Marcus M. Garvey Jr founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which 'aimed to achieve Black nationalism through the celebration of African history and culture,' according to the National Archives. Photo: RollingStone

U.S. President Joe R. Biden Jr pardoned five people on Sunday, January 19, 2025, including the late civil rights leader Marcus Garvey, and commuted the sentences of two, the White House said in a statement. Photo: Reuters

Congressional leaders had pushed for Biden to pardon Garvey, with supporters arguing that Garvey’s conviction was politically motivated and an effort to silence the increasingly popular leader who spoke of racial pride. After Garvey was convicted, he was deported to Jamaica, where he was born. He died in 1940.

Garvey’s descendants had been asking authorities to grant him a pardon for nearly two decades, including a request to Biden shortly after he won the White House.

Biden was elected just months after the killing of George P. Floyd Jr sparked a nationwide reckoning about historic inequities, and many activists said that reckoning should include righting historic wrongs such as Garvey’s conviction.

“America is a country built on the promise of second chances,” Biden said in a statement announcing the clemency actions. “As President, I have used my clemency power to make that promise a reality by issuing more individual pardons and commutations than any other President in U.S. history.”

Push for Reparations

The pardon of Garvey comes as there has been a push for justice and reparations for slavery in the region.

The United Kingdom (UK) has; however, refused to apologise and even consider reparations for descendants of slaves.

It is estimated that between 25 and 30 million people were violently uprooted from Africa for enslavement. The Trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans caused the largest and most concentrated deportation of human beings involving several regions of the world during more than four centuries.