US President Joe Biden has posthumously pardoned black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who influenced Malcolm X and other civil rights leaders and was convicted of mail fraud in the 1920s.
Congressional leaders had pushed for Mr Biden to pardon Mr Garvey, with supporters arguing his conviction was politically motivated and an effort to silence the increasingly popular leader who spoke of racial pride.
After Mr Garvey was convicted, he was deported to Jamaica, where he was born. He died in 1940.
Martin Luther King Jr said of Mr Garvey: “He was the first man, on a mass scale and level,” to give millions of black people “a sense of dignity and destiny”.
Mr Biden has set the presidential record for the most individual pardons and commutations issued.
A pardon relieves a person of guilt and punishment. A commutation reduces or eliminates the punishment but does not exonerate the wrongdoing.
Also among those pardoned on Sunday are Don Scott, who is the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates.
He was convicted of a drug offence in 1994 and served eight years in prison. He was elected to the Virginia legislature in 2019, and later became the first black speaker.
He said: “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.”
Immigrant rights activist Ravi Ragbir was also pardoned. He was convicted of a non-violent offence in 2001 and was sentenced to two years in prison and was facing deportation to Trinidad and Tobago.
– Kemba Smith Pradia, who was convicted of a drug offence in 1994 and sentenced to 24 years behind bars. She has since become a prison reform activist. President Bill Clinton commuted her sentence in 2000.
– Darryl Chambers of Wilmington, Delaware, a gun violence prevention advocate who was convicted of a drug offence and sentenced to 17 years in prison. He studies and writes about gun violence prevention.
Mr Biden also commuted the sentences of two people:
– Michelle West, who 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, who was convicted of robbing banks in north-west Indiana in the late 1990s and was 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.
