Black Star Line

June 27, 1919

The Black Star Line (1919−1922) was a shipping line incorporated by Marcus Garvey, the organizer of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and other members of the UNIA. The shipping line was created to facilitate the transportation of goods and eventually African Americans throughout the African global economy. It derived its name from the White Star Line, a line whose success Garvey felt he could duplicate. Black Star Line became a key part of Garvey’s contribution to the Back-to-Africa movement. It was one among many businesses which the UNIA originated, such as the Universal Printing House, Negro Factories Corporation, and the widely distributed and highly successful Negro World weekly newspaper.

The Black Star Line and its successor, the Black Cross Navigation and Trading Company, operated between 1919 and 1922. It stands today as a major symbol for Garvey followers and African Americans in search of a way to get back to their homeland. It is not to be confused with the Black Star Line, the state shipping corporation of Ghana.

The Black Star Line was incorporated as a Delaware corporation on June 27, 1919. Having a maximum capitalization of $500,000, BSL stocks were sold at UNIA conventions at five dollars each.

The first directors of the Black Star Line were Marcus Garvey, Edgar M. Grey, Richard E. Warner, George Tobias, Jeremiah Certain, Henrietta Vinton Davis, and Janie Jenkins. The officers of the corporation were President Marcus Garvey, First Vice President — Jeremiah Certain, Second Vice President Henrietta Vinton Davis, Treasurer George Tobias, Secretary Richard E. Warner, Assistant Secretary Edgar M. Grey and Assistant Treasurer Janie Jenkins. Six months after incorporation the Board of Directors voted to increase the Black Star Line market capitalization to $10,000,000.

The Black Star Line surprised all its critics when, only three months after being incorporated, the first of four ships, the SS Yarmouth was purchased with the intention of it being rechristened the SS Frederick Douglass. The Yarmouth was a coal boat during the First World War, and was in poor condition when purchased by the Black Star Line. Once reconditioned, the Yarmouth proceeded to sail for three years between the U.S. and the West Indies as the first Black Star Line ship with an all-black crew and a black captain.

In 1919, J. Edgar Hoover and the Bureau of Investigation (the forerunner to the Federal Bureau of Investigation) charged Marcus Garvey and three other officers with mail fraud. The prosecution stated that the brochure of the Black Star Line contained a picture of a ship that the BSL did not own. The ship pictured was the Orion, which in the brochure was renamed the Phyllis Wheatley, and at the time was going to be bought by the BSL, but which they did not yet own.[7] The fact that the ship was not owned yet by the BSL warranted mail fraud. “In 1922, Garvey and three other Black Star Line officials were indicted by the U.S. government for using the mails fraudulently to solicit stock for the recently defunct steamship line.” The Jury only convicted Garvey, not the other three officers, and he was sentenced to five years in prison. In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge deported Garvey back to Jamaica.

The Black Star Line ceased sailing in February 1922. The company’s losses were estimated to be between $630,000 and $1.25 million. It is regarded as a considerable accomplishment for African Americans of the time, despite mismanagement, engineers who overcharged, and the Bureau of Investigation’s acts of infiltration and sabotage.

References in Reggae Music

Reggae singer Fred Locks re-introduced the Black Star Line to a Jamaican audience with his 1976 hit ‘Black Star Liners’ (which has been called one of “the most important songs in reggae music of the 1970s”), portraying Garvey as a Moses-like prophet.

The 1977 reggae album by Culture, ‘Two Sevens Clash’, featured a song called ‘Black Starliner Must Come’. In 1978, The Regulars (later renamed to Reggae Regular) released the reggae song named ‘Black Star Liner’.

Black Slate on their album ‘Amigo’ recorded a song called ‘Freedom Time (Black Star Liner)’, with references to Marcus Garvey and “seven miles of Black Star Liner”.

‘Train to Zion’ by Linval Thompson (writer) and U Brown featured the lines: “Train to Zion is coming / Don’t want no one to miss it / It’s the Black Star Liner / It’s going to Zion…”

Did you know…The flag of Ghana adopted a black star as an homage to Black Star Line.