GARVEY MARCUS Harlem Weeps Over Garvey Jailbound

Sale 2137 - Lot 207

Price Realized: $ 9,600

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500

INITIALED BY GARVEY GARVEY, MARCUS. Harlem Weeps Over Garvey--Jailbound. Silver print photograph, 5x4 inches on the original cardboard mount (with no photographer's stamp), 6 3/4 x 5 inches; tiny chip (one mm) to the top right corner of the print. [New York, June 23, 1923]

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Initialed in ink by Garvey at the lower blank margin. The photo shows Garvey emerging from New York City's "Tombs," where he had been held during the course of a long trial on charges of mail fraud. By 1919, Garvey's huge success among African Americans had triggered an all-out effort by the FBI to find some weakness, some mistake that would lead to an arrest and indictment of the black leader. In 1921, Garvey's Black Star Line provided the opportunity. The Black Star Line had been trying to buy a large ship to be called the Phillis Wheatley. In their efforts to raise the money to buy it, the UNIA issued posters showing the ship. The only problem was, they didn't as yet own it. The FBI had found the excuse they needed. Garvey and several others within the Association were arrested on charges of mail fraud--soliciting funds through the mail. By September of 1922, Garvey was placed on trial. This was the beginning of the end. He was found guilty and sent to federal prison in the Spring of 1923. Though he was later pardoned and deported, Garvey's UNIA movement was never was able to recover the momentum it had lost. Garvey died in 1940.