7 - Caliban's Utopia

Summary

“Generally, his appearance was repulsive, Caliban like,” wrote W. A. Domingo on observing a nervous and shaking Marcus Garvey address a New York gathering in April 1916. He gave the impression of the typical immigrant bumpkin, on first arriving in the metropolis, “dressed in a much crumpled and misfitting suit,” and at one point falling off the stage. But Garvey learned quickly, and by late autumn of that year the “ambitious, wide-awake and energetic” young man had made a mighty impression on audiences throughout the United States as an accomplished lecturer. He preached the doctrine of “rehabilitating Africa in the interest of the Negro.” His attentive sympathizers were made up of various types who were predisposed to hear his message describing “The Tragedy of White Injustice.” He appealed, significantly, to intellectuals like William H. Ferris, who first heard him speak in Chicago while working there as associate editor of a magazine called The Champion, and to John E. Bruce, also a Crummell proteégeé. But Garvey's message appealed not only to the marginalized intellectual elite; it also appealed to the working class, the petit bourgeoisie, and the displaced peasants from the rural South, many of whom were born before the Civil War and could recall slavery. In 1921 Ferris became assistant president general of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which Garvey had founded to promote his plans for the redemption of Africa and the economic salvation of the African race.