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Creator
Weston, George A. and Maudelle
Call number
Sc MIRS Weston 1982-62
Physical description
3 audio_recordings
Language
English
Preferred Citation
George A. and Maudelle Weston audio collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division, The New York Public Library
Sponsor
An anonymous donor funded preliminary processing for this collection. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supported a research library-wide grant for the digitization, and funded the Schomburg for the description and production of the finding aid as part of The Next Century of Black Studies Project.
Repository
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
Access to materials
Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.

George A. Weston (1885-1973) was a minister of the African Orthodox Evangelical Mission and vice president of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. His wife, Maudelle Bass Weston (1908-1989), was a dancer and model. The collection consists of three audio recordings including Weston recounting the history of Marcus Garvey's movement and his involvement.

Biographical/historical information

Born in 1885 in Green Bay, Antigua, George A. Weston was a minister of the African Orthodox Evangelical Mission and vice president of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), a Black nationalist fraternal organization founded by Marcus Garvey (1887-1940). His wife, known professionally as Maudelle, was a dancer and model. Weston joined the UNIA in 1919 as a member of the Boston Division and by 1924 he was a recognized leader in the movement. He was appointed vice president of the New York City Division of the UNIA, the organization's largest branch, which at its height claimed to have thirty-five thousand members. When Garvey was imprisoned in 1925, the movement began to splinter. In 1926, Weston succeeded Garvey as president-general of the main faction that formed in the New York City Division of the UNIA.

After the decline of the UNIA, Weston was ordained in the African Orthodox Church (AOC) by Archbishops Reginald Barrow and Richard Machanna in Brooklyn. He led missionary work for the AOC in Antigua, after serving in World War II. Weston returned to the US in the early 1970s and was recognized for his involvement in the UNIA. In 1971, he spoke at a seminar on the Garvey Movement and the development of Black consciousness at Stanford University, and a Black Arts Festival at Lafayette College. Weston died in 1973 at the age of eighty-eight. Antiguans gave him a hero's funeral in appreciation for his work in their struggle for independence.

Scope and arrangement

The George A. and Maudelle Weston audio collection consists of three audio recordings, arranged chronologically. Item dates are estimated based on the historical context of the recordings. Since the collection's original formats are audio cassettes, two of the items contain two parts, one for each side of the cassette. Maudelle Weston does not appear in the collection. Two audio recordings include Weston speaking, and one recording is of a communication workshop led by journalist Thomas A. Johnson, discussing the depiction of Black people in mass media.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Gift of Maudelle Weston, 1978; and Dr. Faulkner Watts, 1979.

Processing information

Collection inventoried by Stacey Doyle Ference. Collection processed and described by Ornella U. Baganizi, archivist; and Shola Lynch, curator. Finding aid published in 2023.

Separated material

See the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division for the George A. and Maudelle Weston papers, Sc MG 188.

See the Photographs and Prints Division for the George A. and Maudelle Weston photograph collection, Sc Photo George A. and Maudelle Weston Collection.

Using the collection

Location

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Third Floor

Access to materials

Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.