“The Second Battle for Africa has Begun”: Garveyism and Black Power in the Diasporic Midwest

Chapter 7 traces the enduring impact of Garveyism on Midwest-linked Black (inter)nationalist organizations and activists during the height of Black Power and African liberation in the 1970s. The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the United States enjoyed a brief resurgence through the work of heartland-based leaders like Mary Mason and Georgina Thornton. Beyond the United States, Rev. Clarence W. Harding Jr., who moved to Liberia from Chicago in 1966, was critical to leading the most successful UNIA initiative on the continent in the organization’s entire history. Lansing, Michigan, rarely discussed in Black Power literature, was a hotbed of Black Power student activism inspired by Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. Garvey’s ideas deeply impacted Midwest-based Black Arts Movement institutions like Malcolm X College in Chicago. Black women remained crucial in keeping Garveyism alive through cultural institutions. Christine Johnson valorized Garvey and Malcolm in her children’s textbooks geared toward African American youth.