Wikimedia CommonsMarcus Garvey was a Jamaican Black nationalist leader who died after reading a newspaper report about his own death.
Marcus Garvey was a Jamaican-born Black nationalist leader primarily known for founding the Universal Negro Improvement and Conservation Association and African Communities League, more commonly known as UNIA. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Garvey failed to build a following in his native Jamaica, so he moved to the U.S. in 1916, where he established UNIA branches in Harlem and other predominantly Black communities.
As the self-proclaimed “Black Moses,” Garvey claimed to amass a following of roughly two million, though that number was never confirmed. He also published the newspaper Negro World, which touted the splendors of African culture and highlighted heroes within the Black community.
While Garvey’s message initially seemed to build up Black communities in America, his beliefs were fairly controversial. In particular, Garvey made enemies with other prominent Black leaders for his divisive views on racial purity — as well as his approval of the Ku Klux Klan because it sought to separate the races.
His influence ultimately dropped off in 1922 after he and other UNIA members were indicted for mail fraud. Garvey served two years in prison and was deported as an undesirable alien in 1927.
But his story wasn’t entirely over. According to Face2Face Africa, Garvey lived out the last few years of his life in London.
He suffered a serious stroke in January 1940, but he survived. Rumors of his death began circulating, though, and by May the Chicago Defender was reporting it as fact.
Garvey was reading the Defender when he noticed the headline: “Marcus Garvey Dies in London.” The inaccurate obituary also mentioned that he’d died after years of being “broke, alone, and unpopular.”
The shock of reading the article caused Garvey to suffer another stroke. This time, it was fatal.
