Negro Factories Corporation
Courtesy of Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers
Marcus Garvey incorporated the Negro Factories Corporation (NFC) in Delaware in 1920. One could purchase stock in it and Garvey created it with the goal of employing people of African descent and selling products to black customers. Its food businesses included farms, grocery stores, bakeries, and restaurants. The UNIA sought to control NFC businesses in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, South and Central America, and Africa. The NFC prospectus claimed it had a one million-dollar capitalization when the UNIA incorporated it under Delaware state law. Shares sold for five dollars each. Garvey viewed the NFC as a strategy for the economic development and independence of UNIA members. Garveyites championed black people owning and operating the means of production for the goods it needed particularly controlling its food systems. They viewed NFC businesses as a “race movement and not as a private enterprise.”
