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 organization enjoyed its greatest strength in the
1920s, and was influential prior to Garvey's deportation to Jamaica in 1927.
After that its prestige and influence declined, but it had a strong influence
on African-American history and development. The UNIA was said to be
"unquestionably, the most influential anticolonial organization in Jamaica
prior to 1938," according to Honor Ford-Smith.
The organization was founded to work for the advancement of people of African
ancestry around the world.