Ep. 125 — Two Amys, One Movement

Think you know the Garvey story? Meet the two Amys who built its backbone. We dive into the lives of Amy Ashwood Garvey and Amy Jacques Garvey, Jamaican visionaries whose organizing, editing, and leadership turned a charismatic vision into a global movement. Their names appear in the margins of many textbooks, but their fingerprints are on every chapter of Garveyism’s rise, reach, and survival.

We trace Amy Ashwood’s role as a UNIA co-founder, strategist, and early architect who helped design the organization’s infrastructure in Jamaica and nurtured its international ambitions. Her work exemplifies a transatlantic Caribbean feminism rooted in institution-building and political education, long before the term became common. We then spotlight Amy Jacques, a journalist and editor whose stewardship during Garvey’s imprisonment kept the movement alive. She edited The Negro World, wrote speeches, managed correspondence, and articulated a bold vision for women’s leadership in Black liberation. By editing and publishing The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, she preserved a scattered archive and ensured that future generations could study, adapt, and debate Garveyism. 

Along the way, we acknowledge the human complexity—yes, Marcus married two Amys—and use that irony to open the door to deeper truths: movements are made by people with egos, contradictions, humor, and heart. Re-centering these women shifts how we measure impact, highlighting the editors, organizers, archivists, and educators who keep ideas moving across borders and time. If you’ve only heard the headline, this conversation invites you into the story behind it. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can discover the women who built Garveyism. What other hidden architects of history should we feature next?

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