Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League

Universal Negro Improvement Association And African Communities League

The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities (Imperial) League (UNIA-ACL) is a black nationalist fraternal organization founded by Marcus Garvey. The organization enjoyed its greatest strength in the 1920s, prior to Garvey's deportation from the United States of America, after which its prestige and influence declined. Since a schism in 1949, there have been two organizations claiming the name.

According to the preamble of the 1929 constitution as amended, the UNIA is a "social, friendly, humanitarian, charitable, educational, institutional, constructive and expansive society, and is founded by persons desiring to do the utmost to work for the general uplift of the people of African ancestry of the world. And the members pledge themselves to do all in their power to conserve the rights of their noble race and to respect the rights of all mankind, believing always in the Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God. The motto of the organization is 'One God! One Aim! One Destiny!' Therefore, let justice be done to all mankind, realizing that if the strong oppresses the weak, confusion and discontent will ever mark the path of man but with love, faith and charity towards all the reign of peace and plenty will be heralded into the world and the generations of men shall be called Blessed."

The broad mission of the UNIA-ACL led to the establishment of numerous auxiliary components, among them the Universal African Legion, a paramilitary group; the African Black Cross Nurses; African Black Cross Society; the Universal African Motor Corps; the Black Eagle Flying Corps; the Black Star Steamship Line; the Black Cross Trading and Navigation Corporation; as well as the Negro Factories Corporation.

Read more about Universal Negro Improvement Association And African Communities League:  Name, Early History, First International Convention, Liberian Program, Post-Garvey Era, Notable Members of The UNIA

Famous quotes containing the words universal, negro, improvement, association, african, communities and/or league:

    Vanity, or to call it by a gentler name, the desire of admiration and applause, is, perhaps, the most universal principle of human actions.... Where that desire is wanting, we are apt to be indifferent, listless, indolent, and inert.... I will own to you, under the secrecy of confession, that my vanity has very often made me take great pains to make many a woman in love with me, if I could, for whose person I would not have given a pinch of snuff.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    It doesn’t do good to open doors for someone who doesn’t have the price to get in. If he has the price, he may not need the laws. There is no law saying the Negro has to live in Harlem or Watts.
    Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)

    They act as if they supposed that to be very sanguine about the general improvement of mankind is a virtue that relieves them from taking trouble about any improvement in particular.
    John Morley [1st Viscount Morley Of Blackburn] (1838–1923)

    A good marriage ... is a sweet association in life: full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of useful and solid services and mutual obligations.
    Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

    I think it’s unfair for people to try to make successful blacks feel guilty for not feeling guilty.... We’re unique in that we’re not supposed to enjoy the things we’ve worked so hard for.
    Patricia Grayson, African American administrator. As quoted in Time magazine, p. 59 (March 13, 1989)

    I am convinced, that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Half a league, half a league,
    Half a league onward,
    All in the valley of Death
    Rode the six hundred.
    “Forward the Light Brigade!
    Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)