ARCHIVE.
The Papers Of Amy Ashwood Garvey
First Wife Of Marcus Garvey And Co-Founder Of The Unia
1919-1975
Garvey, Amy Ashwood. Garvey Archive, 1919-1975.
An archive comprised of thousands of leaves of notes and drafts of her autobiographical writing on her activities with husband Marcus Garvey during their short marriage and throughout their careers; as well as her own significant advancements of the treatment of blacks, especially black women, in Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. Includes her original writings on Africa and the pan-Africanist movement, speeches, correspondence and photographs, de-classified FBI material, and more.
Amy Ashwood Garvey (1897-1969) was a co-founder of the United Negro Improvement Association and Marcus Garvey's chief aid. They had met in 1914 in Jamaica when she was 17. Her parents did not approve and the couple were parted until 1918, when they were reunited in New York. Amy worked tirelessly to organize the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) with Garvey. She helped to establish the ladies auxiliary wing of the movement, became the General Secretary of the UNIA in 1919 and became one of the directors of the Black Star Line shipping Company. The couple were married on Christmas day in 1919. However, after less than a year Ashwood claimed that Marcus had abandoned her, and they divorced. (Garvey married another Amy, like Ashwood, from Jamaica, shortly thereafter.)
Ashwood sailed for Panama in the fall of 1920. A dedicated feminist and pan-Africanist, she traveled to Africa and remained there in Maguduri (Nigeria) for some years studying West-African customs and joining the struggle for post-war independence for the ex-colonial states. The archive contains a number of her writings while in Africa on slavery, African customs, and the pan-African movement, as well as several letters from African dignitaries, photographs of Amy with African chiefs and their families, and a Xeroxed FBI file of declassified material pertaining to her activities on behalf of oppressed blacks. She was a founding member of the International African Service Bureau (IASB) and was instrumental in organizing the 5th Pan-African Congress. Throughout her life she campaigned for the rights of African women.
After an attempt at writing an autobiography, in the late 1950s Ms. Garvey employed English author Bernard Williams to ghost write it for her. Several letters from him indicate a rocky relationship and it is apparent that nothing came of it, save her original typed draft, heavily annotated by Williams, sent back to her in chapters with suggestions and changes.
Eventually Garvey found a biographer in the person of Lionel Yard, a fellow Jamaican who published, over a decade after her death, The Biography of Amy Ashwood Garvey 1898-1969. Co-Founder of the United Negro Improvement Association. (Washington, D. C., 1980). As a rather sad footnote to this archive, there is contained in it, an entire folder chronicling Lionel Yard's efforts to fund the purchase and placement of a gravestone for Ms. Garvey who died penniless in Jamaica in 1969.
Provenance: From Amy Ashwood Garvey to Lionel Yard, as he worked on her "autobiography"; from the estate of Lionel Yard to us.
The archive is broken down as follows:
Memoir of her life and work, with Garvey and on her own
Manuscript and typescript notes and drafts, some with her notes and/or with those of Bernard Williams, ca. 200 pp.
Typescript draft, ca. 125 pp., annotated with Williams's queries.
Correspondence with Williams, 5 TLS from him, 1957-61.
Typescript essay by Ashwood, "The Black Woman," 5 pp., published in Harlem News, November 1968.
Sam Manning file. Manning, a Calypso singer and songwriter, was Ashwood's companion with whom she moved to London in 1929. Together they opened the Florence Mills Club, which featured Caribbean cuisine and music; one scholar writes, "the restaurant became a gathering place for African and West Indian activists and students." Several letters are present to Manning from various correspondents, and one TLS from Manning to Ashwood, dated 1958, signed "Sambo," offering business advice and discussing Ashwood's book. Also present are dozens of leaves of manuscript and typescript songs-poems or song lyrics or both-and a handful of printed matter relating to some of his performances.
II. Correspondence
- Correspondence folders, one for each of the following years:
n.d.
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1956
1957
1958
1959
1963
1964
1965
1967
1968
1969
About 75 letters total, from various correspondents, primarily to Ashwood but some by her; with occasional documents.
Some of the letters are administrative or professional (some are simple receipts, appointment confirmations, and brief notes of thanks); others are more personal. Correspondents, who write from all over the world, include family members, friends, and politicians and government officials in Africa and the Caribbean. Volume is heaviest during the late 1950s.
III. Garvey in Africa
FBI / declassified documents: Xeroxes of documents, reports, interviews, and letters regarding Ashwood's activities overseas on behalf of blacks. Ca. 150 leaves.
Fifteen composition books (acquired in the UK, Jamaica, and Africa) with her manuscript notes, including:
-Marriage and the Place of women in African society
-Women / Marriage Effiks / Marriage: Africa
-Cameroons / excerpts
-African Customs / Speeches
-Nigeria / Iboland
-Abolition of Slavery / speeches
-African notes
-History of Siere Leone
-Nigeria - efiks / The EJIKS
-Folk Tales
-Historical Survey of Bornu
-addresses
-Stock book
-Dahomy
Notes and drafts for speeches, essays, and articles: ca. 300 leaves, manuscript and
typescript
Clippings, printed matter, photographs, a Xeroxed letter, a 2 page typescript regarding the organization of the Zulus, and a 3 page typescript speech addressiug the oppression of black Africans.
IV. Photos, documents, and clippings
Over twenty black and white photos of various sizes; some labeled on the verso, placing them in Nigeria, 1949.
Two postcards.
Documents: bills, receipts, canceled checks, an address book with a photo loosely inserted, a signed letter granting Ashwood permission to take one Juliette Tudor from Barbardos to the UK "to complete her education."
V. Lionel Yard
Source materials Ashwood provided Yard for his writings on Ashwood and on Marcus Garvey, including notes, drafts, typescript material and printed matter, occasional photographs and clippings.
Notes, manuscript and typescript drafts, approximately ca. 300 leaves.
Research clippings, approximately 100 leaves.
Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History (ASALH), 1960s-70s.
Personal Correspondence 1971-72
Miscellaneous / Correspondence (personal material)
(#7805)
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