Chapter Two
Marcus Garvey - Part One:
"Why I have not spoken in Chicago since 1920"
by Marcus Garvey
Recorded by Lillian Harper
In 1919 the "Chicago Defender", published by Robert S. Abbott, libeled the Black Star Corporation and me. Abott has always through rivalry and jealousy, been opposed to me, and especially through my not being born in America and my criticism of his dangerous newspaper policy of always advising the race to lighten its skin which was black and strighten out its hair which was kinky. I am also hated by him because of my determination to dignify the term Negro as against his policy of referring to the race as "race men" or "race women" without defining what race, whether Caucasian, Mongolian, African or Negro.
Action was brought against Abbott in New York and subsequently on other charges in Chicago. The libel suit of the Black Star Lines was tried in New York in the fall of 1920 and judgement was returned in favor of the company. My suit in New York was deferred on the calendar for 1921 and the case in Chicago against Abbott were listed for the Fall of 1921.
In the Fall of 1919 I visited Chicago to address a series of meetings in the interest of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. During my stay in the city the following incidents happened: When the Black Star Line was incorporated in June 1919 I was told by its colored attorney in New York that among the States the incorporation was permitted to sell stock was Illinois. On my preparing to visit Chicago in the Fall he again assured me that it was legal for the company to sell stock in Chicago. On going to the city the corporation sent one of its stock salesmen along with my party, consisting of five persons, my private secretary, my stenographer, the American leader of the Association and the International organizer and myself. At the meeting where I spoke it was customary for the company, through its salesman, to sell stock to members of the organization. Not knowing the laws of Illinois and believing the advice of the attorney for the company, I allowed the salesman to sell stock to members of the organization, for the corporation at the first meeting I addressed in the series. My name as president of the corporation, along with that of the Treasury or Secretary, had already been signed to stock certificates in the New York Office. He sold about $90.00 worth of the stock at the meeting by filling in the people's names above the signature and made his own entry on the counterfoil. The "Chicago Defender", I was informed, employed a colored man, connected with a detective agency, to approach me at my lodging the following morning after I had addressed a large assembly the night previous at the public school where the meetings were held to request me to sell him two shares of stock ($5.00) per share in the Black Star Line. I told him I do not sell stock, but that there was a salesman somewhere in the city who represented the company and would attend to him. He said his wife attended the meeting I addressed the night previous and she was so impressed with the speeches and became so interested to join in and help the race and the organization that she sent him right off as he came home from work to get the stock, and that he must take it home, "you know", he said, "When a woman wants a thing she must have it." He implored me to try and find the address where he could locate the salesman. I hadn't the address, so I advised him to be at the meeting that night when the salesman would be there. He said he would be at the meeting but he wanted to give his wife the stock before for her satisfaction. My secretary, who had the telephone for the local division of the Universal Negro Improvement Association was out, and I advised the man, if he was in such a hurry, to wait in the parlor for the arrival of my secretary, who might give him the telephone number or address of the office. I left the man waiting. About five minutes later my secretary returned, and she informed me she had given a man on the main floor the address of the local office, as he informed her that I stated he might find the stock salesman there. I dismissed the matter from my mind, and never gave it another thought until at eight o'clock that night, five minutes before I was scheduled to speak to a large audience of thousands that had assembled, when I was suddenly called from the platform by two white men in company with the colored man and informed that I was under arrest for violation of the Blue Sky Law or something to that effect. I never knew at that time there was such a thing as a "blue sky law", or even a "grey sky law". I had been in the country just over a couple of years and all my time and attention were given to the organization work, depending on others to inform me about the law. I was more interested in the good of humanity than the law. I was surprised when I found out that I had been betrayed by a friend in my organization. When I arrived at the police station, dressed in evening clothes, I found out what it was all about. My secretary had me released under bond of $2,000.00 to appear in court the next morning. My release was at ten o'clock that night, which was too late to address the meeting from which I was taken. The plan was to spoil the meeting and humiliate me -- the colored man's way of revenging his adversary.
The next morning, when I arrived in court with a lawyer, who was attorney to a banker friend of mine in Chicago, who arranged bail, I found the court room crowded with representatives of the "Chicago Defender". The lawyer explained the situation of my not knowing that there was such a law to be violated. The Court sensed the plot, and with the consent of the representative of the States Attorney's office, the amount paid for the stock was refunded by the stock salesman, and I believe I was fined a $100.00 or the case dismissed. It was all done by the attorney in consultation with the judge, and I made no further inquires. Three days after this incident, on preparing to leave Chicago for Pittsburgh, where I had an appointment, I was served with a notice of suit filed against me for libel by Robert S. Abbott, editor and publisher of the "Chicago Defender". I was at a loss to know the whereabouts or how I had libeled anyone in Chicago. I took the notice to an attorney who I met on my first visit to Chicago in 1917, and whose wife had spoken in New York on special invitation before the members of the Universal Improvement Association. The notice or summons did not state in detail the nature of the offence. He was paid a retainer of $100.00 and instructed to register his appearance on my behalf immediately. He stated to me that no particulars were filed and that it was just an attempt to scare me. However, he would attend to the matter and keep me informed at my home in New York. I wrote to this attorney several times in 1920, and he informed me that nothing had been filed against me. The two cases I had against Abbott in Chicago were also deferred on the Calender and I was told by the attorney that I would be informed of the trial. I planned a thirty-day trip to the West Indies and Central America in the Spring of 1921. A month before I wrote to the attorney in Chicago about the case, and I was informed that they would not be called in my absence. I also had the assurance of the New York colored attorney that the New York case against Abbott would not be called. As I have explained many times before, I was forcibly kept out of the United States for five months, during which time the two cases against Abbott in Chicago and one in New York were allowed to go by default, without any information or notice to me about them, and the Abbott case against me in Chicago was allowed to go to trial and a default judgement was for $5,000.00. A month after Abbott took a body execution warrant against me. On my learning this I sought to open the case, and I was advised that a reopening would not be allowed.
This accounts for my non-appearance in Chicago since 1920.
Marcus Garvey - Part Two:
An interview with William A. Wallace
conducted by Lillian Harper
The Marcus Garvey movement was a plan of furthering Garvey's idea to sell stock in the Black Star Line, a steamboat project that he was engaged in promoting. The trend of the movement here assumed a political aspect and was headed by persons who saw the value of gaining political strength and votes. William A. Wallace, present Democratic Senator, was the head of the Chicago movement. He became so intoxicated with the possibilities of the movement among Negroes in political welfare that he closed his thriving bakery business located at 36th and State St., to give full-time to the development of the movement in Illinois.
He became one of Garvey's most trusted lieutenants. It had as good an effect as the Negro lodges. The movement became merely a duplication of the Negro secret societies, with parades and bands, the collecting of monthly dues, the administrating to the unemployed and sick members until its affairs became involved in corrupt practices of misappropriating of the funds of the movement, at which time Wallace was asked to resign.
Garvey was sentenced to prison and the movement which was built around one man as a dictator suffered from the lack of a leader. Garvey was sent to the U.S. government prison on the charge of defrauding through the mails. The Chicago movement like all other Garvey movements [groups] suffered, and collapsed.
Garvey believed that the sucess of his movement would depend upon his ability to persuade other Negroes that they had been mislead, deceived, and exploited by the Negro leadership of that day. He forthwith set out to discredit and to attack viciously all types of constructive Negro leadership throughout the country. He denounced W. E. B. DuBois, editor of the "Crisis", he called William Monroe Trotter a crazy man, and he attacked R.S. Abbott of the "Chicago Defender" as being unfaithful to the Negroes in general.
He organized the "Negro World", a weekly with a circulation of 75,000 in New York City and refused to accept hair straightening and bleaching of the skin which was so fashionable among Negroes. An advertisement that was printed in his paper read as follows: "Negroes should not straighten their hair or bleach their skin." He used his paper to attack contemporary Negro leadership and as a weapon against any one who disagreed with his principals.
When Garvey announced in his paper that he was going to purchase the Ocean Liner to carry the Negro Back to Africa, their native land, he incurred the wrath of other Negro newspapers especially the "Chicago Defender", which carried a story on William's Back to Africa project. Styling it as similar to the Old Chief Sam Expedition, which caused untold suffering among Negroes. He wanted the Negro to appreciate the fact that he was black, and stated that he had nothing to be ashamed of. Chief Sam, who many years ago attempted to induce the Negro to go back to Africa came from Kansas with the same idea, and Negroes contributed much money to the project. Chief Sam secured an old seaworthy vessel which was stranded in the ocean. Garvey obtained the Steamship Yarmouth, formerly used as an excursion boat out of Boston, he supposedly paid $85,000 obtained from interested Negroes, and hired a Negro captain from the West Indies by the name of Joshua Cockburn to man the ship, the ship headed from New York Harbor with a cargo of spiritus liquers, and a few hundred passengers and members of the New York organization. The Yarmouth became unseaworthy just out of Jamaica, and had to be towed in. The cargo of liquor was greatly reduced by throwing much overboard, as it was too heavy and about to sink the ship. Many Negroes purchased stock in the project under the name Black Star Line...the ship was later sold at auction.
The "Chicago Defender" cited Garvey, and his mythical projects, and Garvey charged that he had been libeled because his Yarmouth project had been identified with the Chief Sam Expedition which had been fraud. He sued Robert S. Abbott of the "Chicago Defender" and the "Chicago Defender" for one million dollars in the courts of New York, and served papers to that effect on Abbott's New York representative William White. The case came up for trial and Abbott answered, through his attorney French and French of New York. Garvey won a moral victory and was awarded one cent, but had to stand the expense of court.
Shortly after this case in New York, Garvey announced that he was coming to Chicago to tour Illinois in an effort to increase the strength of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. He came to Gary and held a large meeting announcing that he was invading Chicago the following day. Chicago was the hotbed of his enemies. He came to Chicago, and engaged the 8th Regiment Armory in 1919. He attacked Abbott from the platform and assailed the "Chicago Defender", and finally made the fatal mistake of announcing his intention of selling his Black Star Line stock after the meeting. The stock was not listed under the Illinois Blue Sky Laws, which regulated the sale of stock certificates and shares, and to suppress Garvey's malicious attacks on the "Chicago Defender"-- It was suggested that Mr. Garvey be brought to account for fleecing Chicago Negroes in his Black Star Line project. Sheridan A. Brusseau, head of the Keystone National detective Agency, was employed to purchase a share in the stock from Garvey by orders of Mr. R.S. Abbott. He did this, and when Garvey arose to speak the following night, Detective George Friend and S.A. Brusseau placed him under arrest and took him in a patrol wagon to the police bureau, where he was held for court trial. W. E. Mollison, father of Irvin Mollison, present attorney for Julian Black enterprises, was attorney for Garvey. The trial was held at the Municipal Court. He was fined $5.00 and cost and forbidden to sell any more stock. Abbott then sued him for libel, and obtained a judgement against him for $5,000 with a body execution to seized him upon sight and Garvey evaded Chicago for fear that he would be placed in jail.
Garvey wanted everything connected with him to be black, he purchased a black house, the Black Star Line Stock, and had a chain of grocery stores in Harlem, his followers wore a black cross. His parades were miles long, the Negroes were dressed in plumed hats, blue uniforms, and gold braid marching up and down the street, they carried gold swords. He had various units for men, women and children. The movement was minimized here because their leader couldn't enter Chicago to exploit the Negro. Dr. Leroy Bundy of Cleveland was one of Garvey's cabinet members. Dr. J. W. E. Eason of Philadelphia was a prominent pastor that left his church and followed Garvey. He was seceded by G. W. Knox. Eason later left Garvey, and lead a revolt against him which caused Eason to be shot to death in New Orleans by two of Garvey's ardent supporters. Another staunch supporter of Garvey was W.L. Ephriam of Illinois. His movement was made up of the laboring class of Negroes. It would have been a wonderful project due to the fact that Garvey was an organizer but a poor business man and unable to direct efficiently the money that was placed into his hands. He craved publicity and paid newspapers huge sums to publicize him. He had the same organizing idea as Father Divine.
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