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Marcus Garvey was born in saint Ann, Jamaica
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In 1903, he traveled to Kingston, Jamaica, and soon became involved in union activities.
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In 1907, he took part in an unsuccessful printer's strike and the experience kindled in him a passion for political activism.
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Three years later, he traveled throughout Central America working as an newspaper editor and writing about the exploitation of migrant workers in the plantations.
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Marcus Garvey returned to Jamaica in 1912 and founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) with the goal of uniting all of African diaspora to "establish a country and absolute government of their own.
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Garvey traveled to the United States in 1916 to raise funds for a similar venture in Jamaica. He settled in New York City and formed a UNIA chapter in Harlem to promote a separatist philosophy of social, political, and economic freedom for blacks.
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In 1918, Garvey began publishing the widely distributed newspaper Negro World to convey his message.
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By 1919, Marcus Garvey and UNIA had launched the Black Star Line, a shipping company that would establish trade and commerce between Africans in America, the Caribbean, South and Central America, Canada and Africa
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August 1920, UNIA claimed 4 million members and held its first International Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City
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Marcus Garvey and three other UNIA officials were charged with mail fraud involving the Black Star Line
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On June 23, 1923, Garvey was convicted and sentenced to prison for five years. for mail fraud
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In 1927 he was released from prison and deported to Jamaica.
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Garvey continued his political activism and the work of UNIA in Jamaica, and then moved to London in 1935.
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The Greater Liberia Act of 1939 would deport 12 million African-Americans to Liberia at federal expense to relieve unemployment
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Marcus Garvey died in London in 1940 after several strokes.
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In 1964, his remains were exhumed and taken to Jamaica, where the government proclaimed him Jamaica's first national hero and re-interred him at a shrine in the National Heroes Park.