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.
Kingston, 19 January 2025 – The Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange, has said that the US President, Joe Biden, did “the right and honourable thing” when he used his clemency power to pardon, posthumously, the Right Excellent Marcus Garvey.
Minister Grange says President Biden’s “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.”
The Minister says the pardon which was announced this morning (Sunday) was the outcome of “many years of advocacy by successive Jamaican governments, 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 have been fighting against this wrongful conviction.”
Garvey was convicted of mail fraud in the United States in 1923, but Minister Grange says “that trial and conviction were meant to tarnish Garvey’s image and diminish his global movement.”
Minister Grange says:
“Marcus Garvey was a formidable advocate for the rights of black people, and leader of the largest black movement in history. It was no surprise when Garvey caught the attention of federal agencies in the racially-charged United States of America. It was no surprise when Garvey was charged with mail fraud, imprisoned, tried and deported.
I welcome President Biden’s decision which represents a major victory in the struggle to clear Garvey’s name. We must welcome the pardon wholeheartedly. However, we maintain that Garvey’s actions were not criminal actions, but were acts of liberation, with moral justification.
Therefore, what we need is an expungement of Garvey’s record in America, similar to what was done by the Jamaican parliament.
We have been on this journey for a very long time and we must continue the advocacy for the removal of this criminal record against our hero.”
A resolution was brought to the US House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, as far back as 1987 to clear Garvey, but did not succeed.
In 2018, the Jamaican Houses of Parliament passed The National Heroes and Other Freedom Fighters (Absolution from Criminal Liability in Respect of Specified Acts) Act, which cleared the records of National Heroes, including Garvey.
The law removed the conviction for sedition against Garvey.
Minister Grange says the decision of President Biden “removes a stain against one of the greatest Jamaicans, a Jamaican National Hero, and a hero for humanity.”
The Minister says the “Government of Jamaica will continue to work with the Garvey family, and all the stakeholders to push for the exoneration of Marcus Garvey. Today we celebrate.”
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Kingston, 20 December 2022 – The Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, the Honourable Olivia Grange, has said that the way is now clear for the government to move ahead with constructing the living history museum in tribute to the National Hero, the Right Excellent Marcus Garvey, at his boyhood home in St Ann’s Bay, St Ann.
Minister Grange made the announcement on Monday (yesterday) when the Johnson sisters — Jacinth and Carla who occupied the National Hero’s boyhood home at 32 Marcus Garvey Way — were presented with their new homes in Seville Heights.
The Prime Minister, the Most Honourable Andrew Holness, gave the sisters the keys to two new houses that were built under the New Social Housing Programme.
The relocation of the sisters is in keeping with the commitment given by Minister Grange in 2018 when she announced that the government had executed compulsory acquisition of the Garvey boyhood home property. Minister Grange had said that the government would not move the women off the property without making arrangements for them to live in a comfortable way.
At the handing over of the houses to the Johnson sisters, Minister Grange said she was delighted that “years of negotiation and decision-making, of going back and forth as we sought the right solutions, have come now to a good place where we can all give thanks for the progress made so far.”
Minister Grange praised the Johnson sisters for their cooperation. She said the sisters’ decision to relocate means that the government “can now begin the process of creating a state of the art, world class Memorial Park and Museum representative of the global posture of our revered National Hero.”
The former Prime Minister, Mr Bruce Golding, broke ground for the construction of the living history museum in tribute to Marcus Garvey in 2011, but the project was stalled as the government negotiated with the occupants of the property.
The Culture Minister said she looked forward to the development at the place where Garvey lived as a child.
Minister Grange said:
“We must never forget the meaning and purpose of the activities that we as a government have embarked upon. Our mission is to ensure that generations now and yet to be will be rooted and grounded in the life, teaching and philosophies of Garvey as part of the process to entrench their cultural identity and commitment to the sustainable prosperity of all our people.”
The Jamaica National Heritage Trust — an agency of the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport — will lead the development of the Marcus Garvey Memorial Park and Museum.
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Kingston, 13 March 2020 – The Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, the Honourable Olivia Grange, has announced the closure of cultural and sport facilities, including museums, galleries, and stadia run by the government.
Minister Grange says the closures — with effect from Saturday, 14 March 2020 — are in keeping with the Government’s strategy to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Jamaica and to minimise the potential health impact on the country.
The facilities that will be closed to the public are:
- African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica/Jamaica Memory Bank;
- Alexander Bustamante boyhood home at Blenheim, Hanover
- Bustamante Museum at Tucker Avenue, St Andrew;
- Paul Bogle Memorial Park at Stony Gut, St Thomas;
- Liberty Hall: The Legacy of Marcus Garvey;
- IOJ Junior Centres;
- Simón Bolívar Cultural Centre;
- Fort Charles;
- National Gallery of Jamaica;
- Seville Heritage Park;
- National Gallery West;
- Natural History Museum of Jamaica;
- National Museum Jamaica;
- Jamaica Music Museum;
- National Library of Jamaica;
- National Stadium;
- National Aquatics Centre;
- and Trelawny Stadium
The facilities will remain closed to the public until further notice, however staff will report to work as normal.
Minister Grange says “the closure of the facilities is a necessary precaution in the national effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and to keep people safe.”
She has encouraged members of the cultural, sport and entertainment sectors to take all necessary precautions and follow the guidance of the health authorities.
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Kingston, 4 October 2019 – The Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, the Honourable Olivia Grange, says National Heritage Week — October 13-21 — will be celebrated under the theme ‘Our Heritage… A Great Legacy.’
Minister Grange has urged Jamaicans across the world to join the celebration.
Minister Grange said:
“Let us seize this opportunity to remind ourselves of the rich heritage left to us by our ancestors and the great legacy that it has become. Let National Heritage Week be a time to inspire our people to play their part in building the Jamaica that we all desire while advancing the welfare of the whole human race.”
The main activities for National Heritage Week will take place on Heroes Day, Monday, 21 October 2019 when the nation will “pay homage to its seven National Heroes as well as to our everyday heroes who follow in the footsteps of the seven by dedicating their lives to, and giving great sacrifice in service to others."
On Heroes Day, more than 100 people will be honoured and awarded for their service at the National Honours and Awards Ceremony at Kings House.
In addition, there will be a Heritage celebration activity in each parish capital on Heroes Day beginning at 7pm.
Other activities for National Heritage Week include:
- the Heroes of Reggae Vintage Concert at the Ranny Williams Entertainment Centre on Saturday, 19 October 2019 beginning at 7pm;
- the Unveiling of the statue of Veronica Campbell Brown at Statue Park at the National Stadium on Sunday, 20 October 2019 beginning at 4pm;
- Revival Time Music Festival at the Ranny Williams Entertainment Centre on Sunday, 20 October 2019.
- National Heritage Week will begin with a Church Service on Sunday, 13 October 2019 at the Calvary Gospel Assembly, 129 Sundown Crescent, St Andrew.
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Kingston, 17 August 2018 – The Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, the Honourable Olivia Grange, has announced that the Government of Jamaica has executed compulsory acquisition of the boyhood home of National Hero, the Right Excellent Marcus Garvey in St Ann’s Bay.
In her address at the annual UNIA Marcus Garvey Awards this (Friday) evening — on the 131st anniversary of the National Hero’s birth — Minister Grange said the Commissioner of Lands has been given ministerial direction to take possession of the property.
Minister Grange said this development “clears the way for the establishment of the proposed living history museum in honour of the National Hero.”
The property, located at 32 Market Street in St Ann, has long been earmarked as the site for the Garvey Museum. The former Prime Minister, Mr Bruce Golding, broke ground for the construction of the museum in 2011. However, construction has been delayed as the Government negotiated with the occupants (now owners) of the property and has been assisting them to find alternative accommodations.
Minister Grange said it was time to get on with the project:
“For many years, we have been talking among each other, researching current ownership and announcing every year our intention to take over that home and convert it into a museum and centre for reflection on the works of our Hero. We have talked for a long time. We have negotiated for a long time. Now it’s time for action. We have acted through the governance process of compulsory acquisition to take over that location and start the work to convert it into the haven it must be in the Garden Parish of St. Ann.”
Minister Grange says that in keeping with the commitment given by the former Prime Minister to assist the occupants to find alternative accommodations, the Government will be taking action to relocate them to property that has been identified.
“I have been working closely with the Member of Parliament and the Housing Agency of Jamaica to finalise the relocation. We are showing goodwill and I anticipate full co-operation as we move ahead with establishing this important national monument,” said Minister Grange.
The technical designs have been completed and funding sourced for the construction of the museum. Minister Grange has instructed the Jamaica National Heritage Trust — which is leading the development of the museum — to “move swiftly to take possession of the property, acquire all outstanding approvals and to begin construction before the end of the year.”
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Prime Minister, the Most Honourable Andrew Holness has expressed gratitude to the Government and people of Namibia for naming a street in the capital, Windhoek, in honour of Jamaica’s first national hero, the Right Excellent Marcus Garvey.
The street renaming ceremony took place this afternoon (July 23) during Prime Minister Holness’ official working visit to Namibia.
“Naming a street in this capital city of Windhoek in honour of Marcus Garvey represents a demonstration of posterity of the value of the contribution of one who has played a lead role in countering negative appellations forced on black people in Africa and the Diaspora,” said Prime Minister Holness.
The Prime Minister noted that the historic renaming of the street is a symbol of pride and honour.
“We in Jamaica are extremely proud yet deeply humbled that you have chosen to honour one of our own in this tangible way. This great gesture will undoubtably create curiosity among future generations, as they seek answers to the question, who was Marcus Garvey,” said the Prime Minister.
He said Jamaica continues to strengthening ties with its brothers and sisters on the African continent.
“It is a symbol of our geo cultural and spiritual unification. Further it is important for those of us African peoples dispersed far afield in places like the Caribbean and the Americas to have the opportunity to join in a gesture that re-establishes the original bonds of family and shared destinies. It is a truly good feeling that augurs well for ongoing and future collaboration.
The Right Excellent Marcus Garvey, Jamaica’s first national hero was a celebrated Pan Africanist, philosopher and leading exponent of black pride and consciousness. He was a self-declared citizen of a global Africa.
Prime Minister Holness said he is encouraged by the impact of the naming of the street in honour of Mr. Garvey on the youth. He expressed the hope that it will cause stories of strength of conviction to be told again and again.
The Prime Minister also highlighted that it was fitting that the renaming was being done during the celebration of the Nelson Mandela centenary.
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