The family of Marcus Garvey, Jamaica’s first National Hero, has called on United States President Joe Biden to issue a posthumous pardon for Garvey’s conviction on charges of mail fraud in 1923. Garvey was the founder and leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). The charges stemmed from a mailing of ads for his Black Star Line shipping firm that depicted a ship that the company was in the process of acquiring but had not yet wholly owned. Garvey was fined “$1,000 and sentenced to five years in prison. The prison sentence was commuted later by President Calvin Coolidge, and Garvey was deported to Jamaica. According to Julius Garvey, 88, who is one of Marcus Garvey’s sons, President Biden stated in his inaugural address that the dream for justice should not be delayed any longer and that Garvey’s family is taking him at his word, hoping that the racial injustice experienced by his father over a century ago would be rectified.

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