Amy Jacques Garvey (Dec. 31, 1895 – July 25, 1973)
Amy Euphemia Jacques Garvey was the Jamaican-born second wife of Marcus Garvey, and a journalist, orator and activist in her own right. She worked relentlessly to strengthen her husband’s platform, eventually becoming one of the prominent faces of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and a representation of the females of the organization.
After Marcus Garvey was convicted of trumped-up mail fraud charges on June 21, 1923, Amy assumed leadership of the UNIA. She traveled and spoke all over the country to raise money for her husband’s defense fund.
Just several months after marrying Marcus Garvey, Amy Garvey began editing volume 1 of “The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey” (a compilation of her husband’s writings and speeches). While running the UNIA and fighting for her husband’s freedom, she edited and published volume 2 of “The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey” and two volumes of his poetry, “The Tragedy of White Injustice” and “Selections From the Poetic Meditations of Marcus Garvey.”
After her husband’s death in 1940, Amy Garvey was a contributing editor to a journal called “The African,” published in Harlem. In the late 1940s, she formed the African Study Circle of the World in Jamaica. She published her own book, “Garvey and Garveyism,” in 1963, as well as a booklet, “Black Power in America: The Power of the Human Spirit, in 1968. Her final work was the “Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey Volume III,” written with E.U. Essien-Udom.
Her works have served as some of the best records available on the life of Marcus Garvey and have helped to undermine the concerted efforts of many to distort or hide his accomplishments and contributions to the liberation of Black people.
