President Biden on Sunday posthumously pardoned Black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who influenced Malcolm X and other civil rights leaders and was convicted of mail fraud in the 1920s. Others receiving pardons included a top Virginia lawmaker and advocates for immigrant rights, criminal justice changes, and gun violence prevention, the AP reports. Of Garvey, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "He was the first man, on a mass scale and level" to give millions of Black people "a sense of dignity and destiny."
Congressional leaders had pushed for Biden to pardon Garvey, with supporters arguing Garvey's conviction was politically motivated and an effort to silence the increasingly popular leader who spoke of racial pride. After Garvey was convicted, he was deported to Jamaica, where he was born. He died in 1940.
Among those pardoned on Sunday were:
- Don Scott: The speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates was convicted of a drug offense in 1994 and served eight years in prison. Scott was elected to the legislature in 2019 and later became the first Black speaker. "I am deeply humbled to share that I have received a Presidential Pardon from President Joe Biden for a mistake I made in 1994—one that changed the course of my life and taught me the true power of redemption," Scott said in a statement.
- Ravi Ragbi: The immigrant rights activist was convicted of a nonviolent offence in 2001 and sentenced to two years in prison. Ragbi was facing deportation to Trinidad and Tobago.
- Kemba Smith Pradia: She was convicted of a drug offense in 1994 and sentenced to 24 years behind bars. Smith Pradia has since become a prison reform activist. President Clinton commuted her sentence in 2000.
- Darryl Chambers: The gun violence prevention advocate from Wilmington, Delaware, was convicted of a drug offense and sentenced to 17 years in prison. He studies and writes about gun violence prevention.
Biden commuted the sentences of:
- Michelle West: She was serving life in prison for her role in a drug conspiracy case in the early 1990s. West has a daughter who has written publicly about the struggle of growing up with a mother behind bars.
- Robin Peoples: He was convicted of robbing banks in northwest Indiana in the late 1990s and sentenced to 111 years in prison. A White House said Peoples would have faced significantly lower sentences under current laws.
A pardon relieves a person of guilt and punishment, per the AP. A commutation reduces or eliminates the punishment but doesn't exonerate the wrongdoing.
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