Emory J. Tolbert | |
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Born | Sanford, Florida, U.S. | 26 December 1946
Occupations |
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Academic background | |
Alma mater | Atlantic Union College |
Academic work | |
Discipline | History |
Institutions | Howard University California State University,San Bernardino California State University,Fullerton University of Southern California University of California,Los Angeles University of California,San Diego |
Emory J. Tolbert (1946-2022) was an American historian,educator,and activist. His scholarship centers on Marcus Garvey and Garveyism,as well as wider aspects of African American history.
Emory Tolbert was born on December 26,1946,to John and Johnie Mae Tolbert in Sanford,Florida. When he was three his family moved to Rochester,New York. Tolbert graduated cum laude from Atlantic Union College with a B.A. in History in 1968. In 1975,he earned a PhD in History from UCLA. [1] His dissertation was a groundbreaking study of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League chapters in Los Angeles. [2]
While pursuing his doctorate,Tolbert was an instructor at UCLA,California State University,San Bernardino,University of Southern California,and University of California at San Diego (UCSD). [2] His formal career as an educator began at Loma Linda University in 1968,where he taught the university's first course in African American History,as well as courses on American history and the American constitution. [3]
From 1973 to 1981,Tolbert was an assistant professor in the department of History at UCSD,teaching the university's first course in African American History,and initiating an MA program in Social and Ethnic History. From 1984 to 1991,he was an associate and full professor at California State University at Fullerton in the department of History and the department of Afro-American and Ethnic Studies. In 1987,he became chair of the Afro-American and Ethnic Studies Department. [4]
In 1991,Tolbert assumed the position of chair of Howard University's History department,holding the post until 1998,then again from 2002 to 2005,and 2009. [1] While at Howard,Tolbert inaugurated a geography program,expanded the public history program,and initiated the historical research for the New York Burial Ground Project. [5]
Tolbert's specialty was Garveyism. His 1980 The UNIA and Black Los Angeles was the first regional study of the Marcus Garvey movement. [6] [7] He has focused particularly on the impact of Garveyism in Los Angeles,and on the West Coast,but has also conducted studies on the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) chapters nationwide. [8] Tolbert was the senior editor of volumes 1-4 of the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers,the largest scholarly project of Garvey materials. [9]
Tolbert was known for having one of the largest personal collections of African American memorabilia. [10] [11] He was active in the Sabbath in Africa movement (SIA),which conducts original scholarship on Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa. [12] [13]
Tolbert was married to Frances Jones on August 1,1976. They have two daughters,Denise (Defoe) and Erin. [14]
Tolbert passed away on October 4,2022.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was a Jamaican political activist. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League,through which he declared himself Provisional President of Africa. Ideologically a black nationalist and Pan-Africanist,his ideas came to be known as Garveyism.
The Pan-African flag is a tri-color flag consisting of three equal horizontal bands of red,black,and green. The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) formally adopted it on August 13,1920,in Article 39 of the Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World,during its month-long convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Variations of the flag can and have been used in various countries and territories in the Americas to represent Garveyist ideologies.
The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) is a black nationalist fraternal organization founded by Marcus Garvey,a Jamaican immigrant to the United States,and Amy Ashwood Garvey. The Pan-African organization enjoyed its greatest strength in the 1920s,and was influential prior to Garvey's deportation to Jamaica in 1927. After that its prestige and influence declined,but it had a strong influence on African-American history and development. The UNIA was said to be "unquestionably,the most influential anticolonial organization in Jamaica prior to 1938," according to Honor Ford-Smith.
Garveyism is an aspect of black nationalism that refers to the economic,racial and political policies of UNIA-ACL founder Marcus Garvey. The ideology of Garveyism centers on the unification and empowerment of African-descended men,women and children under the banner of their collective African descent,and the repatriation of the descendants of enslaved Africans and profits to the African continent.
Negro World was the newspaper of the Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA). Founded by Garvey and Amy Ashwood Garvey,the newspaper was published weekly in Harlem,New York,and distributed internationally to the UNIA's chapters in more than forty countries. Distributed weekly,at its peak,the Negro World reached a circulation of 200,000.
Henrietta Vinton Davis was an elocutionist,dramatist,and impersonator. In addition to being "the premier actress of all nineteenth-century black performers on the dramatic stage",Davis was proclaimed by Marcus Garvey to be the "greatest woman of the Negro race today".
Amy Euphemia Jacques Garvey was a Jamaican-born journalist and activist. She was the second wife of Marcus Garvey. She was one of the pioneering female Black journalists and publishers of the 20th century.
Cyril Valentine Briggs was an African-Caribbean American writer and communist political activist. Briggs is best remembered as founder and editor of The Crusader, a seminal New York magazine of the New Negro Movement of the 1920s,and as founder of the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB),a small but historically important radical organization dedicated to advancing the cause of Pan-Africanism.
James Wormley Jones was an African-American policeman and World War I veteran,who is best known for having been the first African-American FBI special agent.
Amy Ashwood Garvey was a Jamaican Pan-Africanist activist. She was a director of the Black Star Line Steamship Corporation,and along with her former husband Marcus Garvey she founded the Negro World newspaper.
Robert Athlyi Rogers,born in Anguilla,was the author of the Holy Piby,and founder of the "Afro-Athlican Constructive Church".
James Robert Stewart G.S.A. Ph. was a member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Stewart succeeded Marcus Garvey Garvey as President-General of the UNIA. He successfully relocated its headquarters to Liberia.
Black Cross Nurses is an international organization of nurses which was founded in 1920,based upon the model of the Red Cross. The organization was the women's auxiliary of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League and was established to provide health services and education to people of African descent.
Robert A. Hill is a Jamaican historian and academic who moved to the United States in the 1970s. He is Professor Emeritus of History and Research Professor at the University of California,Los Angeles (UCLA),and Visiting Fellow at The Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES),University of the West Indies at Mona,Jamaica. A leading scholar on Marcus Garvey,Hill has lectured and written widely on the Garvey movement,and has been editor-in-chief of The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers for more than 30 years. Reviewing the first volume in 1984,Eric Foner wrote:"'The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers' will take its place among the most important records of the Afro-American experience."
Maymie de Mena was an American-born activist who became one of the highest-ranking officers in the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). She has been credited with keeping the organization alive after Marcus Garvey's conviction for mail fraud and deportation from the United States.
Henry Vinton Plummer,Jr. was an American lawyer,real estate agent,civil rights activist,and black nationalist. In the 1920s he became involved in Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA),leading the organizations publicity and propaganda wings,Garvey's secret service,and its militia.
The SS Yarmouth was a steamship notable for its part in developing Yarmouth,Nova Scotia,and connecting it to Boston,Massachusetts. Later in life it had a central role as the flagship of the Marcus Garvey initiative the Black Star Line. Marcus Garvey,known as the "black Moses",was a "back to Africa" evangelist,and his ideas,although radical and controversial in his own time and today,still remain influential. The Black Star Line's name,a play on the White Star Line,is remembered in the flag of Ghana.
James G. Spady was an American Book Award-winning writer,historian,and journalist. Over his fifty-year career,Spady authored and edited numerous books,worked in radio,television,and film,wrote hundreds of newspaper articles for various print media,and received the National Newspaper Publishers Association's Meritorious Award.
Mason Alexander Hargrave was an organizer in the African-American community. He spent his later years in Cleveland,Ohio,in a leadership role at the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). He was involved in promoting use of the red,black,and green Pan-African flag and had it flown over Cleveland City Hall in 1974. He was an acolyte of Marcus Garvey and wrote a letter of "testimony" to U.S. Representative John Conyers in 1987 objecting to mail fraud charges against Garvey.
J. R. Ralph Casimir was a Dominican poet,editor,journalist and bookseller. A pioneering Caribbean pan-Africanist,he was a founding member of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA),organising its Dominica branch. Casimir also compiled Dominica's first poetry anthologies.
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