Did you know that even today you can board a cargo ship via Chicago from Lake Michigan and head across the Atlantic Ocean...
http://greencouple.com/2009/02/04/extreme-green-travel-by-cargo-ship/
And in 1964, look who met a Black Star Line ship:
....Some elder Detroit black nationalists recall the visit of a Black Star steamship in August 1964. Malcolm X’s eldest brother, the late Wilfred Little Shabazz, himself a son of Garveyites, told the author of his pride at meeting the ship’s captain and posing for photographs, one of which appeared in Now, a black nationalist magazine published by Detroit attorney Milton Henry.
http://afgen.com/kwame_nkrumah.html