Later Career
In Harlem and Yonkers, Bruce became involved with the emerging community of intellectuals, including newly-arrived immigrants from the Caribbean. In 1911, with Arthur Schomburg from Puerto Rico, he founded the Negro Society for Historical Research, first based in Yonkers, to create an institute to support scholarly efforts. For the first time it brought together African, West Indian and Afro-American scholars. This later became the foundation for the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research, New York Public Library, in Harlem.
Bruce also was a mentor to Hubert Henry Harrison, the young migrant from St. Croix who became influential in black socialism and black nationalism.
Bruce's belief in an independent national destiny for blacks in the United States led him in the period around 1919 to embrace Jamaican Marcus Garvey's Pan-African nationalism. As a member of Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Bruce wrote for the movement's Negro World and the Daily Negro Times.
Despite his productivity, Bruce found that to sustain himself he had for most of his adult life to work for the Port of New York Authority. After he retired in 1922, he received a small pension until his death in New York City's Bellevue Hospital two years later.
Bruce was given an impressive state funeral at the UNIA Liberty Hall in New York City on August 10, 1924, and was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Yonkers. More than 5,000 people attended three services conducted that day honoring him.
Bruce was a Prince Hall Mason, member of the Humane Order of African Redemption and the African Society (London).
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