On his last day, President Joe Biden posthumously pardoned Marcus Mosiah Garvey, a polarizing Black nationalist figure who, since his death, had been subjected to both widespread admiration and loathing.
In 1923, a jury convicted Garvey for mail fraud, under what even the Biden administration acknowledged as politically motivated circumstances. After four years, President Calvin Coolidge commuted Garvey’s sentence and Garvey was deported to Jamaica immediately after. He died in 1940, having never returned to the U.S. or set foot in Africa, where he wanted Black people to return.
Though Biden’s Sunday morning announcement sparked feelings of vindication among those who long fought for clemency, members of the government founded by Garvey continue to issue a clarion call for what they deem a solution more fitting for one of J. Edgar Hoover’s earliest targets.
“The term of clarity is ‘exoneration.’ You can’t pardon people for something they never do,†Dr. Chenzira Kahina said during a livestream that Kimbunga Media conducted about Garvey’s posthumous pardon.

Kahina, second assistant president-general of Universal Negro Improvement Association-African Communities League Rehabilitation Committee 2020 (UNIA-ACL RC 2020), weighed in on the Biden administration’s posthumous pardon of Garvey. For two hours, she and other Garveyites delved into the specifics of Garvey’s 1923 conviction and highlighted their role in the #WeExonerateGarvey campaign.
The group — which also included UNIA-ACL RC 2020 President-General Akili Nkrumah, Second Assistant President-General Senghor Jawara Baye, Third Assistant President-General Mansa Foday Ajamu, and Cultural Ambassador ShakaRa Mbandaka — acknowledged Garvey’s son, Dr. Julius Garvey, and Justin Hansford, a Howard University law professor, as two of the most consistent advocates for Garvey’s exoneration.
Last year, Hansford released “Jailing a Rainbow: The Unjust Trial and Conviction of Marcus Garvey†via Paul Coates’ Black Classic Press. The book, which includes a foreword by Dr. Garvey, explains how the Jamaican-born printer and union organizer’s message of Black separation and self-sufficiency made him enemies of the U.S. political establishment, as well as Black integrationists and Black socialists.
As official UNIA-ACL historian Tony Martin noted in his book “Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association,†the U.S. government intended for Garvey’s indictment, and that of two other UNIA-ACL members, to stop UNIA-ACL’s mission to purchase land in Liberia and the launch of its Black Star Line shipping company.
Scholars today identify Garvey’s conviction and deportation as the beginning of his movement’s decline, and the splintering of UNIA-ACL into different formations. During the Kimbunga Media broadcast, Kahina, a university professor who lives in the Virgin Islands, said that, given the magnitude of Garvey’s unjust punishment, it’s essential that the state fully recognizes the late Black nationalist leader’s innocence.
“We need [Marcus Garvey’s] record completely expunged, completely clean,†Kahina said, later making the case that the power ultimately lies in the grassroots to move the needle on that goal. “We exonerate the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey first. We’re grateful [for] a wonderful exercise in political diplomacy, even down to the last hours of his presidency. Perhaps this happened earlier, we could’ve had time to nurture and cultivate the difference between clemency, a pardon and the more outright, more accurately, exoneration.â€
Dr. Garvey Reflects and Looks Forward
Biden pardoned five other people on Jan. 19, including: Darryl Chambers, a gun violence prevention advocate with a non-violent drug conviction; Ravidath Ragbir, an advocate for immigrant and faith communities with a non-violent conviction; and Michelle West who was serving a life sentence for crimes committed between 1987 and 1993.
Hours before Trump took his second oath of office on Jan. 20, the Biden administration also commuted the sentence of Indigenous American activist Leonard Peltier. For days and weeks, organizers lobbied for clemency action on Peltier, Garvey and other activists.
Those who rallied behind the movement to exonerate Garvey followed Dr. Garvey’s lead as he made public appearances and, in the spirit of his mother Amy Jacques Garvey, released new works by and about his father. Dr. Garvey’s late 2024 release, “Justice for Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind,†includes writings from Hansford, author-journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, Caribbean-American Political Action Committee President Goulda Downer, and Pan-African scholar Dr. Maulana Karenga.

Dr. Garvey, 91, celebrated the elder Garvey’s pardon while identifying a path forward.
“The president of the U.S. — the highest office in the country — can only give a posthumous pardon,†Dr. Garvey said. “That’s one step. We continue in Congress. Garvey represented all African people, so we continue the fight for liberation, through justice and human rights of all African people.â€
Last year, Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) espousing Garvey’s innocence and demanding the president clear his name. Earlier this month, she and 20 other congresspeople signed a letter asking the Biden administration to push for exoneration.
On Jan. 19, she too weighed in on the posthumous pardon, saying that more must be done.
“Although granting Mr. Garvey’s clemency will help remove the shadow of an unjust conviction and further the Biden administration’s promise to advance racial justice, Mr. Garvey’s family, myself, and countless others across our nation and around the world will continue to push towards his full and unambiguous exoneration,†said Clark, a Democrat representing New York’s 9th District.
“We know that Mr. Garvey was falsely convicted of a crime he did not commit. We know the path forward must include congressional action to completely exonerate the Hon. Marcus Garvey,†she continued. “And so, I will continue to take all necessary action to clear his name, and to deliver the justice and closure his descendants rightfully deserve.â€
A Legal Perspective
At the height of its existence, UNIA-ACL, founded in Jamaica in 1914, boasted a membership of 6 million members spread against 40 countries and more than 1,000 divisions. It also had a paramilitary group, Black Cross Nurses and, in addition to the Black Star Line, the Negro Factories Corporation.
In 1920, while most of the African continent and diaspora suffered under colonial control and racial discrimination, UNIA-ACL hosted a convention at Madison Square Garden that attracted 25,000 Africans and Afrodescendents. That year, Garvey was elected provisional president of Africa, and UNIA-ACL christened the red, black, and green flag as the banner for global African sovereignty. Long after his death, Pan-Africanists, Black Nationalists, and Black leftists, among others, recognize Garvey as an esteemed ancestor and foundational figure.

Hansford, a longtime researcher of Garvey’s legal situation, said the White House’ posthumous pardon, in tandem with a statement from the White House acknowledging the injustice of Garvey’s conviction, represents an exoneration.
“It’s…effectively as close as it comes [to justice] in the American system outside of the courts,†Hansford said. “That’s what President Trump did for Jack Johnson [and] President Clinton did for [Henry] Ossian Flipper. It changes the record to reflect [Garvey’s] innocence.â€
For 15 years, Hansford, executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center, has maintained a close relationship with Dr. Garvey, while all studying the details of the 1923 federal trial that led to his father’s imprisonment and deportation. He told The Informer his journey to publishing “Jailing a Rainbow†took him as far as Jamaica, where he scoured through archives.
Key elements of “Jailing a Rainbow†include an analysis of Julian Mack, the federal judge and NAACP member that Hansford said presided over Garvey’s trial with bias. Hansford also chips away at the U.S. government’s assertion that Garvey intended to defraud people through Black Star Line advertisements sent through the mail.
Hansford goes as far as to critique Garvey’s lawyers for not scrutinizing the legal definition of mail fraud during the appeals process. As Garvey’s legacy continues to navigate the court of public opinion, he expressed his pride about further instilling confidence in Garvey’s innocence.
“By publishing ‘Jailing a Rainbow,’ a few months before the end of Biden’s term, I [could] use it to advocate for a pardon and exoneration,†Hansford told The Informer. “If anyone has any lack of clarity on Garvey’s innocence, the book … shows that a scholar-lawyer did a thorough analysis and they can be confident that he was innocent.â€
Give thanks. This is the fairest and most articulate article about President Biden’s pardon of Marcus Mosiah Garvey that I’ve read so far. Thank you and best wishes to you for many more future articles of excellence coming from your mighty pen. High marks to the ²İİ®tv Informer for publishing this article giving clarity in the opaque world of establishment journalism.
Thank you for the well-researched and well-quoted article on Marcus Garvey and the Biden pardon. I do want to thank you for not delving into the ugly business of other Black leaders at that time conspiring against Marcus Garvey. Let me say that it is my understanding that many of the leading Blacks during the 1910s and 1920s were publicly and covertly against Marcus Garvey, mainly out of jealousy. Thanks again for the wonderful article, Sam.