Chaplain General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association

Father McGuire left his Boston pulpit in 1920 to become Chaplain General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, founded by Garvey. McGuire served many years with UNIA, which was based in New York. Garvey argued that “God was made in our image—black.” When the Fourth International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World met in 1924, Bishop McGuire urged Negroes to name a day when they would tear down and burn pictures of a white Madonna and white Christ in our homes. “Then let us start our Negro painters getting busy,” Bishop McGuire said. “And supply a black Madonna and a black Christ for the training of our children.” At the time of his death on November 10, 1934, the African Orthodox Church had 30,000 members and about 50 clergies in 30 parishes in the United States, Africa, Cuba, Antigua, and Venezuela. He was canonized by the African Orthodox Church on July 31, 1983. He is a saint of the church.