Caribbean-American US Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-Brooklyn) says she has introduced the Marcus Garvey Legacy Package in the US House of Representatives that comprises two pieces of legislation that honor “one of history’s most influential leaders in the global struggle for Black self-determination, human rights, and economic empowerment: Marcus Mosiah Garvey.”
Marcus Mosiah Garvey is Jamaica’s first national hero.
Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, said on Wednesday, Aug. 20, that the legislative package includes H.Res. 655, the Marcus Garvey Recognition Day Resolution, and H.Res. 654, the Marcus Garvey Exoneration Resolution.
“Like every daughter of Jamaican immigrants, the singular and inspiring story of The Most Hon. Marcus Garvey has been with me since my earliest memories,” Clarke, who also chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, told Caribbean Life.
“As a Pan-Africanist leader who led one of the earliest Black Civil Rights movements in the Americas, founded one of America’s earliest Black-owned shipping companies in the Black Star Line, and established a legacy that has persisted to this day, Garvey’s advocacy for civil rights and the economic advancement of the Black community is known to all who celebrate his name,” she added. “However, the stain of a false, racially motivated conviction has influenced the opinions of detractors and critics for far too long.”
Clarke said while President Joe Biden’s pardon of Garvey just before he left office in early January “represented tremendous progress towards righting this wrong, we cannot rest until this injustice is expunged in its entirety.
“Mr. Garvey’s family, myself, and countless others across our nation and around the world will continue to push towards his full and unambiguous exoneration,” she said. “We know that Mr. Garvey was falsely convicted of a crime he did not commit. We know the path forward must include Congressional action to completely exonerate the Hon. Marcus Garvey. … Our battle for truth and justice has taken a remarkable step forward with the introduction of the Marcus Garvey Legacy Package,” Clarke added. “I look forward to seeing both these bills become law, so all Americans might celebrate Marcus Garvey as the hero that he is.”
H.Res. 654, Marcus Garvey Exoneration Resolution, declares that Marcus Garvey was innocent of the politically motivated charges brought against him and calls on the President of the United States to “take all appropriate measures to fully exonerate him and clear his name.”
H.Res. 655, Marcus Garvey Recognition Day Resolution, designates Aug. 17, 2025, as “Marcus Garvey Recognition Day” and calls on the President to “issue a proclamation encouraging national observance through ceremonies, educational programs, and cultural events.”
Clarke had welcomed the posthumous pardon of Garvey by President Joe Biden on the birthday of slain American civil rights leader, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a day before President Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term, on Jan. 20, in Washington.
Biden said he was exercising his clemency power by pardoning five individuals, including Garvey, and commuting the sentences of two individuals “who have demonstrated remorse, rehabilitation and redemption.”
Clarke, who, over the years, has been in the vanguard in seeking Garvey’s exoneration for a 1923 conviction for mail fraud, expressed delight and gratitude with Biden’s pardon. In December 2024, Clarke and several of her congressional colleagues wrote a letter to Biden urging Garvey’s exoneration.
She noted that Garvey was a Jamaican-born, Pan-Africanist leader, who led one of the earliest Black Civil Rights movements in the Americas, and founded one of America’s first Black-owned shipping companies in the Black Star Line. The congresswoman said Garvey had “established a legacy that has persisted to this day.”
“His advocacy for civil rights and the economic advancement of the Black community built the foundation of our modern civil rights movement and influenced many of our civil rights leaders, including Dr. King, who described Garvey as ‘the first on a mass scale and level to…make the Negro feel he was somebody…the first man of color in the history of the United States to lead and develop a mass movement,’” Clarke said.
Nzinga Garvey said her grandfather’s life was dedicated to “uplifting humanity, urging us all to embrace a vision of justice that is larger than any single race or nation.
“His wrongful conviction is not just a story of the past, it is a reflection of the work that remains before us,” she said.
Nzinga Garvey also told Caribbean Life: “In the words of my grandfather, Marcus Garvey, ‘The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself, but the ends you serve for all, in common, will take you to eternity.'”
“These words are more than a call to action; they are a moral compass, pointing us toward the kind of justice that dignifies not just the individual, but a people, a nation and humanity itself,” she said. “My grandfather’s conviction was not only a miscarriage of justice but a reminder of how the overreach of power can be weaponized to silence the voices that seek fairness, equity and accountability.”
In leading 20 of her congressional colleagues in a letter to Biden in December 2024, urging Garvey’s exoneration, Clarke wrote that “exactly 101 years ago, Mr. Garvey was convicted of mail fraud in a case that was marred by prosecutorial and governmental misconduct. “The evidence paints an abundantly clear narrative that the charges against Mr. Garvey were not only fabricated but also targeted to criminalize, discredit, and silence him as a civil rights leader.”
Garvey (1887-1940) had sought to unify and connect people of African descent worldwide. In the United States, he was a noted civil rights activist, who founded the Negro World newspaper, a shipping company called Black Star Line, and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).
