Garveys Black Star Line Sold Shares at $5 to Fund Black-Owned Shipping Company
“Black Star Line shipping company (1919): Garvey sold shares at $5 each to fund a Black-owned transatlantic shipping company — a direct attempt to build Black economic infrastructure independent of white capital.”
Summary
In 1919 Marcus Garvey sold Black Star Line shares for $5 each to raise capital for a Black‑owned transatlantic shipping company. The share price and the goal of building Black economic infrastructure independent of white capital are documented in contemporary UNIA materials, stock certificates, and historical accounts.
Sources 59 searched
- Watch Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind | American Experience | Official Site | PBS
NARRATOR: Garvey offered Black Star Line stock for sale in 1919, promising his investors liberation and large profits as they slept.
- Universal Negro Improvement Association | American Experience | Official Site | PBS
Shares were valued at five dollars each, and individuals could purchase a maximum of two hundred shares. Black Star Line stock was sold at U.N.I.A. meetings and conventions, by traveling agents, by mailed circulars, and through advertisements in The Negro World newspaper. To the surprise of his critics, just three months after the incorporation of the Black Star Line, Garvey announced the purchase of its first ship.
- Black Star Line | History Detectives | PBS
A woman recently found two Black Star Line stock certificates, which had been purchased by her great grandfather in 1919.
- Stock certificate issued by Black Star Line to Amy McKenzie | National Museum of African American History and Culture
/ CAPITAL STOCK $500,000 / SHARES $5. EACH / This Certifies that Miss Amy McKenzie is the owner of / Two Shares of the Capital Stock of / BLACK STAR LINE, Inc. full paid and non-assessable / transferable only on the books of this Corporation ...
- Stock certificate issued by Black Star Line to Florence O. Truesdell | National Museum of African American History and Culture
The text in ink, stamp, and by hand reads: [No. 37966 / Shares Two / INCORPORATED UNDER THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE / BLACK STAR LINE, INC. / CAPITAL STOCK $10, 000,000 / SHARES $5.
- Broadside for the Black Star Line | National Museum of African American History and Culture
The image of ship is at top center underneath the words “BLACK STAR LINE / Incorporated / 56 West 136th Street / New York city / Incorporated under the State Laws of Delaware – June 26, 1919 / Capital Stock $10,000,000 (Common) Shares at $5 each...
- "The Collapse of the Only Thing in the Garvey Movement Which Was Original or Promising": Du Bois on Garvey
But a definite plan to unite Negrodom by a line of steamships was a brilliant suggestion and Garvey’s only original contribution to the race problem. But, asked the critic, can it be done? Has Garvey the business sense, can he raise the capital, can he gather the men? . . . Of the staggering losses on the [ship] Yarmouth no hint appears in Mr. Garvey’s glowing speeches concerning the Black Star Line, or in the advertisements in the Negro World, or even in the first annual financial report issued in 1920.
- Black Star Line (1919-1923) | BlackPast.org
Garvey started to solicit funds for the Black Star Line from UNIA members at meetings in 1919 and soon raised enough money to establish the corporation. BSL shares sold for $5 which allowed blacks of modest means to own a piece of the UNIA’s ...
- Marcus Garvey's Black Star Line - The Mariners' Museum and Park
Here is an example of one sold to William J. Hill that is in the Museum’s archives. A five-dollar share in Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line, bought by William Julius Hill in 1921.
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