Chairman of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Robert Montague says the decision of U.S. President Joe Biden to issue a posthumous pardon to Jamaica’s first National Hero, Marcus Mosiah Garvey is a “step in the right direction”.

The pardon was announced on Sunday, Biden’s final day in office, comes more than 100 years after Garvey’s conviction in 1923 for mail fraud.

Montague has consistently raised the matters of both the pardoning and full exoneration of Garvey on various platforms, including at the most recent JLP annual conference last November.

“The conviction of the Right Excellent Marcus Garvey had been widely acknowledged across the globe as without credible basis and unjust. It is indeed an important step which transcends mere symbolism that the United States has moved to formally pardon our first national hero of a criminal conviction,” said Montague in a statement.

He said the JLP has for over 40 years been championing the cause to have Gavey both pardoned and fully exonerated from as early as the 1980s when former Prime Minister Edward Seaga lobbied then United States President Ronald Reagan on the issue.

He stated further: “More recently in February 2022, on the occasion of Jamaica’s 60th year of independence, our party leader and Prime Minister, Andrew Holness wrote a formal letter to now outgoing United States President Joseph R. Biden Jnr., urging that Mr Garvey’s name be pardoned and that his name be ‘cleared, fully and unconditionally’. Our Culture Minister Olivia Grange also formally signed the petition for the United States to do the right thing and pardon Marcus Garvey, while also issuing an unconditional exoneration. It is in that context that we particularly welcome the development today as a step in the right direction”.

Montague is also commending Grange and US lawmakers in Congress, along with Garvey’s family who he noted have been tirelessly lobbying to have him both pardoned and fully exonerated.

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