Erik S. McDuffie is Associate Professor of African American Studies and History at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and author of
Stronghold: The Diasporic Midwest and Heyday of the UNIA
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Published:November 2024
The rise and zenith of the Midwest’s prominence within the transnational Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) is the focus of chapter 2. The chapter begins with a biographic sketch of Marcus Garvey and his rise to global preeminence in the years during and immediately after the First World War. The chapter shows how the Great Migration, economic opportunity through heavy industries, virulent racial oppression, and global events set the stage for Garveyism to take root among African-descended midwesterners. Louise and Earl Little provide insight into grassroots midwestern Garveyism and the formative years of Malcolm X. Heartland Garveyites played an important role in keeping the UNIA going after federal authorities incarcerated Garvey in 1925 for mail fraud. The chapter ends by showing how Garvey’s ideas were critical to influencing new Black movements, most notably the Chicago-based Moorish Science Temple of America led by Noble Drew Ali.
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