Weston, George A. and Maudelle

Reverend George A. Weston was born in Green Bay, Antigua in 1885. After dropping out of school at an early age, he worked as a carpenter for a few years. He travelled to Dominica and attempted to stow away on a boat bound for the United States before gaining employment as a sailor. Working on a trading ship allowed Weston to travel throughout the West Indies, to Europe, Canada, and the United States. From 1910 until 1919, he held various jobs at sea and on land in Canada and the United States. In Boston, Massachusetts he enrolled in night classes in order to receive his high school degree. It was in these classes that he learned about Marcus Garvey's movement, the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).

In 1919 Weston became a member of the Boston chapter of the UNIA. He continued to work as a seaman and travelled to St. Thomas where he spread Garvey's philosophies and helped people there to organize a UNIA branch. In the same year, Weston was declared a Local Preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston, and was elected First Chaplain of Boston's UNIA. In the early 1920s he established the Trinity Mission as a branch of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and became increasingly involved with the UNIA. By 1924 Weston was a recognized leader in Garvey's 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. He travelled to cities such as Cleveland and Pittsburgh on assignments to reestablish order among UNIA factions that developed in these cities.

When Garvey was imprisoned in 1925, the movement began to splinter. Weston was the leader of the main faction that formed in the New York City Branch of the UNIA. According to Weston, Garvey's second wife, Mrs. Amy Jacques Garvey, attempted to gain power in the movement. When he refused to accept her authority she made false accusations against him. Weston claims that Amy Jacques Garvey told her husband and the general public that he stole money from the movement and was planning to sell UNIA property to white people. Though some members remained loyal to Weston, Garvey believed his wife's accusations and fired Weston. The factions came to violence, but eventually the movement declined without Garvey's charisma to hold people together. Weston worked with a faction called Pioneer Negroes of the World until it collapsed due to the Depression.

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 returned to Antigua after serving in World War II, and led missionary work for the AOC. He ran the African Orthodox Evangelical Mission and founded that organization's Workshop and Cultural Center in 1951. Weston worked hard to encourage Garvey's philosophies of race pride and economic independence in Antigua. He started a Negro History week, and made efforts to establish local industries. In the 1960s he ran the Pro-Lad Paint Company which produced a paint made specially for the tropical climate. During these years, he and his second wife, Maudelle, started a nursery school in Antigua. The school taught the children African and African Caribbean history and dance in an attempt to instill in people, during their formative years, a sense of race pride and awareness.

Weston returned to the U.S. in the early 1970s. Renewed interest in Garvey and the UNIA created a demand for the recollections and reminiscences of someone who had been directly involved in the movement. In 1971 he spoke at a Stanford University seminar on the Garvey Movement and the development of Black Consciousness. That year he also spoke at Lafayette College at a six day Black Arts Festival. 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.

Weston married Francis Rosina Amos in 1917. She died in approximately 1948 after a long illness. In 1960 Weston was remarried to Maudelle Bass, a well known dancer and model.

* Much of the information found in this biographical note was drawn from Lionel M. Yard's article, “George Weston: Organizer of UNIA Branches, Oral Historian of the Garvey Movement, Black Nationalist” (1975).

Maudelle Bass Weston, known professionally as Maudelle, began her formal dance education at Gray Conservatory of Music and Art in Los Angeles. She later studied at the Lester Horton School of Dance and the Fowler School of African Culture, both in New York City. She studied Nigerian dance with Asadata Dafora and Modupe Paris, and Liberian song and dance with Tony Massaqua.

Maudelle travelled throughout South American and the Caribbean, learning and teaching African influenced dance and song. She established a dance academy in 1948 in Los Angeles, and later lectured on the history of dance at the University of California in Los Angeles. Maudelle was among the first African American women to dance on Broadway in Agnes DeMille Company's “Black Ritual” (1940). She also spent three years travelling in Latin America with a company called Arte Folklorico de Mexico.

Maudelle performed on stage, television, and in films. She also gave performance lectures featuring several African and African influenced dances and songs. These performances were held in churches and museums all over the country. Her goal was to expose people to African and African American cultures.

Maudelle was also known for her modelling. While in Mexico she modelled for artist Diego Rivera; she also modelled for photographer Edward Weston.

From the guide to the George A. and Maudelle Weston papers, 1919-1979, (The New York Public Library. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division.)