Black Star Line
Encyclopedia
The Black Star Line was a shipping line incorporated by Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH was a Jamaican publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League...
, organizer of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). The shipping line was supposed to facilitate the transportation of goods and eventually African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s throughout the African global economy. It derived its name from the White Star Line
White Star Line
The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company or White Star Line of Boston Packets, more commonly known as the White Star Line, was a prominent British shipping company, today most famous for its ill-fated vessel, the RMS Titanic, and the World War I loss of Titanics sister ship Britannic...
, a line whose success Garvey felt he could duplicate, which would become a standard of his Back-to-Africa movement
Back-to-Africa movement
The Back-to-Africa movement, was also known as the Colonization movement, originated in the United States in the 19th century, and encouraged those of African descent to return to the African homelands of their ancestors. This movement would eventually inspire other movements ranging from the...
. It was one among many businesses which the UNIA originated, such as the Universal Printing House, Negro Factories Corporation
Negro Factories Corporation
Negro Factories Corporation was one of the ventures of the UNIA-ACL which sought to, "build and operate factories in the big industrial centers of the United States, Central America, the West Indies and Africa to manufacture every marketable commodity." A chain of grocery stores, a restaurant, a...
, and the widely distributed and highly successful Negro World
Negro World
Negro World was a weekly newspaper, established in January 1918 in New York City, which served as the voice of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, an organization founded by Marcus Garvey in 1914...
newspaper.
The Black Star Line and its successor, the Black Cross Navigation and Trading Company, operated between 1919 and 1922. It stands today as a major symbol for Garvey followers and African Americans in search of a way to get back to their homeland.
History
The Black Star Line started in DelawareDelaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
on June 23, 1919. Having a maximum capitalization of $500,000, BSL stocks were sold at UNIA conventions at five dollars each. The company's losses were estimated to be between $630,000 and $1.25 million.
The Black Star Line surprised all its critics when, only three months after being incorporated, the first of four ships, the SS Yarmouth was purchased with the intention of it being rechristened the Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
. The Yarmouth was a coal boat during the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and was in poor condition when purchased by the Black Star Line. Once reconditioned, the Yarmouth proceeded to sail for three years between the U.S. and the West Indies as the first Black Star Line ship with an all-black crew and a black captain. Later Joshua Cockburn, the captain of the Yarmouth, was accused of receiving a "kick back from the purchase price".
The SS Yarmouth was not the only ship to be purchased in poor condition and to be completely oversold. Garvey spent another $200,000 for more ships. One, the SS Shadyside, sailed the "cruise to nowhere" on the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
one summer and sank the next fall because of a leak many thought to be sabotage. Another was a steam yacht once owned by Henry Huttleston Rogers. Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...
had been an honored guest aboard the ship when it was owned by his friend and confidant, Rogers, and was known as the Kanawha
Kanawha (1899)
Kanawha was a 471-ton steam-powered luxury yacht initially built in 1899 for millionaire industrialist and financier Henry Huttleston Rogers . One of the key men in the Standard Oil Trust, Rogers was one of the last of the robber barons of the Gilded Age in the United States...
. However, Rogers had died in 1909, and the once well-maintained yacht had also served in the first World War. Renamed by the Black Star Line the SS Antonio Maceo
Antonio Maceo Grajales
Lt. General José Antonio de la Caridad Maceo y Grajales was second-in-command of the Cuban Army of Independence....
, it blew a boiler
Boiler
A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications.-Materials:...
and killed a man off the Virginia coast on its first voyage from New York to Cuba, and had to be towed back to New York.
Besides oversold, poorly conditioned ships, Black Star Line was beset by corruption of management and infiltration by agents of J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
's Bureau of Investigation (the forerunner to the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
), who – according to historian Winston James – sabotaged it by throwing foreign matter into the fuel, damaging the engines. The first commission for the Yarmouth was to haul whiskey from the U.S. to Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
before Prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
. Although the ship made it in record time, it did not have docking arrangements, so it lost money sitting in the docks of Cuba while longshoremen
Stevedore
Stevedore, dockworker, docker, dock labourer, wharfie and longshoreman can have various waterfront-related meanings concerning loading and unloading ships, according to place and country....
had a strike. A cargo-load of coconut
Coconut
The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is a member of the family Arecaceae . It is the only accepted species in the genus Cocos. The term coconut can refer to the entire coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which is not a botanical nut. The spelling cocoanut is an old-fashioned form of the word...
s rotted in the hull of a ship on another voyage because Garvey insisted on having the ships make ceremonial stops at politically important ports.
The Black Star Line ceased sailing in February 1922. It is regarded as a considerable accomplishment for African Americans of the time, despite the thievery by employees, engineers who overcharged, and the Bureau of Investigation's acts of infiltration and sabotage.