Historians familiar with Garvey's career generally regard him as the preeminent symbol of the insurgent wave of black nationalism that developed in the period following World War I. Although born in Jamaica, Garvey achieved his greatest success in the United States. He did sodespite the criticism of many African-American leaders and the covert opposition of the UnitedStates Department of Justice and its Bureau of Investigation (forerunner of the FBI). As a youngman, Garvey had preached accommodation and disavowed political protest, advocating loyaltyto the established colonial government. His views, however, underwent a radical transformationshortlyafter he arrived in the United States in 1916. The emergence of the radical New Negromovement, which supplied the cultural and political matrix of the celebrated HarlemRenaissance, to a large extent paralleled Garvey and his post-World War I "AfricanRedemption" movement.Garvey established the first American branch of the UNIA in 1917--1918 in the midst of themass migration of blacks from the Caribbean and the American South to cities of the North. Itwas also a time of political awakening in Africa and the Caribbean, to which Garvey vigorouslyencouraged the export of his movement. In the era of global black awakening following WorldWar I, Garvey emerged as the best known, the most controversial, and, for many, the mostattractive of a new generation of New Negro leaders. Representative Charles B. Rangel ofNew York has noted that "Garvey was one of the first to say that instead of blackness being astigma, it should be a source of pride" (New York Times, 5 April 1987).Black expectations aroused by participation in World War I were dashed by the racial violenceof the wartime and postwar years, and the disappointment evident in many black communitiesthroughout the U.S., Africa, and the Caribbean allowed Garvey to draw dozens of local leadersto his side. Their ideas were not always strictly compat...
