President Joe Biden posthumously pardoned Black nationalist Marcus Garvey on Sunday, along with several other individuals, including a top Virginia lawmaker and advocates for immigrant rights, criminal justice reform, and gun violence prevention. Garvey, who influenced civil rights leaders like Malcolm X, was convicted of mail fraud in the 1920s, with supporters arguing that his conviction was politically motivated to silence his message of racial pride. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once praised Garvey for giving millions of Black people a sense of dignity and destiny.
Biden's pardons were framed as upholding the nation's values, emphasizing unity and redemption. The president has set a record for issuing the most individual pardons and commutations, including commuting almost 2,500 sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. Notably, Biden also pardoned his son Hunter for gun and tax crimes.
In a move contrasting with his predecessor, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 individuals on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment. This decision comes as Trump, a proponent of capital punishment, leaves office after overseeing an unprecedented number of executions during his term.
A pardon absolves a person of guilt and punishment, while a commutation reduces or eliminates the punishment without exonerating the wrongdoing. Among those pardoned by Biden were Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, immigrant rights activist Ravi Ragbir, prison reform activist Kemba Smith Pradia, and gun violence prevention advocate Darryl Chambers.
The president also commuted the sentences of Michelle West, who was serving life in prison for a drug conspiracy case, and Robin Peoples, who received a 111-year sentence for bank robberies in the late 1990s. The White House noted that Peoples would have faced significantly lower sentences under current laws.
