Biden posthumously pardons black nationalist Marcus Garvey

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden on Sunday posthumously forgiven Black nationalist Marcus Garveywho influenced Malcolm of armed violence also benefited from pardons.

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 the president-elect. Donald Trump.

Issue preventive pardons — for real or imagined offenses committed by Trump critics that could be investigated or prosecuted by the new administration — would expand the powers of the presidency in ways that have not been tested.

Biden has set presidential record for the most part 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 gave a wide grace for his son Hunterwho was prosecuted for firearms and tax crimes.

The president announced that he was commute sentences of 37 of the 40 on federal death row, converting their sentences to life imprisonment 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 president 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.

— Immigrant rights activist Ravi Ragbir, convicted of a non-violent offense in 2001 and was 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 who has written publicly about the difficulty of growing up with a mother behind bars.

—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.

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Associated Press writer Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.