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5 Appeal We may not agree with Mr. Garvey; we may think his methods and ideals are wrong; but we must nevertheless recognize that there are thousands of simple, honest, black folk whose emotions have been profoundly stirred by his words and schemes. He represents an attitude of mind towards the world problem of race that we must study in his followers perhaps, rather than in himself. —H. W. Peet, Southern Workman, October 1928 The Garvey movement was not a radical fringe organization despite some of the controversial tactics of its leader. The unia had broad popularity and was able to start divisions everywhere it was known in the South, beginning with the Virginia peninsula in 1919 and ending with the Delta of eastern Arkansas in late 1922. Its essential tenets had taken root very quickly, and its agenda gained wide acceptance because Garveyites believed in the program and the strategies of the organization and clung tenaciously to their faith in its leader throughout the unia’s turbulent existence . As an organization, the southern wing of the unia survived for nearly a decade, but Garveyism as an ideology lingered much longer. Voices of individual Garveyites explain their attraction to Garvey’s philosophy and the unia’s platform, and through an exhaustive examination of their letters and comments we learn that rural southerners embraced self-defense and separatism as temporary remedies for their immediate, local troubles and African redemption as a more permanent, comprehensive solution to the problems a√ecting people of African descent all over the world. At the community level, rural southern Garveyites pursued strategies of self-defense and separation to protect their families from lynching and sexual exploitation in extreme cases and to uphold their dignity in everyday interactions with whites. In the long term, they sought to end dependence on whites for their economic survival and to recover Africa from the control of white imperialists. To the deeply religious, rural, southern Garveyites, redeeming Africa involved more than reclaiming and developing the continent’s bountiful resources for their race; it also meant modernizing it and continuing the spiritual redemption begun by black Baptist and ame missionaries.∞ Some southern unia supporters even hoped to serve these purposes by relocating to the continent as part of Garvey’s Liberian colonization plan. 132 | appeal Defending the Race at Home The three literary sources that consistently connected isolated unia members to the unia program and philosophy were the unia constitution, the Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World (also known as the Negro Bill of Rights), and editorials and addresses in the weekly Negro World. Rural southern supporters repeated words, phrases, and sentiments expressed in these documents almost verbatim in their letters, petitions, and reports. Garvey ’s philosophy and strategies gained influence in the rural South at the same time that urban elite race leaders began their united e√ort to stop the unia, indicating divergent opinions on the so-called extreme tactics of the movement.≤ In August 1920, when the delegates to the first unia convention collected and compiled grievances and demands into the Negro Bill of Rights, the list pointedly addressed white abuses: ‘‘In certain parts of the United States of America our race is denied the right of public trial accorded to other races when accused of crime, but are lynched and burned by mobs, and such brutal and inhuman treatment is even practiced upon our women.’’ Later it continued on this theme of violence: ‘‘We believe that the Negro should adopt every means to protect himself against the barbarous practices inflicted upon him because of color.’’ ‘‘With the help of almighty God,’’ the statement asserted , ‘‘we declare ourselves the sworn protectors of the honor and virtue of our women and children, and pledge our lives for their protection and defense everywhere, and under all circumstances from wrongs and outrages.’’≥ This document represented the culmination of the reports to the convention from all corners of the black world and synthesized the responses adopted by the delegates who signed it; accordingly, these principles became the blueprint for future action. It is presumed that this document appeared prominently in the pages of Negro World issues that have been lost; scattered evidence suggests that it had circulated widely throughout the South. The echoes of these themes coming from southern supporters in subsequent years indicate not only a familiarity with the Negro Bill of Rights and the unia constitution (which each division member received upon joining), but also an understanding...

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