WAVING THE RED, BLACK, AND GREEN: THE LOCAL AND GLOBAL VISION OF THE UNIVERSAL NEGRO IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION IN AKRON AND BARBERTON, OHIO

Abstract

This micro study of the Akron and Barberton, Ohio, Divisions of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) adds to the understanding the geographic diversity of the Garvey Movement’s expansive reach. It begins to uncover the importance of Garveyism in the Midwest and in Ohio, specifically, where the UNIA’s presence was larger than in any other Midwestern state. Black people in Akron and Barberton who, like millions of others around the world, joined Marcus Garvey’s global, Pan-African organization and embraced Garveyism’s holistic pursuit of Black liberation. Living in Midwestern rustbelt cities at the intersection of the Great Migration and the global rubber industry, they were uniquely linked to the Garvey Movement’s global initiatives and the transatlantic conflict between the UNIA and the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Liberia. Garveyites in these cities recognized their local organizing as part of a larger struggle against systemic antiblackness, white supremacy, and colonialism in Africa and asserted themselves as local, regional, and global actors. Through genealogy and family history research, this study looks beyond the UNIA’s international leaders to reconstruct the history of Garveyites, their families, and in turn their grassroots social movement. It also examines local intergenerational legacies of Garveyism and challenges the dominant narrative that the Garvey Movement died with its leader in 1940. This study demonstrates how Garveyism persisted through the lives of its members and their descendants.