Universal Negro Improvement Association

Joan Luxenburg

The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and African Communities League was history's first Black empowerment movement of massive proportions, with its apex occurring in the United States during the 1920s. The organization still exists today, but it experienced a dramatic decline in membership following the 1923 mail fraud conviction of its leader, Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Garvey's conviction, imprisonment, and subsequent deportation to Jamaica were significant barriers to the establishment of a permanent African homeland for the unification of all people of African descent scattered about the globe by the African Diaspora. The movement's original goals included racial purity, economic and political independence, as well as the general uplift of the Negro race. The importance of the UNIA to Black history and the unfair prosecution of the organization's founding leader are the reasons for its inclusion in this volume. This entry covers the life cycle of the UNIA from its inception, ...

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