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UCLA Advanced GIS Final Project

Spatial Analysis of the Universal Negro Improvement Association

Introduction/History During the 1910-1940s, the United States saw an increase of African Americans. The United Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) founded by Marcus Garvey in 1914 sought to improve the lives of African Americans by providing a social, friendly, humanitarian, charitable, educational, institutional, constructive and expansive society. The UNIA was known as the Garveyism movement. The UNIA first started in Jamaica and then expanded to New York after Garvey relocated in Harlem. New York became the headquarters of the organization and had 17 members. Garvey wanted to unite all African Americans to gather together and improve their living conditions in America. The UNIA dedicated itself to racial uplift and established educational and industrial opportunities, becoming the major political force among blacks in the postwar world (UCLA). Over time, the organization became a target of Bureau of Investigation and they were often investigated by the government. Membership declined when Garvey was incarcerated for federal mail fraud and deported back to Jamaica in 1927. A new UNIA-ACL formed under Fred A. Toote after Garvey was deported. Fred A Toote and Lionel Francis led the American-based Garvey movement and they had a goal to expand headquarters across the nation. In 1935, Marcus Garvey traveled to London and moved his UNIA headquarters to London. The death of Marcus Garvey in 1940 had a huge influence on many supporters of Garvey. UNIA Headquarters were established across the nation such as Cleveland, Ohio, Louisiana, and so forth. Millions of blacks joined the association and several thousands of the members were local residents. By 1920s, UNIA had several divisions in Chicago, most of them

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located on the South Side. Divisions operated in Chicago campaigned for black congressional candidates, NAACP (National Association of the Advancement of Colored People), and operated business enterprises on the South Side. In California and Louisiana combined, about 85 UNIA associations were formed. During this time, the UNIA became the largest mass movement in African American history, establishing 700 branches in thirty eight states just by the early 1920s. However, little is known about the formation of the UNIA branches because documents were destroyed. Many internal problems occurred in UNIA which led to the decline of the organization. In this project, it use advanced GIS methods to help Professor Hills research, a UCLA Professor within African American Studies department to research how the UNIA associations formed in North America. Professor Hill was interested on what factors contributed to having the African Americans to join the UNIA. The project narrowed down to two states: California and Louisiana and focused on comparing the differences on how the factors changed from 1910s-1940s. Furthermore, there were other questions unanswered such as: where were the associations located, what factors could have influenced the formation, what spatial patterns can be seen, where might other associations have formed, and what does a typical county with an association look like. The project aimed to provide visual and statistical factors that would further Professor Hills academic pursuit of knowledge about the UNIA branches. The information about development of the UNIA is not a task to be undertaken lightly, requiring array of factors to identify the exact UNIA locations in California and Louisiana. When analyzing the exact locations of the UNIA locations during the peak period of 1920s, the conditions of the land must be examined. Thus, the main question to be answered is where the exact locations of the UNIA in California and Louisiana were and what factors dictate this ideal location. The factors that we used to find what influenced the formation of the United Negro

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Improvement Association were based on total population, unemployment, illiteracy, cotton, sugar, rural areas. There were many factors to consider finding the exact locations and what influences contributed the formation of the UNIA. Other factors to consider were the geography of the two states, ethnic population in California and Louisiana, and the population of males and females. However, illiteracy was relevant to the study because during the 1920s the UNIA wanted to improve education across the nation. The percentage or illiteracy was about 23% because the population of African Americans was slaves. The project decided to narrow down the illiteracy rate to California and Louisiana. Total population was used to determine the number of men and women in those states living in rural and urban areas. The next factors were unemployment which was relevant at that time because opportunities for African Americans in 1920s were sparse and discriminated against blacks. With the factors and data gathered, we completed the project with a suitability analysis with all the factors combined of California and Louisiana.

Potential Contribution From the onset, we set out with the intentions of creating a final project that not only executed a form of GIS analysis, but also added to the academic pursuit of knowledge. We elected to do this by working with Professor Robert Hill, a history professor here at UCLA and longtime publisher of the Marcus Garvey Papers Project. Professor Hill has long been interested in the formation and possible impacts of the United Negro Improvement Association branches across the country. He has long had information about the UNIA location place names, but little is known beyond this, due to a lack of surviving records surrounding the UNIA. This has left

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Professor Hill with questions surrounding the association locations and the demographic characteristics of the areas in which they were located. Due to the lack of information surrounding UNIA locations Professor Hill was very interested in finding more about the branch locations. The idea of a GIS map that not only displayed the spatial distribution of the UNIA locations, but also included demographic data for the areas where UNIA branches were found, truly excited Professor Hill. Our research question centered on the factors that may have led to association formations, as well as the possible effects on the local area by the presence of a UNIA branch. Due to the historical nature of our project and research direction, our main questions were centered on the census data recorded in 1920 and 1930 as these years encompassed the peak of the UNIA. Our maps aim to answer questions about factors such as race, illiteracy, agricultural production, and gender. These questions include: Where were the Associations located? What factors could of influenced their formation? What spatial/statistical patterns can be seen? Where might other Associations have formed? What does a typical county with an association look like? By creating a profile of what a typical county with a UNIA association may look like, it allowed us to better understand the conditions that enabled their formation. Through the completion of our project, we have enabled Prof. Hill to visualize and share this newly created form of analysis with his colleagues as well as audiences, as he regularly gives lectures both at home and abroad. Through mapping the branch locations and providing census data linked to the county level for those areas a more complete picture may be provided of the communities touched by UNIA branches. Hopefully this newly created tool to be used in his studies will enable him to further his academic pursuits into the subject. The Marcus Garvey

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Papers Project is working to preserve a period of history critical in the advancement of the Civil Rights movement here in America as well as inspiring African Zionism around the world.

Datasets and Analysis Downloading the most appropriate data was important in starting this project properly. Historical data is not sufficiently available or easily downloadable on the internet. It took some time and effort to research various websites to obtain the right data. Fortunately, National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) provides free and aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for the United States between 1790 and 2010. NHGIS data finder allows filtering through geographic levels, years, and topics. Geographic level was set to county and various topics for the year of 1920 were downloaded. Registering for the site was mandatory before downloading. Topics filtered include urban, rural, total population, race, employment status, educational achievement, and agriculture. In addition, the 1920 United States county GIS boundary file was downloaded. Each dataset was in Excel format and came with a code book, which was essential in identifying columns of interest and renaming them to simplify the joining process. Lastly, United States cities dataset was downloaded from UCLA Mapshare. Cities relevant to UNIA formation was provided from professor Hill of the History department. The peak of UNIA formation was in the 1920s, especially in Louisiana. Therefore the state of focus was Louisiana. California was also conducted to further understand the trends relating to the formation of UNIA. Cities of UNIA locations provided by professor Hill was the main focus for this project. All other cities were deleted. Missing cities of UNIA locations from the UCLA Mapshare shapefile was added in a separate Excel file. The minutes, seconds, and degree information was obtained from Google Earth and converted to decimal degrees in Excel.

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The missing city points were added as X and Y data through ArcMap. All the cities including the UCLA Mapshare shapefile cities were selected and exported as one shapefile. The last step for this reference map was to determine how many UNIA points are in each county. This step required a different type of join. Data was joined from another layer based on spatial location. The attributes were summarized as sum. All the cities and the U.S. counties shapefile were joined and created a new shapefile output with the sum of UNIA locations for each county. Finally, California and Louisiana counties were selected from the attribute table and exported to clearly be able to represent both states in the layout. The sum of UNIA locations for each county in California and Louisiana was exported as a report in descending order.

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The factors chosen for analysis were illiterate population 10 years of age and over by race (Negros), total Negro population, unemployed population by unemployment registration for male and female Negros, urban/rural places, and cotton/sugar. All of these factors besides urban/rural and cotton/sugar are based on the number of Negros. Therefore, the percentage of each value has to be calculated to accurately compare to the general population. The values for male and female unemployed Negros were added together. The rest were left alone as is. The values were divided by the total population for each county and multiplied by 100 to get the percentage. The calculations were done in Excel. Then, the Excel sheet was joined to the county layer by matching the column name of counties. The symbology for each factor was changed accordingly based on unique factors. The separate California and Louisiana shapefiles containing the symbology of factors were selected and exported after the joining process. Graphs were also created in Excel to get a general idea of the information regarding values for each county based on with and without UNIA. Up to this point, general analysis was conducted to represent values associated with each county and relate the factors to UNIA locations. Spatial analysis was further needed for this GIS project. It made sense to do a suitability analysis to determine whether the factors put together will generate the best place or most likely county that the UNIA would have formed in the 1920s. Each factor was considered for suitability analysis. Each of the factors were converted into raster format and reclassified with natural breaks and 10 classes. Suitability analysis was calculated with raster calculator by adding all the reclassified outputs. There were a total of 15 counties with the highest suitability. A final suitability map was made to show only the absolute best locations for UNIA formation.

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Results After mapping all the data and conducting spatial analysis, some interesting results were discovered about the UNIA. By analyzing the final maps and graphs we created we were able to see exactly where each UNIA branch was located and determine which factors were important in their formation. Our final results revealed that most of the counties with UNIA share common factors that distinguish them from counties without UNIA. These commonalities thus must be very significant in why UNIA decided to form in these locations and not others. Through the use of our final suitability analysis map, we were able to uncover important information regarding which counties in the rest of the US share these common factors and could be a potential location for UNIA formation to take place. When looking at the distribution of UNIA throughout California and Louisiana there are obvious patterns in the locations of the associations. They are mostly clustered together in certain areas or counties rather than widely dispersed throughout the two states. We found that there were more UNIA located in Louisiana compared to California and that the counties in Louisiana had higher numbers of associations per county. After discovering these patterns we wanted to determine what specific factors of these counties made them suitable for UNIA to form. The first factor we analyzed was the illiteracy percentage of the Negro population of each county and we discovered that the UNIA formed in counties with higher illiteracy rates. The illiteracy average for counties with UNIA was 12.88% while the illiteracy average for counties without UNIA was 7.44%. This is quite a significant difference in how illiterate the Negro populations were in these counties and also tells us a lot about their overall education levels as well. This factor wasnt especially significant in California which had pretty low overall

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illiteracy percentages but in Louisiana this factors influence was very prominent. Almost all of the associations are located in counties with very high illiteracy percentages.

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The next factor we chose to look at was the total Negro population percentages for each county. We expected that the total Negro populations would be much higher in counties with UNIA and our results reflected this. The average Negro population in counties with UNIA was 37.19% while the average for counties without UNIA was only 20.51%. This is a large difference in Negro populations of the counties which would definitely have a huge impact on whether or not UNIA would be likely to form. The counties in Louisiana as a whole had much higher Negro population percentages compared to counties in California which could contribute to why there are more UNIA in Louisiana overall.

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The third factor of the counties we wanted to analyze was unemployment. The counties with UNIA averaged 3.65% unemployment while counties without UNIA averaged 1.60% unemployment. These averages are very close but still reveal that counties with higher unemployment rates were more likely to have UNIA. Unemployment rates were higher in Louisiana than in California and were especially high in Jefferson County where many associations were located.

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The next factors we wanted to compare were urban and rural residence for each county to see which one was more likely to contribute to forming UNIA. Our analysis resulted in finding

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that counties that were higher in both urban and rural residence were ideal for UNIA to exist. Counties with UNIA averaged 85804.2 urban residence and 29908.3 rural residence while counties without UNIA averaged 7803.2 urban residence and 16706.7 rural residence. Both California and Louisiana have large areas of urban and rural residence so these factors were very significant when analyzing the formation of UNIA in both states.

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The distribution of cotton and sugarcane throughout the counties, mainly in Louisiana, was the final factor we wanted to examine that could have influenced the formation of the UNIA. When we mapped the locations of each we discovered that cotton mainly grew in the northern counties of Louisiana and sugarcane was mainly produced in the southern counties. This has very important implications since a majority of the UNIA locations in Louisiana are in the

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southern counties where sugarcane is the main agricultural crop. The type of agriculture being practiced in certain areas could have a strong influence on locations where the UNIA forms.

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The overall results of our factor analysis revealed that a typical county with UNIA has high illiteracy, high total Negro population, high unemployment, and high urban and rural residence. The UNIA is also predominantly located in counties with high sugarcane production when looking at the state of Louisiana. All of these factors were significant in whether a county in California or Louisiana had a UNIA branch or not. We then wanted to extend this analysis to all counties in the US by conducting a suitability analysis with these factors to find all the other counties that fit this profile and thus could have had a UNIA branch.

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The suitability analysis results revealed that there were many other counties all throughout the US that could have been a possible location for the UNIA. The most suitable counties are identified in red while the least suitable counties are identified in green. When looking at California and Louisiana, the suitability analysis agrees with our previous results and the counties with known UNIA branches in these states are identified as the most suitable. The map also revealed many suitable counties all throughout different states and the US as well. There is however a dominant location of very suitable counties in the southern part of the US in states such as Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. There are also large clusters in South Carolina and Georgia that contain very suitable locations. When looking at the map it is apparent that the majority of counties in the northern and western states are very low in suitability compared to those areas in the eastern and southern areas of the country. However, there are still quite a few very suitable counties in these areas that contain the necessary factors to allow for the possible formation of UNIA.

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References "Mapshare: UCLA's Spatial Data Repository." GIS at UCLA: Mapshare DB. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 June 2012. <http://gis.ats.ucla.edu/Mapshare/>. "The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project." The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers Project, UCLA. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 June 2012. <http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/mgpp/>. "The RBG Store | RBGStore.com." The RBG Store | RBGStore.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 June 2012. <http://www.rbgstore.com/>. "Welcome to NHGIS." Welcome to NHGIS. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 June 2012. <https://www.nhgis.org/>.