thereafter ‘the high standard of the ship cannot fail to impress their minds to our benefit’. Plans were also made for prospective stock-holders to inspect the ship, but at a price: 30,000 tickets would be printed, charging each bearer $1.00 for admission. But the end of June passed without any sighting of the ship; 4 July slipped past also. The registration of the Phyllis Wheatley to the Black Star Line was thrown into abeyance as there were still some clauses in the contract that needed to be agreed. The transaction had not gone through. The BSL hierarchy was mightily disappointed but not disheartened. At this stage it was not yet clear that the transaction would never be completed.