Curtis Ward | Finally, a presidential pardon for Garvey

Joe Biden, on his final day as president of United States, issued a long sought-after pardon for Jamaica’s first national hero, Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Acclaimed in civil rights history and literature as the first leader to organise black populations globally on a mass scale, Garvey was seen as a threat to white supremacy.

Overwhelming evidence showed Garvey’s prosecution and conviction was a gross miscarriage of justice. Biden notedly referenced the injustice of Garvey’s conviction in his declaration. The late Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, as have many black leaders in the African diaspora, spoke eloquently of Garvey’s leadership and his impact on the upliftment and awakening of black consciousness and pride. Malcolm X attended Garvey’s meetings in Chicago with his father, a Garveyite, and was influenced by him.

As we celebrate the outcome of this sustained collective advocacy over several years, we credit those whose resilience in this advocacy spans decades. There was renewed hope that America’s first black president, Barack Obama, would have been the one to pardon Garvey. Those hopes were heightened by Obama’s visit to Jamaica but remained unfulfilled.

The struggle for Garvey’s pardon and exoneration, to which I can personally attest, having been a part of this process for decades, began in earnest in the late 1970s under the leadership of the late Ambassador Alfred Rattray while serving as Jamaica’s ambassador to Washington. In a related activity, Ambassador Rattray, encouraged and supported by Prime Minister Michael Manley and then Foreign Minister P. J. Patterson, worked to enshrine Garvey as a hemispheric hero with a bronze bust in the Hall of Heroes of the Organization of American States (OAS). It was a battle to overcome the systemic racial bias, and the resistance mounted in the OAS was opposed to the placement of a bronze bust of Garvey in this hallowed space reserved for honouring only white heroes with white alabaster busts, not black bronze. No other non-white hero of the Americas has been so honoured. Recognising Garvey as a regional hero was an important step in achieving his exoneration.

Also, the embassy hosted a book launch for the most detailed and comprehensive research collection and collation of copies of thousands of documents, by Dr Robert Hill, T he Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Volumes I-X, published by the University of California Press. Hill’s volumes chronicled the documents, correspondence, and plot to indict Garvey, led by then assistant prosecutor J. Edgar Hoover to frame and unjustly prosecute Garvey – an invaluable source of detailed evidentiary support for Garvey’s pardon.

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Ambassador Rattray also urged members of Congress to support a pardon and exoneration for Garvey. Representative John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee, held hearings in 1987, and Representative Charles Rangel introduced a resolution in 2001 calling for Garvey’s exoneration, and again called on the Congress, in 2004, to do so. Representative Yvette Clarke now leads this effort in the Congress. A daughter of Jamaican immigrants, she now chairs the Congressional Black Caucus (62 members). In December 2024, she sent a letter, co-signed by 22 of her congressional colleagues to President Biden, entreating him to exonerate Marcus Garvey.

I commend Dr Julius Garvey for his leadership and unwavering commitment to erasing this injustice. He is supported by Marcus Garvey’s granddaughter, Nzinga Garvey, and several members of Jamaican diaspora leadership and organisations, and others, who have played important roles at some point in this arduous process. These include: the Jamaica Progressive League; members of the NAJASO, founded by Ambassador Rattray in 1977 as a Jamaican patriotic organisation; the Caribbean-American Political Committee and its immediate past president, Dr Goulda Downer; Garvey’s the UNIA, Howard University Law School professor Justin Hansford, head of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center; long-time diaspora leaders such as Irwine Clare, and Jamaican philanthropist George Willie, who hired noted civil rights lawyer and Harvard professor, the late Charles Ogletree, to prepare and file a pardon petition with President Barack Obama. Successive Jamaican governments, as well as other CARICOM governments, have engaged in diplomatic efforts.

Having served as president for four years, as vice president to Obama for eight years, and decades in the Senate, Biden would have been familiar with efforts to exonerate and pardon Garvey. Given the increased pressure on him in the waning days of his administration, Biden granted Garvey’s pardon on the day before Martin Luther King Jr’s Day. Biden acknowledged Garvey’s nexus to the civil rights movement and his efforts to uplift the dignity of black people in America and around the world, and, most importantly, Biden cited the injustice meted out to Garvey.

In the days before the pardon, Dr Julius Garvey and I anxiously exchanged messages looking for a clue on what Biden might do. We hoped Biden would act. The evidence of Garvey’s innocence was compelling. There was never a good reason to deny this pardon.

A pardon for Marcus Garvey, though cause for celebration and gratitude, is not the end of advocacy for total exoneration. As P.J. Patterson said in his response to the pardon: “Our ultimate goal must remain the posthumous exoneration for Marcus Garvey.”

Jamaicans everywhere, including Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition Mark Golding, lauded Biden’s action to pardon Jamaica’s national hero.

We know that exoneration is a more difficult process. Only the court has the prerogative to exonerate. The case against Garvey must be reopened judicially. There will be possible legal issues of standing to bring suit, statute of limitations, and other legal as well as political obstacles. The Justice Department must lead this process. Biden’s pardon will help us make the case for exoneration. The struggle continues.

Curtis Ward is former ambassador of Jamaica to the United Nations, with special responsibility for security council affairs. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com