Caribbean-American Democratic Congresswoman, Yvette Clarke, has welcomed the posthumous pardon of Jamaica’s first national hero, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, by former US President Joe Biden.
“I’m extraordinarily grateful for President Biden’s action to posthumously grant clemency to a true national hero of Jamaica, the Most Hon Marcus Garvey,” Clarke, who was recently elected chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
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Biden said he was exercising his clemency power by pardoning five individuals, including Garvey, and commuting the sentences of two individuals “who have demonstrated remorse, rehabilitation, and redemption”.
“These clemency recipients have each made significant contributions to improving their communities,” Biden said.
Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who, over the years, has been in the vanguard in seeking Garvey’s exoneration for a 1923 conviction for mail fraud, expressed delight and gratitude with Biden’s pardon.
Just last month, the representative of the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York along with several of her congressional colleagues wrote a letter to Biden urging Garvey’s exoneration.
She noted that Garvey was a Jamaican-born, Pan-Africanist leader, who led one of the earliest Black Civil Rights movements in the Americas and founded one of America’s first Black-owned shipping companies in the Black Star Line.
The congresswoman said Garvey had “established a legacy that has persisted to this day”.
“His advocacy for civil rights and the economic advancement of the Black community built the foundation of our modern civil rights movement and influenced many of our civil rights leaders, including Dr. King, who described Garvey as ‘the first on a mass scale and level to…make the negro feel he was somebody…the first man of color in the history of the United States to lead and develop a mass movement,’” Clarke said.
She noted that in 1923, US President Calvin Coolidge had commuted Garvey’s sentence for mail fraud.
“However, it is no secret that Black people in America have always been subjected to a different standard of justice,” Clarke said. “Although granting Mr. Garvey’s clemency will help remove the shadow of an unjust conviction and further the Biden administration’s promise to advance racial justice, Mr. Garvey’s family, myself, and countless others across our nation and around the world will continue to push towards his full and unambiguous exoneration.”
“We know that Mr. Garvey was falsely convicted of a crime he did not commit. We know the path forward must include congressional action to completely exonerate the Hon Marcus Garvey,” she added.
“And so, I will continue to take all necessary action to clear his name, and to deliver the justice and closure his descendants rightfully deserve,” Clarke said, adding that the pardon is “a very significant step towards victory, but the fight for equity and justice goes on”.
Nzinga Garvey also told CMC “In the words of my grandfather, Marcus Garvey, ‘the ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself, but the ends you serve for all, in common, will take you to eternity”.
“These words are more than a call to action; they are a moral compass, pointing us toward the kind of justice that dignifies not just the individual, but a people, a nation, and humanity itself.
“My grandfather’s conviction was not only a miscarriage of justice but a reminder of how the overreach of power can be weaponized to silence the voices that seek fairness, equity, and accountability,” said Nzinga Garvey, adding that her grandfather’s life was dedicated to “uplifting humanity, urging us all to embrace a vision of justice that is larger than any single race or nation”.
“His wrongful conviction is not just a story of the past, it is a reflection of the work that remains before us. It underscores the deep need for a justice system that protects, not prosecutes, those who dare to inspire and empower.
“This posthumous pardon of Marcus Garvey is about more than his name; it is about reclaiming the soul of a nation that believes in fairness over fear, in dignity over division, in righting the wrongs of history so we can face the future with integrity.
“Let us prove that we are a nation not afraid to confront our past because we believe so deeply in building a better future for every one of us,” she added. (CMC)
