Negro Factories Corporation was one of the business ventures of the

Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) is a black nationalist fraternal organization founded by Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant to the United States, and Amy Ashwood Garvey. The Pan-African ...

recognized by 125 countries worldwide with its own Constitution and flag. The UNIA-ACL is a

black nationalist Black nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that black people are a race, and which seeks to develop and maintain a black racial and national identity. Black nationalist activism revolves aro ...

fraternal organization A fraternity (from Latin ''frater'': "brother"; whence, " brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club or fraternal order traditionally of men associated together for various religious or secular aims. Fraternity i ...

founded in 1919 by

Marcus Garvey Marcus Mosiah Garvey Sr. (17 August 188710 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African ...

, a North American Jamaican-born activist in New York. It eventually had chapters on three continents and in the Caribbean. The Negro Factories Corporation was intended to "build and operate factories in the big industrial centers of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, Central America, the West Indies and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

to manufacture every marketable commodity." It was an effort for economic development within communities of African descent. Businesses included a chain of grocery stores, a restaurant, a steam laundry, a tailor and dressmaking shop, a millinery store and a publishing house. The UNIA had difficulty keeping the businesses going, and by the mid-1920s, many had closed.

References

{{reflist African and Black nationalist organizations African Americans' rights organizations Pan-Africanist organizations