Not long after her public dismissal from the UNIA, Kofey established the African Universal Church and Commercial League in Miami, Florida, teaching “a blend of Garveyism and religion.”127 Under her new organization, Kofey promoted West African emigration and economic self-sufficiency and encouraged black southerners to engage in a series of transatlantic business ventures.128 Not surprisingly, Kofey continued to encounter resistance from male Garveyites in the movement who tried, on numerous occasions, to discredit the activist and hinder her religious and political work. On several occasions, members of the African Legion, the all-male paramilitary auxiliary of the UNIA, harassed Kofey during her sermons and attempted to disrupt her meetings by shooting out the lights. Despite moving her congregation to a new location in an effort to avoid confrontations with UNIA members, the threats and harassment remained constant. When their efforts failed to yield any results, a group of Garveyite men took matters into their own hands.
During an evening service on March 8, 1928, and in the presence of two hundred of her most avid followers, Kofey was assassinated. Pandemonium immediately broke out, during which time Kofey’s followers seized Garveyite Maxwell Cook, a vocal critic of Kofey and close associate of Joseph Craigen, and began to beat him unmercifully. Within minutes, Cook lay dead on the floor as chaos continued to erupt in the sanctuary. When local police arrived on the scene, witnesses identified several suspects, providing conflicting accounts as to who actually pulled the trigger on Kofey. Claude Green and James Nimmo, two leaders of the UNIA’s Miami branch, were eventually arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Inconsistent testimonies, however, resulted in their acquittal not long after. Although the two men were never convicted of Kofey’s murder, they were present at the 1928 service and had, on several occasions, threatened Kofey prior to the shooting.129
In death, Kofey became a martyr, inspiring hundreds of black men and women who embraced her African-centered religious teachings. In the spring of 1928, they flocked to services in Miami, Palm Beach, and Jacksonville to pay their respects to Kofey. In the decades to follow, the African Universal Church, which Kofey had established in 1927, continued to advance her teachings throughout the United States and West Africa. In the early 1940s, church members in Jacksonville established a community called “Adorkaville” to continue to honor Kofey’s memory.
Although Laura Adorker Kofey’s experience represents an extreme case, it underscores the patriarchal ethos of the Garvey movement, which sought to limit the extent to which women could autonomously lead.130 Women in the UNIA during the 1920s maintained some positions of leadership yet were expected to remain under direct male control and oversight. Even after leaving the UNIA, Kofey remained subject to the patriarchal control of male Garveyites. Kofey’s bold decision to deviate from the socially acceptable gender roles and expectations in the Garvey movement ultimately cost the activist her life. However, if Kofey’s assassination was meant to deter black nationalist women from stepping outside of the bounds of expected female leadership, then it failed to accomplish its intended purpose.
A New Phase of Black Nationalist Women’s Activism
In December 1927, three months before Laura Adorker Kofey’s assassination, Garvey was deported from the United States to his native Jamaica. The charismatic black nationalist leader had fought unsuccessfully to appeal his arrest and conviction on charges of mail fraud. From a New Orleans port, Garvey bid farewell to an estimated five thousand followers. While many of his opponents rejoiced in what they perceived as the complete demise of the UNIA, Garvey was determined to “devote every minute . . . to the great cause [of] universal freedom.” “The fight [has] just started,” he wrote optimistically to members of the Garvey Club in New York, “and I want you to look out for a greater and grander [UNIA].”131
Indeed, Garvey attempted to keep the organization afloat in the aftermath of his arrest, imprisonment, and subsequent deportation. In 1928, the black nationalist leader paid a visit to England, where he presented a petition to the League of Nations.132 The following year, in the pages of the Negro World, he staunchly declared that “all roads shall lead [to] the 1st of August, 1929, where openeth the Sixth International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World.” Garvey urged “all [UNIA] branches and chapters . . . and all other organizations, societies and churches” to attend the 1929 convention to be held in August of that year. With plans to address a wide range of issues, including the launch of a new line of Black Star Line ships, Garvey predicted that the convention would be a “big time for the Negro race.”133 To some extent, he was right. By some accounts, the conference in Jamaica was just “as spectacular as the earlier ones in Harlem.”134
Although the number of official UNIA delegates present—145—waned in comparison to previous conventions, women leaders were well represented at the conference. During the opening session, Maymie Leona Turpeau De Mena made a grand entrance during the street procession, “mounted on a grey charger with [a] drawn sword.”135 Her dramatic entry into the convention was certainly representative of the colorful pageantry associated with the UNIA. Even more, De Mena’s entrance foreshadowed black women’s ascendancy in black nationalist politics. Following De Mena’s grand entrance, several other high-profile women leaders made their mark at the 1929 convention. During the opening ceremonies, which attracted an estimated twelve thousand attendees, Amy Jacques Garvey and Henrietta Vinton Davis joined Garvey on the platform.136
Despite the initial display of unity and cooperation, the 1929 UNIA convention was a hotbed of conflict. Still fuming with anger over the course of events that led him back to Jamaica, Garvey blamed his imprisonment and the UNIA’s declining membership on “wicked, vicious and greedy men” in the organization. Without mincing words, he singled out Davis, accusing the influential woman leader of doing “nothing to give new life to the organization” during his time in prison. It is unclear exactly what Garvey expected Davis to do for the UNIA during his imprisonment—beyond what she had done to actively support his mission during the organization’s dark period. However, Garvey’s public critique, in and of itself, served to undermine Davis’s leadership and influence. Curiously, Davis made no public effort to respond to Garvey. She continued to participate in the convention but was careful and “conservative during most of the deliberations.”137
Garvey’s public critique of Davis during his opening ceremony offered only a glimpse into the growing fragmentation and internal dispute taking place within the organization. Calling for greater centralization and a change in UNIA headquarters, Garvey requested that all branches report directly to his new base in Jamaica instead of the former main office in Harlem. Rather than resulting in the unification of UNIA chapters, Garvey’s suggestion further incited disagreements among his adherents. To be sure, these tensions had begun before August 1929, but the convention was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Fred Toote, a clergyman in the African Orthodox Church (AOC), an international religious order established in 1921 by Antiguan George Alexander McGuire, became the center of much of the conflict.138 At the convention, Toote, who had served as acting president general during Garvey’s imprisonment, found himself “with his back against the wall of the conversation . . . while he answered scores of questions leveled against him both by delegates on the floor and the speaker.” Among the many issues on the table were questions over whether or not Toote, in his position as interim president general, fully complied with instructions from Garvey on how to conduct UNIA affairs during the black nationalist leader’s imprisonment. Clearly frustrated by the public castigation, Toote promptly left the convention, returning to New York, where he and a group of loyal supporters established the rival UNIA, Inc.139 Although Garvey envisioned the 1929 convention as an opportunity to revive the UNIA and bring greater cohesion to the organization, quite the opposite occurred. The Sixth International Convention resulted in even greater fragmentation and conflict.
Notwithstanding the UNIA leade
rs’ skirmishes over power, funds, and resources, one of the other underlying tensions at the 1929 convention was the enduring gender politics in the organization. First, Garvey’s public criticism of Davis during his opening ceremony underscores how easily women leaders could become scapegoats for the UNIA’s failures. Certainly, regardless of her influence, Davis could not have been the sole or even primary reason for why the organization was in a state of disarray during Garvey’s imprisonment. By insinuating as much, Garvey not only attempted to undermine Davis’s leadership but also inadvertently overlooked the activist’s long tenure of service, which had helped to catapult the organization’s visibility and influence.140
Although many attendees at the 1929 convention witnessed Garvey’s public scolding of Davis, few noticed another conflict brewing between a group of Garveyite men and Mittie Maude Lena Gordon, an activist from Chicago. Originally from Louisiana, Gordon grew up in Arkansas, which laid the foundation for her decision to embrace Garveyism later in life. In the aftermath of Reconstruction, the state became the site of one of the most fervent back-to-Africa movements of the nineteenth century.141 Largely driven by the widespread racial oppression they encountered and deeply influenced by the teachings of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, African American residents in Arkansas turned to the American Colonization Society (ACS) for financial aid to leave the country. Founded in 1816 by Reverend Robert Finley and a coalition of white slave owners and Quakers, the ACS opposed slavery in the United States.142 While they supported abolition, members of the ACS maintained racial prejudices and established the organization on the belief that African Americans could not peacefully coexist with whites.143 From 1817 to 1866, the ACS played a significant role in relocating an estimated thirteen thousand African Americans to Liberia and, in 1822, established the nation as a colony for free blacks.144 While interest in emigration rapidly spread across the country, more than a third of the emigrants who relocated to Liberia originated from the state of Arkansas alone.145 Although this “Liberia fever” significantly declined by the early twentieth century, it helped to lay the foundation for black southerners’ interest in the teachings of Marcus Garvey and earlier black leaders, including Bishop Turner and African American educator Booker T. Washington.146
Having been exposed to the teachings of Bishop Turner, Gordon would have certainly found the principles and strategies of the UNIA to be familiar and appealing. Sometime around 1923, after settling in Chicago, Gordon became a member of the UNIA where she joined a vibrant community of black activists, including many who had also relocated from the South. In 1929, two years after Garvey was deported from the United States, Gordon decided to attend the convention in hopes that it would prove beneficial for improving conditions for black Americans. By her own account, she traveled with members of the New York–based Garvey Club to Jamaica in July of that year—in what appears to be the activist’s only trip overseas. Though Gordon later claimed that she attended as a “private individual,” as opposed to an “elected delegate or [UNIA] representative,” her arrival in Jamaica two months prior to the convention—and her claim that she resided in Garvey’s sister’s home during this period—suggests that she was a leader or prospective leader of the organization.147
Gordon’s experiences at the conference provide a glimpse into the enduring gender tensions in the UNIA. According to one account, when Gordon arrived in Jamaica that summer, Garvey “asked her to take charge of the divisions of the UNIA in Chicago.” Apparently impressed with Gordon’s speaking abilities, Garvey tapped her to be a new UNIA leader.148 Though the full extent of Gordon’s experiences remains a mystery, male Garveyites certainly resisted Garvey’s efforts. Gordon claimed to have been “very disgusted with the manner in which certain officials were conducting themselves.”149 Referencing the course of events years later, Amy Jacques Garvey indicated, “The men at the Head of the Organization as usual, tried to hamper [Gordon].”150 Jacques Garvey’s comments, while brief, are indicative of the persistent gender politics in the UNIA, which remained an underlying issue at the 1929 convention in Jamaica.
Ultimately, while Garvey desired to use the convention as a launching pad for the organization’s next phase of success, the convention brought more issues to the forefront and undercut Garvey’s leadership and his organization. In other ways, however, the convention did serve as a launching pad—but not in the manner in which Garvey had originally intended. The widespread fragmentation that marked the internal collapse of the UNIA served as a blessing in disguise for women activists. In effect, the demise of the UNIA, as the most dominant mass organization of Afro-descended peoples, created an opportunity for women, in particular, to engage in black nationalist politics in new, idiosyncratic, and innovative ways. Certainly, women pioneers in the UNIA during the 1920s laid the foundation for women to have greater visibility and autonomy than Marcus Garvey originally envisioned. However, these efforts would only be fully realized during the post-Garvey era. In the absence of a strong and centralized UNIA and Garvey’s looming presence, a number of women leaders—including some who had been snubbed at the 1929 gathering—emerged on the local, national, and international scenes, at once drawing on Garveyism and extending far beyond it.
Despite their contradictory experiences in the Garvey movement, women drew from the UNIA a wide range of skills, experiences, and networks from which they were able to build and expand in the decades to follow. Above all, they drew from the UNIA a sense of empowerment and foundational black nationalist ideals, including racial pride, political self-determination, and economic self-sufficiency. Building on yet also expanding beyond these core principles, women moved in various directions, utilizing black nationalism as an organizing tool around which to challenge global white supremacy during the twentieth century.
CHAPTER 2
The Struggle for Black Emigration
STANDING BEFORE A CROWD of black Chicagoans in December 1932, Mittie Maude Lena Gordon made a bold statement. She insisted that she had a solution for black Americans who bore the brunt of the Great Depression. As she peered into the sea of faces in the audience at an old boxing ring in the city, Gordon passionately defended emigration to West Africa, arguing that “the Negro would escape from the economic, racial and political problems which confronted the race in the United States.”1 The forty-three-year-old activist stood five feet three inches tall and had a heavy build. She was light brown in complexion and had brown eyes with black straight hair that framed her round face. Described as a “very forceful and effective speaker,” Gordon commanded attention when she spoke that evening, delivering one of the many passionate speeches that she would give across the city in years to come.2
Although some of Gordon’s detractors dismissed her as a “rabble rouser” or as “uncouth,” she attracted a following of thousands of black men and women in Chicago and across the nation.3 Following her departure from Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1929, Gordon went on to became one of Chicago’s leading black nationalist “street scholars,” speaking for the interests of the black working poor during a global economic crisis.4 Similar to Amy Ashwood Garvey and civil rights leader Ella Baker who emerged as street scholars in Harlem during the 1920s, Gordon defied traditional middle-class expectations of black women in order to disseminate her nationalist philosophy during the years of the Great Depression.5 Gordon was successful in popularizing these ideas and launched a vibrant emigration movement in Chicago in December 1932, which culminated in an unprecedented petition with signatures of an estimated 400,000 black Americans willing to leave the country. In August 1933, she sent this petition to President Franklin D. Roosevelt along with a request for federal aid to support emigration efforts. Inspired by FDR’s promise of a New Deal to boost the economy, Gordon made an unconventional appeal to the state to allocate funds for black Americans desiring to leave the country. Her emigration campaign, which began in Chicago, would rapidly spread acros
s the nation during the Great Depression.
Reflecting the rich yet complex intellectual milieu of the period, Gordon formulated her own religious and political philosophy, blending aspects of Garveyism with the teachings of Noble Drew Ali, founder of the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA)—the precursor to the Nation of Islam. To that end, she articulated a commitment to the core tenets of black nationalism—racial pride, African redemption (from European colonization), economic self-sufficiency, racial separatism, and political self-determination—and promoted an African American version of Islam. Significantly, she also maintained a black internationalist vision, linking the experiences of people of African descent with other nonwhite groups and calling for collaborations and alliances among people of color in their struggles against global white supremacy. Her internationalist vision resonated with Noble Drew Ali’s Moorish American Islamic identity. With limited financial resources during a global economic crisis, Gordon skillfully organized black men and women in the city and established the Peace Movement of Ethiopia (PME)—the largest black nationalist organization established by a woman in the United States. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the PME functioned as a crucial space for working-poor black men and women to engage in black nationalist and internationalist politics—thereby providing a political alternative to the dwindling UNIA as well as the varied Communist-led groups and labor-oriented organizations of the period.
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