THe Black Star Line Raided by Prohibition Officers
The Black Star Line was Marcus Garvey’s showcase business venture for U.N.I.A., and as such, was harassed routinely by the U.S. government.
"S. S. Yarmouth, re-christened S. S. Frederick Douglass, Merchant Flag Ship of the Black Star Line, purchased for $165,000.00." Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, The New York Public Library.
From Colin Grant’s Negro With a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey, p. 228:
On the afternoon of 3 February, Prohibition officers stormed the Yarmouth [note: the ship had been re-christened the “Frederick Douglass” the previous Fall] after being alerted that some cases of whiskey were being sold on to bootleggers in Brooklyn…. Garvey and a team of Black Star Line officials immediately besieged the offices of the Prohibition Agency.
Grant records that Garvey managed to reclaim the cargo, and also the reports that “gangsters” has been working alongside the Prohibition agents to raid the ship (Grant p. 487 n.29).