Building on the Pan-African movement of the late 19th century, Marcus Garvey, founder of what was called the Universal Negro Improvement Association – African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), in May 1920 sent a delegation to Liberia and explained to then-President C.D.B. King the benefits of collaboration. Garvey wanted to relocate his organization’s headquarters to Liberia, provide funding for the Liberian government to provide schools and hospitals, help pay Liberia’s debts and settle Diasporans from America in Liberia to help develop the country’s agriculture and natural resource management.
While these were noble goals, Great Britain and France, as well as some in America, were concerned about Garvey’s pledge to help free Africa from colonial rule. No doubt these great powers convinced officials in the Liberian government that having the Garvey organization in Liberia would antagonize powerful international interests at a cost to Liberia internationally. However, that was not the only issue mitigating against the UNIA-ACL in Liberia.
At that time, the Americo-Liberians, descendants of mid-19th century returnees to the country from America, dominated Liberia culturally, politically and economically. That hold was only broken a few decades ago. Surely there was concern that a professed liberating force represented by Garvey would upset the existing order, and they too had reason to protest the impending influence of the UNIA-ACL in Liberia. So, in the end this relationship didn’t work out, and the Garvey emissaries were no longer welcome in Liberia.
But the loss was not just for Liberia, wrote Akili Nkrumah, President General UNIA-ACL RC2020 in an open letter:
“A deep reading of Marcus Garvey’s writings, speeches and activities in the 1920’s will quietly reveal the fact that besides his laser focus on Liberia to be the first African state in which he intended to lay down his African requiem plans, Mr. Garvey also favored Liberia’s neighbor, Sierra Leone,” Nkrumah wrote. “The primary problem with Sierra Leone during the 1920’s was that, unlike Liberia, Sierra Leone was not yet independent. It remained a British colony until 1961, otherwise when the American government conspired with the Firestone Rubber Company interests to deny Mr. Garvey’s attempt to purchase a large swath of Liberian land for the UNIA-ACL, Mr. Garvey would have quickly made a similar offer to purchase land in Sierra Leone. Alas, the British Imperial Government would not even consider such an offer.”
More than a century later, Michael Duncan, brother of Liberian First Lady Clar Duncan-Weah, is leading a movement to revisit the arrangement first presented in the 1920s in hopes of rekindling a promise which President King later reneged on to Garvey. Michael is currently the President General of the UNIA-ACL.
Even after the failure to connect in Liberia, Diaspora advocacy for Africa continued, through the efforts of George Padmore and others. In the mid-1930s, U.S. government reluctance to intervene in Ethiopia’s conflict with Italy limited American aid to medical assistance. However, the Provisional Committee for the Defense of Ethiopia, established in New York City in February 1935 by delegates from twenty Harlem organizations, including the New York division of Garvey’s UNIA-ACL, the Young Men’s Christian Association’s educational branch, the local Elks lodge and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, were among the largest African American groups established to press then-President Franklin Roosevelt to do more to help the invaded Ethiopia.
“Blacks in this country knew comparatively little about Ethiopia, except that it stood as the symbol of African achievement. Ethiopia, the sole African kingdom which had managed to retain its independence during the European scramble for colonies at the close of the nineteenth century, had a long-recorded history, an ancient Coptic Christian faith, a monarchy which claimed descent from King Solomon, and internationally recognized diplomatic status. Negro Americans did what they could to prevent her destruction,” wrote Rod Ross in his essay “Black Americans and Italo-Ethiopian Relief 1935-1936.”
The United States has the second largest African Diaspora behind Brazil.
Other countries around the world with significant Diaspora populations include: the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Venezuela, Columbia, the United Kingdom and France. There also are Diaspora populations in Saudi Arabia and Israel, as well s Australia and the Pacific Ocean islands.
The Diaspora in the United States – both native-born and new residents – currently numbers nearly 47 million. According to Nielsen, a global performance management company, this population will grow to 74.5 million by 2060 and its buying power was expected to reach $1.5 trillion by 2021, according to Black Enterprise magazine, although that target may have been thrown off by the impact of COVID-19. Still, the African-born or first-generation members of this group already likely have economic roots on the continent of Africa and can be the leading edge of a growing American economic engagement with companies within the recovering economies of Africa.
Nielsen found that native-born African Americans have tended traditionally to invest more in real estate than in equities, but that trend is changing. Meanwhile, the Journal of Development Economics reported as far back as May 2006 that remittances from African-born Americans had become the second largest source of external finance to Africa after foreign aid. Those living in the United States have made this country the largest source of remittances globally. Trends for both segments of the African American population are just turning to investments, but this wave may eventually significantly drive investment in Africa from the United States.
Under the Prosper Africa Presidential initiative, two of its legs focus on investment: U.S. investment in Africa and African investment in the U.S. There will be opportunities for Diasporans in this country to invest in African companies, as was the hope of the late Rev. Leon Sullivan when he created the Peoples Investment Fund for Africa in the early 1990s. A lack of investment evaluation mechanisms at that time led to that program’s failure, but many hope his successor effort – the Self-Help Investment Program – can be resurrected and create investment clubs that take advantage of current investment vetting mechanisms. There also will be opportunities for Africans to invest in Diaspora ventures in this country, perhaps in Opportunity Zone projects that carry visa and tax benefits.
Furthermore, the African Diaspora in the United States can help even the playing field with former colonial powers and China, who have representatives throughout African countries. The Young African Leaders Initiative, a decade-old U.S. program has trained thousands of Africans from the government, business and civil society sectors who have returned to their home countries more aware of U.S. commercial interests and business techniques. The President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa considers these individuals to be liaisons – acting as either advisors, sub-contractors or employees.
The Prosper Africa initiative considers those born in Africa as America’s vanguard to identify actionable business opportunities through existing relationships, opening the African market to all Americans. After all, Garvey’s call for Diaspora collaboration was not exclusionary in the sense that he felt only Africans and their descendants could have dealings with the continent; he just wanted to ensure that the Diaspora had a fair shot at maximizing benefits from the resources and opportunities of the continent so that they would be in a more favorable position to deal with others as equals economically and not supplicants. In the case of Liberians in the United States, they are neighbors and friends, doctors, dentists, accountants and other professionals who are known and trusted. Their interest in being involved in the Liberian economy thus has the ability to influence other Americans to try such economic involvement as well.
The Black immigrant population has increased fivefold since 1980. There were 4.2 million Black immigrants living in the U.S. in 2016, up from just 816,000 in 1980, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. Since 2000 alone, the number of Black immigrants living in the country has risen 71%. Now, one-in-ten Black people living in the U.S. are foreign born, according to the March 2016 Current Population Survey.
Working together, the entire African Diaspora can accomplish much. It can buy and sell from one another and increase mutual wealth through business and job creation. It can leverage the wealth and commercial expertise that already exists in the respective communities. In short, the Diaspora should do all it can to help themselves first before seeking help from others.