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3. Growth
- The University of North Carolina Press
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3 Growth The truth is that Garvey aroused the Negroes of Georgia as much as those of New York, except where the black preacher discouraged anything that threatened his income, or where white domination smothered every earthly hope.—E. Franklin Frazier, The Nation, 18 August 1926 In his first year of organizing in the United States, Garvey took a logical and practical approach in deciding how to expand the unia. The New York division took o√, word spread to Philadelphia , and soon the Negro World and enthusiastic leaders and recruiters mobilized black activism throughout urban centers of black population. Always studying and estimating his options, Garvey undoubtedly noticed that in the North and West, most blacks lived in urban areas, particularly in large cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit. All four of these cities had fewer than 100,000 blacks in 1910 but experienced dramatic increases by 1920. Detroit grew from about 6,000 to 40,000 black residents in a decade, and New York grew from 92,000 to 152,000 in the same period.∞ Garvey and unia organizers staked out territory with these crucial variables in mind. They concentrated on areas where the unia and the idea of the Black Star Line gained the most rapid acceptance. Garvey’s two earliest divisions emerged, not surprisingly, in the two most accessible cities, New York and Philadelphia, both brimming with black migrants from the South; however, within a year the unia organ had begun to circulate in the most remote farming communities of the Deep South. Early in 1917, on an exploratory mission, Garvey spoke in Nashville, Tennessee, and at Big Bethel ame Church in Atlanta, Georgia.≤ These early forays into the heart of Dixie enhanced his understanding of the potential for organization and support among southern blacks. By the time the unia had taken hold in the more easily accessible urban areas of the North and South, the rural Black Belt became the next focus for organization . The most expansive growth areas for the unia emerged in very densely populated rural areas of the South in which blacks made up the majority and where cotton tenancy circumscribed the lives of much of the farming population. It is also apparent that the skill and determination of individuals at the regional and local levels had much to do with where growth | 73 the unia sprouted successful divisions. Ultimately, the Garvey movement spread into the South due to the work of these local and national organizers and with the aid of expanding literacy and the unia’s weekly organ, the Negro World. Examining chronological patterns of development for divisions within the eleven southern states helps to illuminate which of these influences had the greatest impact. In some cases a dynamic speaker from unia headquarters motivated a community to organize a division, while in other places a popular local minister’s leadership held sway. In many instances an indigenous layman or woman took the initiative to begin a unia branch. The unia appointed high commissioners for twelve sections of the United States, who were held responsible for organizing and supervising the work of divisions within their areas.≥ Some individual states had designated leaders who tended to work closely with the regional commissioners. Early on, as seen in the cases of Florida and Virginia, the variety of settings from which unia divisions arose, coupled with the di√ering styles of organizers, allowed for diverse forms and expressions of Garveyite sentiment throughout the region. But more important, over time the Negro World provided a remarkable consistency of themes and programs, while the unia constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, also referred to as the Negro Bill of Rights, adopted at the 1920 convention, provided guidelines and standardization to Garveyism from one unia division to the next.∂ During its publication from August 1918 through 1933, the entire front page of the unia weekly organ normally featured Garvey’s speeches and editorials .∑ This medium was the most vital instrument in the dispersal of Garvey ’s ideas and programs and in the growth of the unia in the South. The paper’s content influenced a wide and diverse readership within the black communities of the African diaspora, while it also reflected attitudes and community values that di√ered according to local and regional conditions. Three thousand copies of the Negro World’s first issue appeared in the second half of 1918 and, after six months of publication, its...