Marcus Garvey Essay

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THE LIFE OF MARCUS GARVEY By: Marcus Garvey, aka Marcus Garvey jr., was born August 17, 1887 and had 11 brothers and sisters. Only Marcus and his sister, Indiana, would live to be 21. Marcus’s father owned a large library and where he got his love of reading. Marcus got his first taste of racism while he was in elementary school. In 1900, Marcus started an apprenticeship with his uncle who also owned a large amount of books. Marcus left Jamaica in 1910 and started traveling around Central America. He found work in Costa Rica as editor of a daily newspaper. Once he left, he found a job in panama as editor of a biweekly newspaper. Eventually Marcus went to London, where he went to college at Birkbeck College majoring in Law and Philosophy. He started work for the African Times and Orient Review, the publisher was Duse Mohamed Ali. Marcus was influenced by Booker T. Washington, Martin Delany, and Henry McNeal Turner. In 1914 Ali help influenced Marcus into forming the Universal Negro Improvement Association, in Jamaica. Marcus traveled to the U.S. in 1916 to give a lecture tour and raise money to build a school in Jamaica. Marcus moved to New York and found a job as a printer during the day. At night he would speak on the street and it was here where he started to become an African American leader. Marcus and 13 others created the first UNIA section outside Jamaica and started to talk about freedom for blacks. When the East St. Louis Riots broke out, Marcus responded to the riots by giving a speech where he said that the riots were an outrage. The UNIA split into two factions and Marcus enlisted to be its leader. Marcus started developing a program to improve the conditions of people with African decent under the UNIA. Marcus worked as an editor for the Negro World without pay until 1920, but used the paper to help grow the UNIA. By 1919, the UNIA
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