Biden pardons late black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who influenced the civil rights movement

WASHINGTON — President Joe 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. A top Virginia lawmaker and advocate for immigrant rights, criminal justice reform and gun violence prevention also received pardons.

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Congressional leaders had pushed Biden to pardon Garvey, with their supporters arguing that Garvey’s conviction was politically motivated and aimed 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.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said of Garvey, “He was the first man, on a mass scale and level” to give millions of black people “a sense of dignity and destiny.”

It’s unclear whether Biden, who leaves office Monday, will pardon people criticized or threatened by President-elect Donald Trump.

Granting preemptive pardons — for real or imagined offenses committed by Trump’s critics that could be investigated or prosecuted by the new administration — would expand the powers of the presidency in unprecedented ways.

Biden presented the commutations and pardons as consistent with “the sacred covenant of our nation.”

Speaking at the Royal Missionary Baptist Church in South Carolina, Biden said that when people “like to fall and make mistakes,” Americans rise up to them.

“We don’t turn against each other. We rely on each other. It is the sacred covenant of our nation. We pledge allegiance, not just to an idea, but to each other,” Biden said.

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Biden set the presidential record for most individual pardons and commutations granted. He announced Friday that he was commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. He also granted a large pardon to his son Hunter, who was prosecuted for gun and tax crimes.

The president announced he was commuting the sentences of 37 of 40 federal death row inmates, converting their sentences to life in prison just as Trump, a staunch supporter of capital punishment expansion, takes office. During his first term, Trump presided over an unprecedented number of executions, 13, over a prolonged period during the coronavirus pandemic.

A pardon frees a person from guilt and punishment. A commutation reduces or eliminates the sentence but does not exonerate the wrongdoing.

Among those pardoned on Sunday were:

— Don Scott, who is the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates in a chamber closely controlled by Democrats. He was convicted of a drug offense in 1994 and served eight years in prison. He was elected to the Virginia Legislature in 2019 and later became the first Black speaker.

“I am deeply honored to announce that I have received a presidential pardon from President Joe Biden for a mistake I made in 1994 – a mistake that changed the course of my life and taught me the true power of redemption,” Scott said in a statement.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Younkin, a Republican, said in a statement that Scott’s success and determination to “reshape its future” were “an inspiration to all of us.”

—Immigrant rights activist Ravi Ragbir, convicted of a non-violent offense in 2001 and sentenced to two years in prison and faced deportation to Trinidad and Tobago.

—Kemba Smith Pradia, convicted of a drug offense in 1994 and sentenced to 24 years in prison. She has since become an activist for prison reform. President Bill Clinton commuted his sentence in 2000.

—Darryl Chambers of Wilmington, Delaware, a gun violence prevention advocate who 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 two people:

—Michelle West, who was serving a life sentence for her role in a drug conspiracy case in the early 1990s. West has a daughter, Miquelle West, who has written publicly about the difficulty of growing up with a mother behind bars.

“I was just a little girl when my mother dropped me off at school one morning and never came to pick me up,” she said in a statement thanking Biden. “I grew up and lived my entire adult life under the cloud of “mandatory life in prison.” Today, after more than 30 years of hoping and daily pleading that his life sentence could somehow be reduced, the clouds have cleared. I finally see the sun and a bright future for both of us.

—Robin Peoples, convicted of robbing banks in northwest Indiana in the late 1990s and sentenced to 111 years in prison. The White House said in a statement that Peoples would have faced significantly lower sentences today under current laws.

Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Charleston, South Carolina, and Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.