.png)
US President Joe Biden on Sunday posthumously pardoned Jamaica’s first National Hero Marcus Mosiah Garvey, the organizer of a mass black rights movement, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, who was convicted on charges largely believed to have been bogus in the United States in the 1920s.
Garvey was convicted of mail fraud and sent to prison. His sentence was commuted by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927 and he was deported to his homeland, Jamaica.
Garvey was credited as a huge influence on Dr Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and other civil rights leaders.
Dr King said of Garvey: “He was the first man, on a mass scale and level” to give millions of Black people “a sense of dignity and destiny.”
Black Congressional leaders, including Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, a daughter of Jamaican immigrants, had pushed for Biden to pardon Garvey.
The asserted that Garvey’s conviction was politically motivated and an effort to silence the increasingly popular leader who spoke of racial pride.
Biden't statement
Marcus Mosiah Garvey (1887-1940) was a renowned civil rights and human rights leader who was convicted of mail fraud in 1923, and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. President Calvin Coolidge commuted his sentence in 1927. Notably, Mr. Garvey created the Black Star Line, the first Black-owned shipping line and method of international travel, and founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which celebrated African history and culture. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described Mr. Garvey as “the first man of color in the history of the United States to lead and develop a mass movement.”
Advocates and lawmakers praise his global advocacy and impact, and highlight the injustice underlying his criminal conviction.
All feeds
