Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jamaica’s first national hero, is again on the petition journey. On February 1, activists created a new petition to get President Joseph Biden to posthumously pardon the hero of an “unjust, flawed and dubious” conviction for mail fraud almost a century ago.
The latest move to have the most notable name associated with global rights for black people started in December when descendants of Garvey began pressing President Biden for Pardon. According to the Washington Post, the White House did not respond to request for comments on the matter. The Post reported Julius Garvey, 88, a vascular surgeon, saying: “President Biden has made statements in his inaugural address about the dream for justice not to be delayed any longer.” He said: “We will take him at his word. Racial injustice was done to my father more than 100 years ago. He committed no crime. What he was trying to do was elevate the status of African Americans and Africans across the world.”
Online petition for Garvey created
The website www.justice4garvey.org seeks 100,000 signatures to take to President Biden. A national coalition of African-American booksellers and independent Black publishers teamed up with the Caribbean-American Political Action Committee in a global petition calling for the exoneration of Marcus Garvey.
Meanwhile, in the Caribbean, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves urges Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries and the rest of the world to pressure United States President Joe Biden to exonerate the national hero.
In a memorandum to the people, mass organizations, and civil society in the Caribbean, Africa, the United States, and the world, Gonsalves called on them to support the campaign. He encouraged all to get the late Black Nationalist and Pan-Africanist exonerated, a campaign initiated by the P.J. Patterson Centre for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica.
Specifically, he encouraged them to sign the online petition opened on February 1, which will remain until February 28, the duration of Black History Month.
“The petition will be sent to President Joseph Biden of the USA for his action. Governments are urged to encourage their nationals to sign… Assuming that President Biden accedes to this just and fair petition, he may find it of great convenience and moment to announce the exoneration of Marcus Garvey at the next Summit of the Americas to be held in June 2022 in California, USA,” the Vincentian leader said.
Members of the Caribbean diaspora in full support
The Barbados-based Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration (CMPI) supports the call by St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister. CMPI General Secretary David Denny said: “Garvey made a solid contribution to the labor movement in the English-speaking Caribbean region, and also for the labor parties in the region. Garvey’s philosophy is one that would have helped to build the political consciousness among the progressive forces in the region, with his philosophy also playing a big role in the 1937 Rebellion in Barbados,” reported Barbados Today.
New York’s Congressional Representative Yvette D. Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican Una Clarke, is also jumping on the train to wipe Garvey’s name of the charges. She said: “They say Marcus Garvey came to America to turn Black people’s wishbone into a backbone. And so, today, it is upon Black people to be the backbone for Marcus Garvey by demanding the full exoneration of all the unjust charges cast against him by the U.S. government. Garvey took on the battle to help liberate Black people from the clutches of an oppressive and racist world. He was an inspirational teacher, journalist, entrepreneur, and moving orator who defied the onslaught of a hostile world, to help steer the fight for Black freedom, pride, self-determination, including the pursuit of justice and equality.”
This is not the first-time people worldwide, especially in the United States, have petitioned for dropping the charges and clearing Garvey’s name. Several petitions have been signed and sent to both President Obama and Trump with no action in recent times.
In 2016, through Prime Minister Andrew Holness, the Jamaican government took steps to get a petition signed and submitted to President Obama.
Jamaica’s Consul General for the Southern United States Oliver Mair has also chimed in on the petition. “I support the petition. I also encourage us to embrace and share the powerful teachings of our first National Hero Rt Hon Marcus Mosiah Garvey. His courage, vision, commitment, and influence led to an empowering and uplifting movement of over 8 million people of color. His teachings are just as relevant today. His message is summed up in the acronym R.E.S.P.E.C.T. – redemption, Education, self-love, purpose, entrepreneurship, community, and tradition. Thanks to our Rasta community, our reggae artistes, Jabulani, Priest Dougie, Geof Philip, and others in our community who help to keep the message alive.”
Opposition and challenges
As worldwide support grows for the exoneration of Marcus Garvey, some people are opposed to the move. In August, Rep. Yvette Clarke introduced a resolution calling for the US government to pardon Garvey. The matter came up in the Broward County Commission meeting, seeking support from the prominent Caribbean black community, and it was rejected. Most of the commissioners refused to give their consent. Broward County Mayor Steve Geller pushed back at the motion, saying Garvey was a controversial leader and highly prejudiced against other races.
“If I had brought up a motion to support someone that was supported by the Klu Klux Klan, as was Mr. Garvey, or someone who was opposed to integration and believed mixed people was an abomination, I think I would be called a racist,” Geller said.
Prime Minister Gonsalves urged Heads of State and Government of countries, especially from the Caribbean Community and Africa, to send letters to President Biden.
He said leaders of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) agreed to send a joint letter or individual letters last month. The CARICOM Secretary-General was also actively working on that.
The prime minister said that these actions are significant because there have been concerted attempts to roll back the hard-won rights of African descendants and other historically marginalized groups in the United States and some other Western countries.
“Persons and organizations, globally, who are wedded to justice, fair play, truth, human rights and sustainable development, whatever their nationality, ethnicity, class or religious orientation ought to join in the current campaign to exonerate Marcus Garvey,” he said.
“It is now widely accepted that Garvey was spied upon, framed and railroaded by J. Edgar Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation, the precursor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation because Hoover and other powerful persons considered Garvey ‘a notorious negro agitator’.”
Garvey’s contribution to leadership and racial reform
In the early 20th century, Garvey built the largest ever mass political movement of black people globally – the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).
“He is one of the Caribbean’s greatest leaders since conquest and settlement by colonialism,” Gonsalves said, adding that Garvey had greatly influenced the political outlook of several distinguished leaders from the Caribbean and the United States, including Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.
In 1922, Garvey was arrested for mail fraud in connection with the stock sale in the failing Black Star Line, which he had founded in 1919 to provide transportation to Africa.
At the end of Garvey’s trial, which Gonsalves described as “farcical,” the Jamaican was sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison. He served nearly three years of that sentence, from 1925, before being deported to his homeland.
In 1935, he moved to London, where he died in 1940 at 53. In 1964, his remains were returned to Jamaica and reburied in the country’s National Heroes Park. Garvey was declared Jamaica’s first National Hero.
