Garveyism is an aspect of black nationalism that refers to the economic, racial and political policies of UNIA-ACL founder Marcus Garvey.

Ethiopia, thou land of our fathers,
Thou land where the gods loved to be,
As storm cloud at night suddenly gathers
Our armies come rushing to thee.
We must in the fight be victorious
When swords are thrust outward to gleam;
For us will the vict'ry be glorious
When led by the red, black, and green.

Ideologically, Garvey was a black nationalist and racial separatist. Generally referring to dark-skinned peoples of African descent as "Negroes", he and the UNIA insisted that that term should be capitalized, thus affording dignity and respect to those whom it described. His ideas were influenced by a range of sources. According to biographer Colin Grant, while he was living in London, Garvey displayed "an amazing capacity to absorb political tracts, theories of social engineering, African history and the Western Enlightenment." Garvey was exposed to the ideas about race that were prevalent at the time; his ideas on race were also heavily informed by the writings of Edward Wilmot Blyden and by his work in London with Dusé Mohamed Ali.

During the late 1910s and 1920s, Garvey was also influenced by the ideas of the Irish independence movement, to which he was sympathetic. He saw strong parallels between the subjugation of Ireland and the global subjugation of black people, and identified strongly with the Irish independence leader Éamon de Valera. In 1922, he sent a message to Valera stating that "We believe Ireland should be free even as Africa shall be free for the Negroes of the world. Keep up the fight for a free Ireland."

For Garvey, Ireland's Sinn Féin and the Irish independence movement served as blueprints for his own black nationalist cause. In July 1919 he stated that "the time has come for the Negro race to offer up its martyrs upon the altar of liberty even as the Irish [had] given a long list from Robert Emmet to Roger Casement." He also expressed admiration for the Indian independence movement, which was seeking independence from British rule in India, describing Mahatma Gandhi as "one of the noblest characters of the day".

"Race first" was the adage which was widely used in Garveyism. In Garvey's view, "no race in the world is so just as to give others, for the asking, a square deal in things economic, political and social", but rather each racial group will favor its own interests. Rejecting the "melting pot" notion of much 20th century American nationalism, he thought that European Americans would never willingly grant equality to African Americans, and thus it was inefficient for the latter to ask for it. He was hostile to the efforts of the progressive movement to agitate for social and political rights for African Americans, arguing that this was ineffective and that law would never change the underlying racial prejudice of European Americans.

He argued that the European-American population of the U.S. would never tolerate the social integration which was being advocated by activists like W. E. B. Du Bois because he believed that campaigns for such integration would lead to anti-black riots and lynchings. He openly conceded that the U.S. was a white man's country and thus, he did not think that African Americans should expect equal treatment within it. Thus, he opposed attempts to socially and economically integrate the different races which lived within the country. Garveyism promoted the view that whites had no duty to help blacks achieve racial equality, maintaining the view that the latter needed to advance themselves on their initiative. He advocated racial separatism, but he did not believe in black supremacy. He also rallied against Eurocentric beauty standards among blacks, seeing them as impediments to black self-respect.

[African Americans should] stop making[...] noise about social equality, giving the White people the idea that we are hankering after their company, and get down to business and build up a strong race, industrially, commercially, educationally and politically, everything social will come afterwards.