Hostile historians reduced the UNIA’s critique to Garvey’s personality flaws

Evidence

Since most histories of the organization were written by its critics, distortions of the UNIA abound in the literature. They are especially marked with regard to its founder and principal organizer, Marcus Garvey. Even Du Bois, while participating in the opposition to the UNIA, had contributed exposes of its financial practices and bitter characterizations of Garvey. But the one predominant tactic of the UNIA’S critics was to identify the organization with Garvey, thus tending to reduce their criticisms to studies of aberrant personality or political opportunism. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1006

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A recurring pattern in historiography: radical movements get delegitimized by psychological reduction of their leaders. Robinson’s own method of rescuing the organizational tradition stands against it.