“After we got the people ready, and we had 33,000 families ready to start, the thing was blocked. At that time we had experts sent down to *Liberia to do certain work to prepare for the people… after all that was done *Firestone discovered that rubber could be grown in Liberia and on the lands which we had got a concession. President King was immediately influenced by the United States government and with the propaganda of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois that I was going down to Liberia to start a war against the white man. They fixed it so that King was forced to recall the concessions he had granted to me and to the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Liberia. The result was that when the people arrived there they were seized and the materials which had gone on before had to be left in Liberia. They had therefore to keep me in prison until King was returned as president of Liberia, because if they had turned me out King would not have been re-elected. It is interesting t know that Firestone is a close friend of President Coolidge”- Marcus Mosiah Garvey
(see page 246, “The Pan-African Connection, From Slavery to Garvey and Beyond” by Tony Martin)