On January 19th, the final full day of his presidency, Joe Biden granted a “full and unconditional pardon” of Marcus Josiah Garvey. The pardon was issued more than 100 years after Garvey was wrongfully convicted for mail fraud as part of J. Edgar Hoover’s lifelong crusade to destroy Black activist organizations.
Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914 in Jamaica before moving to the United States and founding a chapter in NYC in 1916. Garvey’s philosophy of Black Nationalism, economic empowerment, and commitment to the Back-to-Africa movement helped to bolster Pan-Africanism in the United States. Shirley Chisholm’s father Charles St. Hill as well as the parents of Malcolm X were notable members of the UNIA. The fact that Garvey directly inspired Black political activists like Shirley Chisholm, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., the Black Panthers is precisely why the FBI sought to incarcerate and extradite him.
The Shirley Chisholm Project celebrates the pardon of Marcus Garvey. The pardon does not reverse the injustices perpetrated against generations of Black activists by the FBI. However, it is an important measure in setting the legal and historical record straight.