Marcus Mosiah Garvey Trial: 1923

Prosecution witnesses, all ex-Garveyites, testified to the defendants' wide variety of haphazard financial practices. Defense witnesses were bent on proving the value of the movement. "The Black Star Line was a loss in money but it was a gain in soul," one declared. The key prosecution witness, Benny Dancy, said he had bought 53 shares of Black Star stock, but the only evidence of mail fraud he could produce was an empty envelope from the line; he could not remember what came in the envelope.

Legal experts noted that Dancy had not been named in the indictments of the defendants as one of the persons they intended to defraud. No evidence showed when Dancy bought the stock. He did not testify that he actually received the envelope, but only that he recognized it. The envelope was offered in evidence with no other supportive testimony.

Garvey's cross-examination of some witnesses showed that the prosecution had rigged their testimony. One, who testified to working for Black Star as a mail clerk and delivering mail to the College Station post office in 1919, admitted he had not worked for the line then and didn't know where the post office was. Indeed, he conceded that the prosecutor had schooled him on dates and a postal inspector had told him the name of the post office.

Garvey was found guilty. Garcia, Thompson, and Tobias were found not guilty, on the jury's conclusion that they had merely complied with instructions from the head man. Sentenced to five years' imprisonment and a $1,000 fine, Garvey appealed. While the execution of his sentence was stayed, he organized a new shipping line.

His appeal rejected by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Garvey was immediately imprisoned in Atlanta, Georgia. President Calvin Coolidge rejected his petition for a pardon, but later, after two years and nine months, commuted his sentence to time served. Garvey then worked unsuccessfully to revive the UNIA until his death in London in 1940.