On this last full day before leaving the White House, President Joe Biden granted a posthumous pardon to Marcus Garvey. A letter written by Yvette D. Clarke (representative of the 9th congressional district of New York) and co-signed by 19 of her Democratic colleagues appears to have been the final plea which led to this result, but was by no means the first. When you dig into the facts of his 1923 conviction on mail fraud, numerous arguments that the conviction was unjust become apparent:
- misconduct by the prosecution
- lack of evidence
- biased judge
- all-white jury
- J. Edgar Hoover’s multi-year effort to deport Garvey
While the inauguration that will take place tomorrow will accelerate the retreat from multi-racial democracy that the United States has engaged in going back to Donald Trump’s first election, the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby vs Holder, and earlier, at the very least will remove an unwarranted stain from the biography of a key shaper of Pan-African thought, and an inspiration to the parents of the man we know today as Malcolm X. It was also a small bit of good news to share with my parents and cousins.