While growing up in a working-class family during the height of the Great Depression, Garvin was exposed early on to the realities of both proletariat and racial exploitation.

As a lifelong activist and radical intellectual, Garvin created direct links between Black Power politics, Pan-Africanism, and Third World liberation.

[4] In the face of McCarthyism and rising anti-communist sentiment, Garvin had limited outlets to continue union work or community-based organizing.

While living in Lagos, Garvin experienced disillusionment with the realities of neocolonialism, which left Nigerians impoverished and divided despite their nation's independence from formal colonial rule.

[6] By 1963, Garvin had decided to leave Nigeria, and traveled to Accra, Ghana, which, under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah, had become a hub for black activism and Pan-Africanism.

[7] In 1964, 2 years before the military coup that would overthrow Nkrumah, Garvin received an offer from the Chinese Ambassador to visit the People's Republic of China.

After moving to China, Garvin taught English at the Shanghai Foreign Language Institute (SFLI) and was the first African American to teach at a Chinese college.

[8]: 239  Garvin maintained close ties with the Red Guards and unlike other foreign instructors at SFLI remained in China during the Cultural Revolution.

[8]: 239  After the release of Mao's 1968 statement "In Support of Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression," Garvin was invited back to Shanghai by her old students to give a speech at a rally.

[2] Garvin's experience speaking in front of millions of Chinese who were rallying in support of black power solidified her commitment to Third World solidarity and transnational liberation movements.

[1] Vicki Garvin returned to the United States in 1970, relocating to Newark, New Jersey with her husband Leibel Bergman, whom she had married in China.

In the 1980s, Garvin left Chicago in light of her divorce with Bergman and moved to Jamaica, Queens, New York, where she joined the National Black United Front (NBUF).