Mason Alexander Hargrave Explained

Mason Alexander Hargrave (March 20, 1923 – December 12, 1988) was an organizer in the African-American community. He spent his later years in Cleveland, Ohio, in a leadership role at the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).^[1] He was involved in promoting use of the red, black, and green Pan-African flag and had it flown over Cleveland City Hall in 1974.^[2] ^[3] He was an acolyte of Marcus Garvey and wrote a letter of "testimony" to U.S. Representative John Conyers in 1987 objecting to mail fraud charges against Garvey.^[4]

He succeeded Vernon Wilson as President-General of the UNIA. Cleo Miller succeeded him as head of the UNIA in 1988. Some of Hargrave's UNIA related papers are part of the Robert A. Hill collection at Duke University.^[5] A book of Marcus Garvey and UNIA papers is dedicated to Hargrave and notes his work preserving documents at the organization.^[6]

Notes and References

Web site: Hargrave, Mason Alexander. n.d. . Encyclopedia of Cleveland History . Case Western Reserve University . April 20, 2021.
Web site: Mason A. Hargrave. Cleveland Public Library Digital Collection. 1984.
Web site: Jet. April 25, 1974. Johnson Publishing Company. Google Books.
Web site: Mail Fraud Charges Against Marcus Garvey: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, First Session ... July 28, 1987. United States Congress House Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice. February 14, 1988. U.S. Government Printing Office. Google Books.
Web site: UNIA Ephemera - Correspondence, UNIA Cleveland, Ohio, Mason Hargrave papers, 1937, 1940-1942, 1965 - Archives & Manuscripts at Duke University Libraries. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Web site: The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Vol. VII: November 1927-August 1940. Robert A.. Hill. Marcus. Garvey. February 14, 1983. University of California Press. Google Books.