Artwork from the Paper Monument's "Farewell to the Honorable Marcus Garvey."
Artwork from the Paper Monument's "Farewell to the Honorable Marcus Garvey." Credit: Paper Monuments/Hugo Martinez

Founded by Marcus Garvey in 1914, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) worked to advance people of African descent. By 1920, the association had more than 1,900 divisions in more than 40 countries.  

Alaida Robertson founded the New Orleans division that year. According to an article by Ashley Farmer, the division started with a handful of working-class residents. Within five months, it had grown to 2,500 members. After a year, that number jumped to 4,000. 

“New Orleanians’ gravitation to Garveyism reflected African Americans’ interest in the UNIA across Louisiana, which was home to the largest number of chapters in the South,” Farmer wrote. “The New Orleans Division offered tangible examples of women’s leadership and Pan-African organizing.”

Born in Bluefields, Nicaragua, Robertson learned about Garveyism while visiting New York. Though her husband was elected as the New Orleans division president, she led the meetings and is credited with the division’s growth. 

“Though fiercely loyal to Garvey, the division bent the rules to fit a southern context,”  writes Lydia Y. Nichols in the Paper Monuments narrative, “Farewell to the Honorable Marcus Garvey.” “One of the ways in which they did so was through the informal leadership of women within the intensely patriarchal organization.” 

Garvey did not seem to mind, according to Nichols. “After visiting New Orleans in 1923, Garvey fondly recounted the festive spirit of the division, with its house band and parties.”

The Jamaican-born Garvey was deported via the Mississippi River on Dec. 2, 1927.

“An estimated 5,000 people flocked to the docks and levees on either side of the river,” Nichols wrote, “to catch a glimpse of the man who had galvanized millions of Black people throughout the Americas, Africa, and Europe with the call ‘Africa, unite!’ ”

Though they survived Garvey’s departure, the UNIA and its divisions dissolved years later, after not meeting the needs of Black people during the Great Depression.

For more tales from New Orleans history, visit the Back in the Day archives.

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Tammy C. Barney is an award-winning columnist who spent most of her career at two major newspapers, The Times-Picayune and The Orlando Sentinel. She served as a bureau chief, assistant city editor, TV...