Black Political Worlds in Port Cities: Garveyism in 1920s Britain

Abstract

The presence of Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the British ports of London, Manchester, Cardiff, and Barry during the 1920s has yet to be charted by historians of either Garveyism or Black Britain. Uncovering this history provides fresh insights into both fields. Far from the localism emphasized by much of recent Garveyism historiography, followers of the movement in Britain were closely connected to their fellow Garveyites distributed around the globe. Meanwhile, although recent literature on the transnational character of Black Britain has detailed the activism of relatively elite figures and groups, the presence of Garveyism in port areas elucidates an alternative vein of diasporic Black political culture among working-class seafaring communities extending beyond the capital. Far from the parochial victims portrayed in much historiography, Black people living in Britain’s ports were deeply invested in the global project of Garveyism. Through their travels, readings of and writings to the UNIA’s Negro World newspaper, and participation in sophisticated aural and visual cultures, Garveyites in Britain connected their struggles to a mass diasporic movement which profoundly altered global Black politics.