78 Book Reviews / African and Asian Studies 10 (2011) 71-81

Tony Martin. Pan-Africanist, Feminist & Mrs. Garvey No.1 Or A Tale of Two Amies. Dover, MA, USA: The Majority Press, 2007; 449 pages; $39.95 (cloth); ISBN: 0-912469-064.

In the gendered pantheon of Pan-African titans, the names of African men monopolize center stage, whilst that of Amy Ashwood Garvey tends to be relegated to secondary sta- tus, among the few publicly-recognised female contributors to Pan-Africanism. Even, where there is some recognition or mention of significant Pan-Africanist women within the patriarchical Pan-Africanist historiography, it is often superficially acknowledged. It seems Martin does not rate Ashwood Garvey as being among the highest ranks of Pan- Africanist giants. He claims: “The Marcus Garveys, the W.E.B DuBoises, the George Padmores, the Kwame Nkrumahs, these were the superstars occupying the very highest echelons of Pan-African struggle. But also important for the history of Pan-Africanism were the countless lesser activists of the second, third and lower tiers, many of them now half- forgotten, but all of whose lives revolved around the Pan-African ideal. Amy was certainly one such”, (p. 319; italics and emphasis mine). Despite such a characterisation of Ashwood Garvey, this book makes a considerable and valuable contribution to African and Caribbean studies as well as to students and aca- demics for several important reasons. Firstly, as a biography, it is significant in its attempt to offer a critical interrogation of Ashwood Garvey as a political actor in her own right. Apart from bringing her to life as a human being, it, also, brings considerable insight into an enormous personality in the social and political age, in which she lived, alongside her personal and political motivations. Despite her short-lived marriage of a mere three months to , Ashwood Garvey, who similarly possessed a tremendous mag- netic personality remained a staunch Pan-Africanist, feminist and anti-imperialist throughout her life. Like her former husband she was a mesmerizing speaker and practi- cally oriented. Whilst Martin contends that she was not the co-founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), established by Garvey on 20 July 1914 in Kingston, , she was instrumental in finding the organisation new premises to oper- ate from. She became one of several secretaries of the UNIA. Similar to all great leaders, Ashwood Garvey was a contradictory personality with huge strengths and personal weaknesses. The imperfections in her character determinedly sus- tained her insistence that she was “Mrs Garvey No. 1” in severely acrimonious divorce proceedings that she never accepted. This lack of acceptance shadows the rest of her life and resurrects itself from time to time in vicious triangular exchanges. She accused Garvey of bigamy and her maid of honour that Garvey then went on to marry, Amy Jacques, of betrayal, whilst simultaneously basking in the Garvey name and advocating racial unity through out her life. Those Pan-Africanists seeking a hagiographic account of one of the few recognised female Pan-Africanists may therefore be disappointed by Martin’s book in its portrayals of some of the faults in Amy’s character and her actions. Secondly, the book inter-sects the life of Amy through the intimate inter-connections between Africa, the Caribbean, the US, the UK, tied by the umbilical cord of slavery and colonialism. Born in colonial Jamaica in a society imbued with a pervasive colour con- sciousness to well respected middle class parents, Amy was around 12 years old when her great grandmother told her that she had been kidnapped and hailed from Juaben in the Ashanti region of Ghana. Not only does Amy trace her genealogy back to the land of her

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/156921011X558655 Book Reviews / African and Asian Studies 10 (2011) 71-81 79 great grandmother with the assistance of two Ghanaian friends, Dr. J. B. Danquah and Cobina Kessie, but between 1946-1949 she travelled extensively in , meeting for example not only the Asanthene (the Asante king) but President Tubman of Liberia. Ashwood Garvey’s life is therefore testimony to such global Pan-African interconnections that forged relationships across the Atlantic world. She also became involved with the left- leaning Council on African Affairs whose leaders were Paul Robeson, Max Yergan and Ben Davis. She attended their conference on ‘Africa – New Perspectives’ on April 14 1944 held at the offices of the organisation in New York. Adam Clayton Powell’s newspaper referred to her as “the Madame Chiang Kai Shek of the Caribbean.” (p. 273). In addition, she was involved with the Harlem based West Indies National Council (WINC) which included some of Harlem’s foremost Caribbean organisers. During her travels within the Caribbean and Africa she was relentless in her campaigns for the upliftment and education of Caribbean and African women, which takes us to the third importance of this work. It contributes to the field of African feminism for Amy was interested in the plight of poor rural African women, despite coming from a privileged background. She was interested in the oppressive structures and psychological effects of traditional African cultural practices on women and girls; the role of women in the family, as well as the needs of African women. It appears her tour of West Africa and Spanish Equatorial Guinea altered her former defense of polygamy and she championed “political rights equal to those of men” for her African sisters (p. 228) and an end to the high preva- lence of infant mortality. Similarly during her extensive tour of the Caribbean in 1953 she gave numerous speeches and “encouraged her local sisters to work alongside men in unions, political parties and social and community agencies” (p. 244). A Women’s Alli- ance was set up at her behest to unite the various disparate local women’s organisations of Barbados. The fourth importance of this book is that it contributes richly to the field of the his- tory of black people in Britain during the period of the 1920s to the 1950s, in terms of practical organisational politics and issues black people in England were immersed in. Martin considers that the 1930s was the “zenith” of Amy’s whole political career whereby “she became a pivotal figure around whom revolved brilliant coteries of young African and Caribbean activists.” (p. 139) They were young men such as C.L.R James, George Padmore, , , J.B. Danquah, Eric Williams, Learie Con- stantine, Peter Abrahams, and T. Albert Marryshow. These figures often met at the Flor- ence Mills Social Parlour that Amy set up near Carnaby Street in West in 1935-36. C.L.R James set up the famous International African Friends of Abyssinia (IAFA) at this social parlour and Ashwood Garvey was one of the first members, serving as its honorary treasurer. In 1935 she spoke at a rally at London’s Trafalgar Square against the Italian fascist preparation for war against Ethiopia. She therefore played an important role in the IAFA. Even, before the opening of her parlour and the formation of the IAFA, she was the co- founder of the London-based Nigerian Progress Union (NPU), which was set up in 1924. Ladipo Solanke, its secretary, candidly stated that the organisation had been “conceived, born and mothered by Amy” (p. 86). The role of the NPU was to mobilise for the uplift- ment of Nigerians and in Garveyite fashion the organisation believed in asserting racial pride and sought to “supervise the education of African girls in England.” (p. 88) There is little evidence to verify the achievement of the latter goal, however, the objectives are a