The following is an excerpt from the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Papers Volume 2 pages 245 & 246. It presents a speech given by James Wormley Jones. Jones addressed his audience on his having the appearance of a “white” man. He denied being who he appears to be to calm the audience. As the alleged first African-American FBI agent and infiltrator of the UNIA. The words of this man require in depth analysis to reveal those who may deem it necessary to follow in his footsteps today. The speech was given on March 7 1920. It was published in the Negro World Newspaper on March 13, 1920.
EX-CAPTAIN JONES, U.S.A., SPEAKS
The next speaker introduced as Mr. Jones, an ex-captain of the U.s. Army and a member of the Newport News division of the U.N.I.A. Mr. Jones who is very light-complexioned, was mistaken by the audience for a white man, and he took opportunity therefore at the beginning of his speech to allay the anxious fears and suspicions of the audience by revealing the fact that he was a Negro, by virtue of the saying that “one drop of Negro blood made a man a Negro.” “I have no more privileges,” he said, “than the blackest man in the eyes of the white man. He considers me a Negro just as any Negro. What we have got to learn is to get rid of all this distinction that we have among our own people, because the greatest enemy to the Negro race is the Negro himself[.] (Cheers.) The greatest thing we have got to eliminate is this class distinction among our race. We are a Negro race, and the sooner we get out of our hearts and minds that the class distinction that we are light people or dark people the sooner will we get along.” Continuing, he said that behind the Black Star Line and the Negro Factories Corporation there was a gigantic movement, and he described Mr. Garvey as the Moses of the race. The hardest job, he said, Mr. Garvey had before him was to get the masses of colored people together; when that was done wonders could be accomplished. What was Japan but a little insignificant race before she whipped Russia. Nobody knew of her. Germany was a nation of just a few people compared with the Allies whom she fought, and yet she almost whipped them. If the Japanese could do what they did to the Russians, and if the Germans could do what they did, what could four hundred millions of Negroes do, Mr. Jones asked[,] if they became a united race? We have got to learn, he said, that no race of people in the world ever accomplished anything without fighting for it. So if we expect to do anything we have got to shed some blood. (Cheers.) Everybody got something out of the war but the Negro, and if the Negro does not get his now he will never get it as long as he is on this earth. Now is the time for the Negro to get his “while the getting was good.”
THE GREAT CONVENTION AND MONEY
In urging allegiance to the U.N.I.[A.] and its allied movements, Mr. Jones said: If you are going to be a member be a member, don’t be an outsider and a knocker. Come in and join the crowd. It takes money to get things. You can sit up and talk about the great convention and about getting back to Africa, but you cannot have those things without money; you cannot build buildings and start factories and steamship lines on talk; you have got to have money. And another thing we have got to do is to trust our fellow men. We go out and dump our money into some white corporation and we do not ask who is at the head of it and we don’t care; but as soon as we are asked to put money into anything where a colored man is concerned, we hesitate.” In conclusion he made a strong appeal for support of the movements.
The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Volume II page
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