President Joe Biden has pardoned five individuals, including the late civil rights leader Marcus Garvey, and commuted the sentences of two others in one of his final acts in office.
Biden posthumously pardoned Marcus Garvey, who died in 1940. The renowned civil rights and human rights leader was convicted of mail fraud in 1923. He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, with President Calvin Coolidge commuting his sentence in 1927.
Darryl Chambers, a gun violence prevention advocate from Wilmington, Delaware, was also among those pardoned by Biden. Chambers was convicted of a non-violent drug offense in 1998 and sentenced to 17 years in prison. Since his release, Chambers has dedicated himself to violence prevention efforts, including authoring his book Murder Town, USA.
The others Joe Biden pardoned were Ravi Ragbir, an immigrant rights advocate from New York, Don Leonard Scott, Jr., the first Black Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates and Kemba Smith Pradia, a criminal justice advocate previously pardoned by President Clinton.