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.The UNIA sent a small team to makearrangements for the new settlements.The expedition soon ranout of money, however, and Garvey was too involved in othermatters to follow through on his plans.By early 1924, Garveywas ready to make another try.This time a UNIA delegationconvinced Liberia to accept an initial settlement of afew thousand Americans.By the summer of 1924, however,when UNIA officials arrived to make final arrangements,the Liberian president Charles D.B.King s government hadchanged its position entirely.The delegation was told to gohome; no settlements would be permitted.Garvey desperately appealed to the Liberians to reconsidertheir decision, but to no avail.King clearly had begun tosuspect that the UNIA was planning to overthrow his govern-ment once it had established a strong presence in his country.The Liberians were also afraid that France or Britain mightinvade their nation if UNIA agitators began to stir up troublein the surrounding colonial areas.Finally, the land that the57Proud Ships Sailing in CirclesUNIA had been promised was leased to the Firestone RubberCompany soon after the deal fell through.The setback in Liberia occurred three years after thebeginning of a series of events that was to isolate Garvey frommuch of the black community and devastate the UNIA.In thespring of 1921, Garvey toured throughout the West Indies andCentral America selling Black Star Line stock.Although heraised considerable amounts of money, Garvey had a difficulttime reentering the United States.The State Departmentdeclared him a dangerous radical and ordered the Americanconsulates in the countries he was visiting to refuse to granthim a visa.The order was later rescinded, but Garvey wasbeginning to feel strong pressure from the U.S.government.Aware that he could easily be deported from the country byhostile government officials, he applied for U.S.citizenship.On his return to New York, Garvey learned that his wife,Amy Ashwood Garvey, was suing for a legal separation on thegrounds that he was having an affair with his new secretary,a Jamaican woman named Amy Jacques.The marriage hadbeen troubled from the start, and Garvey had previously filed adivorce suit against his wife, which he later dropped.The Garveysmarital problems were widely discussed in the newspapers.The second UNIA convention in August 1921 showedfurther evidence of an organization in trouble.Althoughthe convention was well attended, some UNIA membersdemanded to see a report on the financial status of the BlackStar Line.The feeling of black unity that marked the firstconvention was already beginning to wane.After the convention, Garvey s long-cherished desire for ablack church was finally realized.Acting at Garvey s request,an ex-chaplain of UNIA, George Alexander McGuire, formedthe African Orthodox Church.In a ceremony held onSeptember 28, 1921, McGuire was ordained as bishop of thechurch, which taught its members that God and Christ wereblack.Many religious leaders attacked the new church, but it58MARCUS GARVEYwon a wide following, claiming a membership of 250,000 atits peak.The church, however, served a broader purpose thanspiritual uplift.The AOC was meant to spread the Garveymessage throughout the black religious community.By the end of 1921, the Black Star Line s financial problemswere beginning to catch up to Garvey.His critics demandedto know what had become of the three quarters of a milliondollars that investors had sunk in his shipping line.The postalAfrican Orthodox ChurchWhile Marcus Garvey languished in an American prison, petitioners beggedPresident Calvin Coolidge to release the man they considered their savior.One group from Panama went so far as to claim that, to them, Garvey was a superman; a demigod; and the reincarnated Angel of Peace come fromHeaven to dispense Political Salvation. Another band of supporters spoke ofGarvey as part of the Holy Trinity: God, the Creator of all things and people,His Son, the Spiritual Savior of all mankind.[and] Marcus Garvey, theleader of the Negro peoples of the world. Such bold, almost absurddeclarations of Garvey s near divinity become understandable in the contextof the leader s sincere, if rather eccentric, religiosity.The head of UNIA felt sure that the God of peace and justice stood behindhim and his movement.More important, this God was a black God, and ablack God required a black church.The logical outgrowth of this convictionwas a close affiliation between UNIA and the African Orthodox Church.Founded in 1921 by George Alexander McGuire, a former UNIA chaplain, theAOC became the de facto religious wing of Garvey s organization.Through thechurch and its official publication, the Negro Churchman, Garvey s messagereached an audience that otherwise would have been unreceptive to hispolitical and social ideas.The AOC also extended UNIA s global reach.Congregations of the churchsprang up from Canada to South Africa.Binding itself so closely to Garveyand UNIA, however, also guaranteed that the AOC s demise would coincidewith that of its patron
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