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Black Star Rising: Garveyism in the West
In 1916, Marcus Garvey, a recent immigrant from Jamaica, moved to New York City and established what would quickly become the largest Black mass movement in world history. Garveyism and the Garvey movement had a profound effect on the Black diaspora.
In the eastern United States, the official name for Garvey’s organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), began with thirteen members in 1916; by the early 1920s, it had more than 700 chapters spread through thirty-eight states. Internationally, there were hundreds of branches stretching across forty-one countries.
Garveyism spread throughout the western US in the early 1920s. However, due to the small communities of Blacks who settled in the West, as well as the significant presence of other diverse racial groups, Garveyism on the West Coast looked very different from Garveyism elsewhere. Unlike in other geographic locations, Garveyites on the West Coast worked in conjunction with non-Black groups, which included East Indians, Mexicans, Pacific Islanders, and Asians. These multiracial leaders contributed to the western Garvey movement and spoke at UNIA chapter meetings, as their own nationalist movements corresponded with the rise of this popular Black nationalist movement.
Whereas Garveyites on the East Coast fought constantly with the NAACP and the Urban League, these groups did indeed work together sporadically on the West Coast. Surveillance records from the American government provide evidence of the complex multiracial connections that occurred in the American West.
While most scholarly research on Garvey has to this point examined the factions of the movement on the East Coast, Roose seeks to expand our knowledge of how we view Black nationalism, drawing out the complexity of the multicultural and multiracial Garvey movement as it existed on the West Coast. Black Star Rising offers new dimensions to conversations on race in the United States, Black nationalist movements, and multicultural organizing in the American West.
In the eastern United States, the official name for Garvey’s organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), began with thirteen members in 1916; by the early 1920s, it had more than 700 chapters spread through thirty-eight states. Internationally, there were hundreds of branches stretching across forty-one countries.
Garveyism spread throughout the western US in the early 1920s. However, due to the small communities of Blacks who settled in the West, as well as the significant presence of other diverse racial groups, Garveyism on the West Coast looked very different from Garveyism elsewhere. Unlike in other geographic locations, Garveyites on the West Coast worked in conjunction with non-Black groups, which included East Indians, Mexicans, Pacific Islanders, and Asians. These multiracial leaders contributed to the western Garvey movement and spoke at UNIA chapter meetings, as their own nationalist movements corresponded with the rise of this popular Black nationalist movement.
Whereas Garveyites on the East Coast fought constantly with the NAACP and the Urban League, these groups did indeed work together sporadically on the West Coast. Surveillance records from the American government provide evidence of the complex multiracial connections that occurred in the American West.
While most scholarly research on Garvey has to this point examined the factions of the movement on the East Coast, Roose seeks to expand our knowledge of how we view Black nationalism, drawing out the complexity of the multicultural and multiracial Garvey movement as it existed on the West Coast. Black Star Rising offers new dimensions to conversations on race in the United States, Black nationalist movements, and multicultural organizing in the American West.
196 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 5, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 8, 2025
This book taught me about garveyism which is what I was looking for, but the process to get there was so extraneous and lacking of excitement for history. It was just so frustrating to hear a thesis statement restated over and over without it feeling tied to the things being said, and anytime there was something interesting said I would see a foot note and flip to the notes in the back and see “lbid” making it impossible to know what was being cited. Which then made me, research minded reader, have such a displeasurable experience when reading the history of something so important to the overall development in the civil rights movement in the American west.
April 26, 2023
Very interesting and easy to understand, even coming in with a fairly limited understanding of Garveyism. It's a pretty quick and easy read too, perfect if you're looking for something to inspire further research. There were a few passages that I was slightly confused by, but overall it's well written and engaging.
January 21, 2024
I don't like it when undergraduates have Ibid Ibid Ibid all down the page of footnotes, and I don't like it even more when someone with a PhD does it . . .
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews