There are figures in Black history whose contributions lie hidden in plain sight — known, yet underacknowledged; celebrated, yet often secondary in the historical narrative. Amy Ashwood Garvey is one such figure. Born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, on 10 January 1897, she was not simply the first wife of Marcus Garvey, as she is often reduced to in the footnotes of history, but a formidable political thinker, organiser, and cultural pioneer in her own right. Her life charts a course through the great ideological battlegrounds of the 20th century: empire and resistance, race and gender, homeland and diaspora.
Ashwood Garvey’s activism began early. By the time she co-founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914 at the age of 17, she had already developed a fierce belief in racial pride and Black self-determination. Alongside Marcus Garvey, she helped build the UNIA from its Jamaican roots into a transatlantic movement that gave voice to millions of people of African descent. While Marcus Garvey became the movement’s messianic figurehead, Amy Ashwood was its organisational backbone — recruiting members, hosting meetings, and giving women a visible role within a movement that, like so many, often relegated them to the margins.
Yet Amy Ashwood’s story is not merely an extension of Marcus Garvey’s. After their marriage ended in 1922 — a separation shaped as much by ideological tension as by personal strife — she forged a new and independent path, and her political reach widened.
A New Stage: London and the Crucible of Pan-Africanism
When Ashwood Garvey moved to London in the interwar years, she arrived at a city that was simultaneously imperial capital and a crucible of anti-colonial thought. London at the time was a paradox: a seat of colonial power and also the gathering place for those who sought to dismantle that very empire. It was here that Amy Ashwood established herself as a key figure in a nascent Pan-Africanist movement that brought together African, Caribbean, and African-American thinkers.
In 1934, she co-founded the International African Friends of Abyssinia (IAFA), a direct response to Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia — the last remaining sovereign African nation. To understand the significance of this act is to grasp how deeply empire scarred the African psyche. For Black people across the world, Ethiopia stood as a symbol of pride and resilience. The IAFA, with Amy Ashwood as one of its principal voices, sent a clear message: that the struggles of Africans on the continent were inseparable from those of the African diaspora.
She was not alone. The IAFA included the likes of George Padmore, Jomo Kenyatta, and C.L.R. James, and would evolve into the International African Service Bureau, one of the most important anti-colonial organisations of the time. Amy Ashwood moved within this world as both participant and pioneer — respected for her clarity of vision and her willingness to speak plainly on the failures of male-led movements to centre Black women’s experiences.
The Politics of Gender and the Power of Space
Throughout her career, Amy Ashwood Garvey demonstrated a consistent and prescient belief: that Black women must be active participants in the liberation struggle, not passive beneficiaries. In London, she founded the Afro-Women’s Centre, a space for African and Caribbean women that provided not only practical support but also something harder to quantify — belonging, dignity, and the ability to organise collectively.
Too often, histories of Black liberation movements are told through male protagonists, while women’s contributions are treated as auxiliary. Ashwood Garvey refused to be auxiliary. She once argued, “I do not think I should be asked to wait until all men are liberated before I can be free.” Her feminism was not a borrowed idea from white European discourse — it was rooted in the experience of colonialism, of double exclusion, and of the need to build institutions that addressed the specific oppressions faced by Black women.
From Empire’s Edge to the Heart of the Struggle
Ashwood Garvey’s return to Jamaica in 1944 coincided with the twilight years of British imperial rule in the Caribbean. It was a period of deep social unrest and burgeoning nationalist sentiment. True to form, she immersed herself in politics, standing as an independent candidate in the 1944 elections — the first held under universal adult suffrage in Jamaica. She did not win, but her candidacy alone was a radical act.
Here, her political work widened to include trade unionism, women’s advocacy, and the promotion of Jamaican culture. She helped organise the first Jamaican National Arts Festival in 1945, a moment that signalled the emergence of cultural nationalism in a colony still governed from afar. Her radio show, The Feminine Point of View, gave a platform to women’s perspectives in an era when the airwaves were dominated by colonial voices.
Manchester 1945 and the Windrush Legacy
Perhaps the most enduring image of Amy Ashwood Garvey is not as a young activist in Jamaica, but as a seasoned political thinker at the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester in 1945. That Congress — attended by W.E.B. Du Bois, Kwame Nkrumah, and Jomo Kenyatta — would go on to influence the liberation movements of Africa and the Caribbean. While many remember the men who would go on to lead nations, it was women like Ashwood Garvey who ensured the ideological scaffolding of Pan-Africanism was grounded in inclusion, equity, and cultural identity.
It is no coincidence that just a few years later, the Windrush Generation would begin to arrive in Britain — the first wave of Caribbean migrants who brought with them not only skills and labour but pride, memory, and cultural inheritance. The groundwork laid by Pan-Africanists like Ashwood Garvey helped shape the self-understanding of this generation. For them, to be Black and British was not a contradiction but a challenge to be met with dignity.
A Legacy Unfinished
Amy Ashwood Garvey died in Kingston, Jamaica, on 3 May 1969. In life, she had crossed oceans and ideologies. She stood at the crossroads of empire and freedom, of patriarchy and resistance. And yet, in the grand narratives of Pan-Africanism and post-colonial nation-building, she is often relegated to a supporting role — a historical injustice she would have railed against.
In many ways, her story is emblematic of the Black Atlantic experience: diasporic, transnational, and defined by an unrelenting pursuit of justice. It is time her name is placed alongside those she influenced and organised with. For it is in her story that we find a blueprint not just for liberation, but for inclusion — a history that reminds us that the fight for racial justice must be broad enough to hold the voices of women, migrants, and those who never stopped believing in freedom.
References
- Rhoda Reddock
Women, Labour and Politics in Trinidad and Tobago: A History. Zed Books, 1994.
— Explores Caribbean women’s political activism, including Amy Ashwood Garvey’s feminist leadership and labour rights work. - Hakim Adi
Pan-Africanism: A History. Bloomsbury, 2018.
— A key work tracing the development of Pan-Africanism, highlighting Amy Ashwood Garvey’s contributions to anti-colonial resistance and diasporic politics. - Ula Yvette Taylor
The Veiled Garvey: The Life and Times of Amy Jacques Garvey. University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
— Provides contrasting insight into the roles of both Amy Ashwood and Amy Jacques in shaping Garveyism and Black women’s leadership. - Marika Sherwood
Pan-African Conferences, 1900–1953: What Did Pan-Africanism Mean?
Journal of Pan African Studies, Vol. 4, No. 10 (2012).
— Highlights the overlooked presence and impact of women, including Amy Ashwood Garvey, in major Pan-African gatherings. - Marika Sherwood
Kwame Nkrumah: The Years Abroad 1935–1947. Freedom Publications, 1996.
— Chronicles the Pan-African network in pre-independence London and Amy Ashwood Garvey’s central role within it. - C.L.R. James
Beyond a Boundary. Stanley Paul, 1963.
— A classic Caribbean text which, while focused on cricket, offers insight into the colonial era and London’s Black radical circles where Garvey moved. - David Olusoga
Black and British: A Forgotten History. Pan Macmillan, 2016.
— Examines the deep history of Black presence in Britain, including the intellectual foundations laid before Windrush by figures such as Amy Ashwood Garvey. - BBC Radio 4 Archive
Great Lives: Amy Ashwood Garvey. BBC Radio 4, Date varies by rebroadcast.
— A panel discussion exploring Garvey’s life and impact, with contributions from historians and cultural commentators. - British Library Archives
West Indian Women’s Centre Records, various dates.
— Contains primary material on Black women’s community organising in London, including Amy Ashwood Garvey’s work. - Marcus Garvey, edited by Amy Jacques Garvey
Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Universal Publishing House, 1923–1925.
— Includes early references to Amy Ashwood Garvey’s work in establishing the UNIA and her role in Garveyism.