Civil Rights Leader Marcus Garvey Receives Posthumous Pardon On Joe Biden’s Last Full Day In Office

Civil Rights Leader Marcus Garvey Receives Posthumous Pardon On Joe Biden’s Last Full Day In Office

Marcus Garvey has officially been pardoned by President Joe Biden on his final full day in office (Jan. 19).

The posthumous grant of clemency comes nearly a century after Garvey was convicted of mail fraud in 1923—a charge widely seen as racially motivated and part of a larger effort to silence his Black nationalist movement.

 

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Garvey, who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the Black Star Line, was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, two of which he served before his sentence was commuted by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927.

He was later deported to Jamaica and died in London in 1940.

For years, lawmakers and civil rights leaders, including Garvey’s own family, have pushed for a pardon, arguing that his conviction was rooted in racial prejudice.

Anthony Pierce, a lawyer for the Garvey family, expressed his gratitude to President Biden, stating, “The country has finally done the right thing by Marcus Garvey.”

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