Religious Influences

It might be said that Garvey's greatest achievement was his ability to change the consciousness of black people. Upon his return to New York following a month-long speaking tour of the Midwest in 1920, he likened his movement's impact upon popular consciousness to a religious conversion: "The masses of the race absorb the doctrines of the UNIA with the same eagerness with which the masses in the days of the supremacy of imperial Rome accepted Christianity. The people seem to regard the movement in the light of a new religion."  Garvey aimed to organize the instruction of black children according to the new "religion." He stated in a 27 June 1931 Negro World editorial that "the white race has a system, a method, a code of ethics laid down for the white child to go by, a philosophy, a set creed to guide its life," and that black children needed a similar code.