The Potentate and the Brotherhood
Stephen Wood continues the story of the pioneer black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. Part 1 of this account was in Solidarity 573 here . Garvey thought the trade unions in the American Federation of Labor were unreformably racist organisations. Garvey had his own solution to the lack of black workers’ rights; and that was black-owned and black-run businesses. Such businesses, he claimed, wouldn’t discriminate against black workers because they would be founded on the black nationalist principle espoused by Garvey. Chief among his projects was the Black Star Line. It was initially set up to...