Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League

Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, abbreviated as UNIA, in July 1914. Using the motto of "One Aim. One God. One Destiny", it declared its dedication to establishing black brotherhood, promoting a spirit of race pride, reclaiming the fallen, and assisting in the civilization of Africa's backward tribes. It began with simply a few members. Many Jamaicans were outraged by the group's significant usage of the name "Negro," which was frequently used as an insult; Garvey, on the other hand, embraced the phrase in reference to black people of African origin.

Garvey took over as president and traveling commissioner of UNIA, which was initially housed in his hotel room on Orange Street in Kingston. It marketed itself as a humanitarian club, working to aid the destitute, and eventually established a vocational training institution based after Washington's Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Garvey wrote to Washington and received a brief but positive response; Washington died soon afterward. UNIA formally declared its support for the British Empire, King George V, and the British struggle in the ongoing First World War. Brigadier General L. S. Blackden spoke to the meeting in April 1915 on the war effort; Garvey supported Blackden's appeals for more Jamaicans to sign up to fight for the Empire on the Western Front. The group also hosted musical and literary events, as well as an elocution tournament in February 1915, where Garvey won first place.

Garvey received financial support from a number of notable supporters, including the Mayor of Kingston and Jamaica's Governor, William Manning. Garvey had bypassed the brown middle classes, which included mulattos, quadroons, and octoroons, by appealing straight to Jamaica's white elite.