Negro with a Hat

by Colin Grant

  Marcus Garvey’s fortunes fared much better in the Caribbean. The memories of minor humiliations, of being laughed off the stage, sporting khaki shorts and spouting the King’s English to an audience in St Ann’s Bay that mocked his pretensions, were, mostly, long behind him. Dressed now in a brown Palm Beach suit and Panama hat, with the insignia of office pinned to his vest, the UNIA president, commander-in-chief of the Universal African Legion, president of the Black Star Line and provisional president of Africa, stepped off the gangway at Kingston, Jamaica, returning to his homeland after an absence of five years. An eager newspaperman from the Gleaner hurried aboard the vessel even before it had been made safe. The journalist’s respectful account read as if he’d been permanently bowed and on one knee; he assured readers that his first impression was that Mr Garvey had not much changed except in girth. In the nine short days of his visit, Garvey planned to shake up Jamaica with a series of big meetings and concerts, beginning with an appearance at the island’s premiere venue, the Ward Theatre. Marcus Garvey declared he had returned with new thoughts that might be alien to the people of Jamaica; he brought with him the spirit of the New Negro manhood movement; and also the end of sycophancy. The thirty-three-year-old also brought with him the news that even the Negro could, and was entitled to, climb the ladder of success. To friends such as Adrian Daley who’d been associated with him from 1914, Garvey had undergone a most remarkable transformation. He appeared an ‘invincible democrat’ and ‘human encyclopaedia’.36 Daley was brimming with admiration. How else could one consider a man who’d started life with such limited expectations, barely a degree or two above the peasant. Garvey had not accepted his lot in life but he was no fainthearted sympathetic liberal; he was scathing of members of the race who lacked self-worth. ‘You Negro women,’ he told an audience on the first leg of his Caribbean tour, ‘you don’t appreciate yourselves; if so you would not be scrubbing the white women’s floors.’ On another occasion, he bemoaned the fact that ‘Negroes are the most lazy, the most careless and indifferent people in the world and it simply sickens one to feel that he is identified with [such] a people.’ It was Jamaican indifference, so crushing in its banality, which had caused him to leave. Only once he’d travelled to the United States and made a name for himself had he subsequently been appreciated by his own people. Validation could only be gained beyond the ‘Isle of Springs’. Jamaica, he cursed, was the most backward nation on earth. He was not minded to spare anyone’s feelings, now that he had temporarily returned, especially the undeserving ruling elite: ‘Jamaica, as I can see, is controlled by a few inexperienced “imported strangers”, whose positions in Jamaica as officials and heads of departments have come to them as “godsends” … Through the system of any white being better than a native, these imported gentlemen are continuously being sent out to the colonies,’ which are viewed by Britain as ‘dumping ground[s]’.37

  The provisional president of Africa had meant to ride above all the old hurts. Instead he busied himself making new enemies in Jamaica, crossing swords with petty adversaries and settling old scores. Reverend Gordon Somers who reminded him that he’d been slow to expedite a £7.00 bill when last on the island was a ‘spineless, cringing hypocrite’. Reverend Ernest Price, who lamented Garvey’s failure to start a Tuskegee type institute in Jamaica, was an imported white gentleman ‘who would much prefer to see … Negroes … taught to plough, hoe, wash plates and clean pots than to have Negroes … running big steamships across the ocean’.38 Garvey was able to deflect much of the flak directed at him as the vacuous and sanctimonious rumblings of envious inferiors whose privilege of birth falsely gave them a standing in colonial life of which they were unworthy; they’d never known poverty and never had to leave the island to find their way in the world. The criticism over Garvey’s neglect of his father, who’d died the year before, was more difficult to shift. Garvey Senior had spent the last eighteen months in and out of a charitable almshouse that catered for the elderly poor and destitute back in his hometown of St Ann’s Bay. To end his days in such a manner in Jamaica was a disgrace, not just on the dying man but on the family that was supposed to care for him. One critic wrote to the Gleaner that the elder Garvey had ‘languished in [St Ann’s] almshouse whilst you [Garvey] were masquerading as “Honourable” in a foreign land’.

  With this verbal volley, critics, who up till now had been shelling the outlying forest and missing the citadel, appeared to have found their range. An indignant Garvey was stung into response. ‘My father gave me at the age of fifteen the care of my mother and elder sister when he himself was in a position to care for his family. He squandered his money and made ill use of his properties.’ The honourable UNIA leader believed himself beyond reproach, for in cabling money for his father’s burial, Garvey had done ‘more for him than he did for me’. Garvey’s old mentor, the printer Alfred ‘Cap’ Burrowes waded into the debate with a defence of his former apprentice who ‘might not have been in the position at some time of his life to support his father’, but at least ‘the [elder’s] death – was not permitted to be that of a pauper’.39

  But now that the old man was in the ground, other damaging details emerged. Particularly the rumour that when Marcus Garvey returned to Jamaica, and was presented with the outstanding bill for his father’s upkeep in the almshouse (£46.00), that he flatly refused to ‘pay a farthing as his father had done nothing for him’. The local parish board had decided to close the case but when the authorities in Kingston were alerted it was deemed too good an opportunity to miss. The colonial secretary suggested that ‘it should be arranged that he [Garvey] shall be questioned as to the fact [of the rumour] … at some public meeting’. The scheme to shame him in public did not succeed. Garvey paid up instantly when served with a warrant.40

  The arguments between Garvey and his detractors raged back and forth in the letters’ pages and editorials of the Gleaner over the course of April. The UNIA leader’s transformation and return to his homeland was a major story, but it was knocked off the front pages and eclipsed by news of the strange, visionary revivalist preacher with whom Garvey was unflatteringly compared. Alexander Bedward had been seeing visions all of his adult life. Cataracts coated the eyes of the mystical preacher whose popularity had been sparked when he divined the healing powers of a river on the edge of Kingston. Over two decades, thousands of supplicants had sought him out, attending his weekly mass baptisms at the perfectly named Hope River. ‘Every consideration for decency was lost,’ growled the Gleaner, as they waded into the water (some fully naked), into the arms of the preacher – their ecstasy voiced in song:

  Dip dem Bedward dip dem

  Dip dem in the healing stream

  Dip dem sweet but not too deep

  Dip dem fe cure bad feelin’.41

  Bedward dipped the lame and they threw away their crutches; he dipped the lovesick and their lovers returned; he dipped lepers covered in unsightly sores and they emerged from the water with smooth shiny skin – or so his followers believed. At one meeting, 10,000 sinners and sufferers turned over themselves, and their souls, to Alexander Bedward.

  Marcus Garvey’s return to Jamaica had coincided with a resurgence of Bedwardism. The prophet (Bedward) had dreamt of a manifestation; he’d foreseen that on Friday 31 December 1920 at 10 o’clock precisely, he would ascend to heaven. On that day, his followers had gathered in his compound to make the ascent with him. They sold their worldly possessions, put on white gowns, climbed to the tops of trees, and at the appointed hour, jumped, fully expecting to fly to heaven. Bedward’s vision was not made manifest. ‘Bedward Stick to the Earth’ scoffed the Gleaner. Now, just a few months later, on 28 April 1921, 600 of his followers (undeterred by the previous failure, and some now on crutches) answered his call and marched to Kingston to take part in another manifestation. The authorities were sufficiently alarmed to call out troops of the West India Regiment. Bedward was arrested and put on trial for disturbing the peace. He was acquitted on the grou
nds of insanity and carted off to Bellvue Asylum (where he would remain until his death nine years later).42

  As with Bedward, so too with Garvey. When critics chided Garvey with the comparison, they suggested that flying home to Africa on the Black Star Line was as fantastic and fanciful as the idea believed by Bedward’s followers that on 31 December they’d be flying home to heaven. But Garvey’s dream was not the product of a neuropath’s imagination. They may have sent poor Bedward to the asylum, but, Garvey smilingly reassured his followers, ‘They’ll have a hard time to send me there.’ All jesting aside, Marcus Garvey resented the inference that his supporters were somehow being duped or, as Reverend Price maintained, those ‘mistaken enough to follow him’ were being led ‘into a very dirty ditch’.43

  Marcus Garvey endured the insults, for he remained on the island longer than intended. He had arranged to move on to Panama and Costa Rica but found his plans frustrated by Charles Latham, the American consul in Jamaica. Latham was overly accommodating of Hoover and US immigration officials’ desire to thwart Garvey’s return to America. Fearing that he might attempt an indirect approach through the back door of the American-controlled zone of the Panama Canal, Latham was instructed to refuse him a visa to the zone as well as to the United States. Pictures of the subject, over the caption ‘Hon. Marcus Garvey, DSOE (Distinguished Service Order of Ethiopia)’ were circulated to customs services. American ports were alerted to keep a watchful eye out for Garvey amongst immigrants. When Garvey fetched up at the American consulate in Kingston, requesting a visa for Panama, he was informed that an immediate decision could not be made on his application. Subsequent visits were equally frustrating. Though his travelling companions, Amy and Cleveland Jacques, were issued visas, Garvey was not. Garvey’s plans were also upset by further delays to the Kanawha on which he was expected to travel. No sooner had the repairs to its boilers been completed than the Kanawha, pulling out of the harbour, crashed into the government pier in Norfolk, Virginia. The president of the Black Star Line was forced to book a passage on another ship, sailing first to Costa Rica.

  After weeks of frustrating setbacks, Garvey’s visit to Costa Rica was, from the outset, a spectacular triumph. Thousands of West Indians worked on the banana plantations owned, or controlled, by the mighty United Fruit Company. The UNIA had especially established itself amongst these migrant workers. Press reports in Costa Rica estimated that ‘nearly 10,000 people showed up to hear Garvey speak in Limón’. Approaching the port Garvey saw ‘miles of cars stretched on the railroad track … the people came down from all sections; they hung outside of the coaches at the doors and windows, and they sat on top of the coaches; they did not have enough coaches to bring them down from different parts of the line’. Garvey sparkled in such a wonderful setting and the people were so moved by his oratory and by the carnival atmosphere of the occasion that they showered him with money. At one stage, the local United Fruit Company manager, G. P. Chittenden, reported an amazing spectacle: ‘I know that at one meeting two scrap baskets and one suitcase full of United States gold notes were collected [Garvey announced that he would receive nothing but US currency in contributions]; I know that at another meeting he stood beside a pile of gold notes which reached above his knees. It is impossible to estimate the amount collected but it might easily be as much as $50,000, all of which he took away with him in cash.’44

  Amy Jacques struggled to count whilst her brother, Cleveland, ‘was occupied all day and all night writing out shares in the Black Star Line and selling bonds of the Liberian Construction Loan.’45

  The managers of United Fruit, anxious about the effect Garvey might have on the productivity and compliance of their workforce, took a sophisticated and pragmatic approach to the UNIA leader: they welcomed him as a man they could do business with. ‘If you play up to his vanity a little,’ wrote Chittenden, ‘and talk to him the way you talk to one of your own laborers with whom you are on extra good terms, you will have no trouble with him.’46 Chittenden was as good as his word. He made an arrangement with Garvey so that the great orator’s public talks would not coincide with the precious time set aside for loading the banana boats. In exchange the United Fruit Company laid on a special train and coaches (previously reserved for white passengers) to transport Garvey around the country. Company managers also arranged for him to be introduced to President Julio Acosta in the capital. Such reverence on behalf of the company and adulation on the part of the people would have swelled the heads of most men. The provisional president of Africa ‘as representative of the Negro peoples of the world’, graciously let it be known that he was especially ‘pleased at the satisfaction it gave to the people of Costa Rica’.47 The pleasure was not all one way. Company files show that the vicarious delight taken by UNIA members in their leader’s success was translated into a monthly remittance of $2,000 well beyond Garvey’s departure.48

  Marcus Garvey’s next stop was to be Panama. He entered Panama under a visa granted by the Panamanian consul at Boston. Costa Rica’s neighbour was also the site of United Fruit Company farms and a considerable Caribbean workforce. The Bocas del Toro plantation, for example, employed 6,000 day labourers. The company was so gratified by the way Garvey’s visit had turned out, and his moderating effect on the workforce, that they provided a launch to take him to Panama. Chittenden wrote ahead to his counterpart in Bocas del Toro, in a bid to allay any fears that he might have had anticipating Garvey’s arrival, because ‘he [Garvey] states that he too is an employer of labor, understands our position, is against labor unions, and is using his best endeavour to get the Negro race to work and better themselves’.49

  The response was not so welcoming in Panama. In Bocas del Toro and Almirante, where the crowds, instead of crowning Garvey with eulogies, wanted hard questions answered about the state of their investment in the Black Star Line. American military intelligence reported that ‘the Negroes [also] became incensed over the fact that Garvey raised the price of admission to his lectures, from fifty cents, the advertised price, to one dollar’. Hecklers in the crowd berated Garvey and hurled abuse at him. Finally he brought the meeting to an end, imperiously stating, ‘I cannot come all the way from New York to speak to you for fifty cents.’ Amid the uproar he continued, ‘You are a bunch of ignorant and impertinent Negroes. No wonder you are where you are, and for my part you can stay where you are.’50

  Marcus Garvey left the recalcitrant crowds where they were in Almirante and Bocas del Toro and headed for Colón, where he knew he ran the risk of being refused entry by the American administration that controlled the canal zone. Under the terms of the Hay–Bunau–Varilla Treaty, the United States had been granted extraordinary concessions, effectively giving them administrative control over a huge swathe of Panama that physically included the terminal cities of Colón and Panama City but over which the Panamanians retained sovereignty.51

  Realising that the port authorities would have been alerted to be on the lookout for him, Garvey wrote that he resorted to a little subterfuge of his own: ‘I was determined to get there from under the sea; so I took a submarine.’ In Garvey’s account, summoning a submarine is made to sound as easy as hailing a taxi. No matter the means of his arrival, he did set foot in Colón and by the time the authorities were alerted to his arrival, it was too late: the crowds around him were so dense that the officials could not get through. From Colón, he went on to Panama City where Garvey reported, ‘I met the largest crowd of people I have ever seen at any one time.’ In a scene of unrestrained enthusiasm the crowds smashed the windows of the carriage he was travelling in, lifted him out of the train and carried him to a car. But so many people were on top of the car that it couldn’t move. The tyres were punctured and the car lifted onto the rim of the rail track and pushed all the way to the city.52