Marcus Garvey posthumously pardoned by Joe Biden

As one of his final acts in office, Joe Biden issued a flurry of presidential pardons to convicted felons, including a posthumous rehabilitation of the Jamaican-born Black nationalist activist Marcus Garvey, who was convicted of mail fraud and deported in the 1920s.

Biden announced the pardons on Jan. 19, less than 24 hours before the inauguration of his successor, President Donald Trump.

“America is a country built on the promise of second chances. 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,” Biden wrote in a statement, noting that Garvey’s case in particular involved a miscarriage of justice.

“Advocates and lawmakers praise his global advocacy and impact, and highlight the injustice underlying his criminal conviction.”

Born in 1887 in Jamaica, Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914, following years working odd jobs in Central and South America, as well as London. The organization was originally based in the Caribbean, but moved with him to the United States in 1916, when he settled in Harlem.

From New York, Garvey popularized his brand of pan-Africanism, later known as Garveyism, which drew from various strains of Black history and sought to promote diasporic pride, achievement, cooperation, and religion. A Catholic himself, Garvey linked his movement to the idea of an African-centered Christianity.

A noted opponent of integration, Garvey advocated for a separatism that would foster Black ingenuity and self-sufficiency. He also came to support the “Back to Africa” movement, which culminated in various attempts by African Americans to migrate to the motherland in search of land and opportunity. Controversially, Garvey allied with White Supremacists in this goal, including the Ku Klux Klan, who he regarded as espousing openly what all White Americans believed.

An internationally known figure by the 1920s, Garvey founded the Black Star Line—the first Black-owned shipping or travel line in North America—as a vehicle for his international aspirations, promising investors a chance to tap into international pan-African trade. He also started a printing house, a banking outfit, and the “Negro World” newspaper.

J. Edgar Hoover and the Bureau of Investigation, the predecessor of the FBI, targeted Garvey as a subversive threat to national interests, with Hoover pegging him as a “prominent negro agitator” linked to communism.

Garvey was charged in 1922 for mail fraud related to Black Star Line stock sales. By 1923, he had resigned from UNIA leadership under duress and lost the support of many African Americans. He was convicted in federal court in 1923 and sentenced to five years in prison.

Though the UNIA continued its work sans Garvey, his other business interests soon failed, including the Black Star Line and its successor, the Black Cross Navigation and Trading Company. Garvey’s sentence was upheld on appeal but later commuted by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927, on the condition that he be deported to Jamaica.

Regarded as a pariah by governments throughout the diaspora, Garvey remained in Jamaica until 1935, when he settled in Britain. He continued to enjoy popular support from UNIA devotees worldwide until his death at age 52 in 1940. He received a Catholic funeral and was first entombed at St. Mary’s Cemetery in London, later being reinterred at King George VI Memorial Park in Kingston.

In his afterlife, Garvey has remained a popular symbol of Black liberation in the English-speaking New World—including the African-American community. He has been cited as an inspiration for various Black social movements stateside and is the namesake of various U.S. schools, streets, public spaces, and a hall at the Organization of American States headquarters in Washington.

Garvey’s children previously sought a pardon for him in the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan, with the support of the UNIA and Jamaican prime minister Edward Seaga. Their efforts were unsuccessful, as were attempts during the presidency of Barack Obama, whose administration said “the time of the officials involved in the clemency process is better spent on pardon and commutation requests of living persons.”

The Biden administration faced a renewed push from Garvey advocates following the second election of Donald Trump, including a December letter from the Congressional Black Caucus in partnership with Garvey’s 91-year-old son, Dr. Julius Garvey.

The retired surgeon also worked on the cause with Howard University professors and students, including law professor Justin Hansford, an expert in the history of Garvey’s unjust conviction.

Biden’s decision this year was part of his record number of presidential commutations and pardons, including for members of his own family. He issued more than 8,000 in total before leaving office, mostly for nonviolent federal offenses.

Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.

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