Garvey was a Roman Catholic. In 1919, he married Amy Ashwood in a Roman Catholic ceremony, although they separated after three months. The New York court would not grant Garvey a divorce, but he later obtained one in Jackson County, Missouri. Ashwood contested the legitimacy of this divorce and for the rest of her life maintained that she was Garvey's legitimate spouse. His first son, Marcus Garvey III (1930 – 8 December 2020), became an electrical engineer and served as the seventh president-general of the UNIA-ACL. His second son, Julius Garvey, (born 1933) became a vascular surgeon based in Flushing, New York.