Taylor A. Coleman

This dissertation examines the influence of Garveyism among Afro-Latin Americans in the Hispanic Caribbean (most notably Cuba and Puerto Rico), and among Afro-Latinxs in NYC in the early twentieth century. It argues that the early presence of Garveyism created a unique space for transdiasporic discourses of blackness in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, and was foundational to the development of local Pan-Africanist organizations in the region decades after the formal collapse of Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Based in archival research and interpretive methodologies such as critical discourse and historical analysis, this study interrogates the interactive “meaning-making” practices of diaspora that have historically shaped black sociopolitical mobilization in the twentieth century and forged critical linkages through transnational engagement. Moreover, this dissertation creates space for (re)imagining and (re)framing the multiplicities within black global histories that continue to shape contemporary visions of Black liberation.