Government of Jamaica
STATEMENT TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
RE: MARCUS GARVEY
By the Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport
The Honourable Olivia Grange, OJ, CD, MP
Tuesday, 21 January 2025
Madam Speaker:
On Sunday (January 19, 2024) the President of the United States, Joe Biden, announced that he had used his clemency power to pardon, posthumously, the Jamaican National Hero, the Right Excellent Marcus Garvey.
It is a welcome and celebrated development following decades of advocacy at the highest level to clear the Hero’s name.
The House will recall that Marcus Garvey Garvey was convicted of mail fraud in the racially charged United States of America in 1923.
He was accused of stock solicitation through the mail to support his Black Star Line. Garvey had established the Black Star Line in 1919 to operate a worldwide network of steamships. He planned for the Black Star Line to provide passage for black people who wanted to return to Africa, as well as to provide a financial base to support the UNIA—the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which he founded right here in Jamaica towards his goal of “rehabilitating” the black race.
Garvey offered shares of stock in the Black Star Line at $5.00 per share. In the space of a year the Black Star Line raised more than 610-thousand dollars and owned three ships. However, through a series of problems, including sabotage, the company ran into difficulty. To keep the business afloat, Garvey sold more shares. It was his stock solicitation through the mail that led to his arrest and unjust conviction.
Garvey was indicted on 13 counts of mail fraud, but was convicted on one count. No one else was convicted in the matter.
The conviction was based on ‘evidence’ surrounding Benny Dancy, a port station worker who had bought 50 shares in the Black Star Line. Dancy had given an empty post paid envelope addressed to himself to government agents who visited his home, though he said at the trial that he could not remember what was sent in the envelope or even if he had read the material.
The court concluded that “men regularly sending out circulars in envelopes do not send out empty envelopes; also, one who received an empty envelope would remember the emptiness; and further and finally, that when Dancy identified the envelope and testified to letters and circulars so numerous that he could not remember all of them, the inference was justifiable that some or one of those documents came in the envelope.”
The contention of the authorities and the decision of the court was that the Black Star Line was part of a scheme devised by Garvey to defraud blacks by soliciting subscriptions to worthless stock.
Garvey was sentenced to five years and, after President Calvin Coolidge commuted his sentence, was deported in 1927.
We know — as President Biden referred to in his statement — the ‘injustice underlying [Garvey’s] criminal conviction.
The trial of Garvey took place at a time of the “Garvey must go” campaign led by several prominent black leaders in the United States who were vehemently opposed to Garvey’s programmes as well as many in white America who saw him as too powerful, dangerous, and needed to be put in his place.
By that time, Garvey had founded the UNIA and the Negro World newspaper and was winning the hearts and minds of people who had heard him speak or read his messages.
The contemporary Reggae artiste Chronixx sings “they never told us that Black is beautiful”. It’s interesting that the three words ‘Black is Beautiful’ formed Marcus Garvey’s original campaign. Love your race, love your features, love yourself.
In his mission to uplift and empower the black race, Garvey was inspired by Booker T Washington.
As he put it: “I read Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington, and then my doom - if I may so call it - of being a race leader dawned upon me... I asked: 'Where is the Black man's Government? Where is his King and his Kingdom? Where is his President, his country, and his ambassador, his army, his navy, his men of big affairs?' I could not find them, and then I declared, 'I will help to make them’.”
In 1920, Garvey convened the first ever Congress of Black Peoples of the World in Madison Square Gardens, New York. His was the self-professed destiny of promoting the dignity and integrity of the black race, for which he was willing to die. Well, first he was arrested by those who feared his growing influence and overwhelming charisma and personality. In a society determined to restrict the progress of African descendant people, Garvey became a threat to stability and the perpetuation of white supremacy. With the trial and persecution anchored in white privilege and a desire to restrict the progress of black people, Marcus Garvey became the slaughtered lamb as it was felt that if he was controlled and neutralised, the threat to white supremacy would be destroyed.
Yet, our National Hero was not deterred by these schemes to destroy him.
He became even more vocal in his assertions of black dignity and integrity.
It was through Marcus Garvey’s unwavering commitment to racial pride and dignity of the black race that Rosa Parkes was enabled to hold her seat in the bus, that Malcolm X was able to defend his cause by stating “by any means necessary”, that Martin Luther King was able to dream and Nelson Mandela was able to walk free. Yes, all this and more was made possible by the Right Excellent Marcus Mosiah Garvey of whom Martin Luther King declared: “He was the first man, on a mass scale and level, to give millions of Black people a sense of dignity and destiny”.
The trial of Garvey in 1922 at which he represented himself in court without the help of a lawyer heard that Garvey considered himself to be "leader of the coloured race of the world," and referred to himself at times as the "provisional president of Africa” with the purpose of promoting solidarity among the black people of the world.
We know that the case against Garvey was marked by acknowledged questionable investigative practices, records of perjury, and official misconduct.
We also know that the conviction, imprisonment and deportation had the intended consequence of discrediting Garvey and to sink the UNIA. But Marcus Garvey celebratedly asserted: “Look for me in the whirlwind or a storm! Look for me all around you! For with God’s grace, I shall come back with countless millions of black men and women who have died In America, those who have died in the West Indies, ad those who have died in Africa, to aid you in the fight for liberty, freedom and life.”
On January 19, on the eve of Martin Luther King Day, the whirlwind has come and Marcus Garvey’s philosophy and dream have been once more ignited in the very heart of America. All around the world today, everyone is saying the name Marcus Garvey.
The Government of Jamaica welcomes President Biden’s decision to pardon Garvey. It is the right and honourable thing to do; and represents a major victory in the struggle to clear Garvey’s name.
We have been on this mission for a very long time—almost 40 years ago when the former Prime Minister Edward Seaga took up the matter with the former US President Ronald Reagan.
It was through Mr Seaga as a Minister in the Administration of National Hero and Prime Minister Sir Alexander Bustamante that our newly independent nation saw fit to, in 1964, exhume Garvey’s body, and ensure that he was finally and fittingly laid to rest in the National Heroes Park and named our very first National Hero.
Since Mr Seaga’s approach to Mr Reagan, successive Jamaican administrations have continued advocating for the removal of the stain against our Hero’s name.
We have had one aim.
A few years ago, Prime Minister Andrew Holness again made the case for Garvey’s exoneration in a letter to President Biden.
The mission to clear Garvey has also benefitted from the invaluable contribution of the Garvey family led by his son Julius, the UNIA, members of the Jamaican Diaspora and many people in America and across the world who believe, like we do, that this injustice must be set right.
Today we celebrate a victory. But the mission continues. We dare not give up now. This historic pardon is a most significant step in a process which must continue until the National Hero is exonerated—his name must be cleared completely.
We now look to the US Congress to take action to expunge the criminal record from the Hero’s name — similar to the action that was taken in this parliament to clear the criminal records of Jamaican National Heroes and other freedom fighters who were convicted in colonial times for their actions that have enabled our Emancipation and our Independence.
The pardon removes a stain against one of the greatest Jamaicans, a Jamaican National Hero, and a hero for humanity. We welcome it wholeheartedly. But this is not the end. We know that there is still one last critical step to get to our final destination: the exoneration of Marcus Garvey in America.
The Government will continue to work with the Garvey family, and all the stakeholders to push for the clearing of Marcus Garvey’s name.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.