Press Release for Justice 4 Garvey
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Washington, D.C., December 1, 2021: A global effort by ordinary citizens, scholars, community, and faith leaders will be undertaken to petition President Joe Biden to grant a posthumous pardon to the Honorable Marcus Garvey. Spearheaded by the Caribbean-American Political Action Committee (C-PAC), the first goal of this global effort is to gather the required 100,000 signatures necessary to elicit a response from the President. To do so, the signatures must be collected within a stipulated 30-day period.
“Our goal is to get at a minimum, twenty-thousand signatures from each of the five continents,” says Dr. Goulda Downer, C-PAC’s Chair. “We will ask President Biden to honor the voices of our global citizens and make amends for the 1923 unjust persecution and imprisonment of the Honorable Marcus Garvey.” Marcus Garvey’s descendants believe that a Presidential pardon will acknowledge, and begin to right, the wrong committed against him, and by extension, the global community of African peoples. Marcus Garvey’s son, Dr. Julius Garvey said that “he taught us to be proud of being Black and reminded us of the power and majesty of our African heritage. The case against Marcus Garvey was politically
motivated and his imprisonment unjust.
February 2022, which is Black History month in the U.S., will be the apex of the effort. Focused marketing awareness will begin in late-November of 2021 and continue through to the end of January 2022. This global exoneration effort aims to include individuals, groups, and organizations, within the continental geographic region. The expectation is to bring local, regional, and global awareness about the effort to collect the 100,000 signatures during February’s Black History mouth observance.
About Marcus Garvey:
Marcus Garvey was an outstanding and influential civil rights and anti-colonial leader of the early twentieth century. His movement, which espoused Black pride and Black self-reliance, economic independence, and Black unity, garnered unprecedented support around the world. The impact of his legacy still reverberates globally today. In May 1923, Garvey was unjustly convicted of mail fraud in relation to the operation of his signature program for Black economic independence, The Black Star Line. He was sent to prison and later deported to Jamaica. Consequently, his global movement for racial and economic justice never again regained its previous level of momentum and growth.
The ASK:
We are calling for a coordinated, global effort to obtain the needed 100,000 signatures, within thirty days starting on February1, 2022, in support of our petition for a Presidential pardon for the Honorable Marcus Garvey. We encourage you to support this historic effort by:
- Signing the petition; and
- Sharing the petition with your family, friends, and your social and professional networks and encouraging them to do the same.
To join the movement and receive updates, please visit justice4garvey.org and sign up. And please tell us the approximate number of signatures you will attempt to collect. If you have any questions, please email us at now@justice4garvey.org
Our exoneration committee Global Chair is Dr. Goulda Downer. Our Global Vice-Chairs are Dr. Ayize Sabater, Dr. Elaine Knight, Dr. Felicia Boadoo-Adada, Ms. Madia Logan and Mr. James Gordon.
Media contact – Keilia Phillips
now@justice4garvey.org
202.349.1498
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