New Directions: Garveyism in the Heartland during the Great Depression

Chapter 3 discusses the evolution of midwestern Garveyism during the Great Depression. The UNIA survived after Marcus Garvey’s deportation. Midwesterners were vital to keeping the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) afloat and to supporting Garvey as he continued tacking to the political right. His ideas also resonated within trade unions, the Communist Party, and new Black nationalist formations, most notably through the Chicago-based Peace Movement of Ethiopia headed by ex-UNIA member Mittie Maude Lena Gordon. She worked even more closely with white supremacists like Earnest Sevier Cox in pursuit of African American emigration to Liberia than Garvey. In addition, this chapter looks at new Black nationalist movements like the Nation of Islam, founded in Detroit, and the St. Louis–area centered Pacific Movement of the Eastern World, both of which extolled Garvey and practiced Black diasporic right radicalism.