The Prime Minister of St. Vincent, Ralph Gonsalves, has appealed to the Biden administration to grant a pardon in order to exonerate Marcus Garvey, a request that was initially made by CARICOM in January 2023.
In January, a Miami-based organization leading an effort to get the exoneration of Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey extended the reach of its online petition to include the United States House of Representatives.
During his address to the Organization of American States (OAS) on Friday, August 25, the Prime Minister of the Caribbean island referred to the charges against Garvey as being unjustly fabricated.
“In this regard, I echo the call made by CARICOM for His Excellency Joseph Biden, president of the United States of America, our friend, to issue a pardon to exonerate Garvey for the unjust conviction of him on trumped-up charges in the federal courts in the USA in the 1920s”.
“This is a symbolic matter of great importance to the Caribbean, Africa, and the African diaspora. Such an exoneration would be just. It would represent the healing of a painful wound”, the Prime Minister said.
According to Gonsalves , Marcus Mosiah Garvey, a prominent figure in Jamaican history and recognized as a national hero, had a significant role in the early 20th century by mobilizing a substantial movement of black individuals across the Caribbean, Canada, Latin America, and other regions. This movement, which aimed to enhance the humanization of black people, stands as the largest diaspora movement ever recorded.
In February 2023, a legislative proposal was introduced in the United States House of Representatives by Caribbean American Democratic Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke and Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson. The legislation seeks to advocate for the exoneration of Marcus Garvey, who is widely recognized as Jamaica’s first national hero. Additionally, the proposal aims to acknowledge Garvey’s significant role as a champion for the emancipation and empowerment of individuals of African descent.
“The world deserves to know the truth about Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the truth about black history,” said Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York.
“It’s time to reclaim Garvey’s legacy and accomplishments as a human rights activist before Congress, America, and the world,” Clarke continued.
She said the resolution “exonerates Garvey of his unfounded charges and calls on President Biden to recognize and denounce the racist smears against him and his legacy, as the Caribbean island Prime Minister echoed on Friday, August 25.
Garvey was a Jamaica-born black nationalist and leader of the Pan-Africanism movement, which sought to unify and connect people of African descent worldwide.
In the United States, he was a noted civil rights activist who founded the Negro World newspaper, a shipping company called Black Star Line, and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).
Garvey, who was born on August 17, 1887, in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, advanced a Pan-African philosophy, “which inspired a global mass movement known as ‘Garveyism.’
In 1922, Garvey and three other UNIA officials were charged with mail fraud involving the Black Star Line.
On June 23, 1923, he was convicted and sentenced to prison for five years.
He appealed his conviction, claiming to be a victim of a politically motivated miscarriage of justice, but it was denied.
In 1927, Garvey was released from prison and deported to Jamaica, where he continued his political activism.
Eight years later, he moved to London, where he died in 1940 after suffering several strokes.
