UUNNIIAA--AACCLLGovernment of the Universal Negro Improvement Association – African Communities League

1400 Ingraham Street, NW • Washington, DC 20011

Phone – 202.256.2518

eMail – pg@uniaacl.org • Website – www.uniaacl.org

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From the Office of the President-GeneralSenghor Jawara BayePresident-General/Administrator

Marcus Mosiah GarveyFounder/First President-General

GOVERNMENT OFFICERS

Senghor Jawara BayePresident-General/Administrator

Akili Nkrumah1st Assistant President-General

Yaw Kwayke Davis2nd Assistant President-General

Randolph Pierre3rd Assistant President-General

Basiymah Muhammad Bey4th Assistant President-General

Mary BotaSecretary-General

Brenda Dunn Clayton1st Assistant Secretary-General

Janet Taylor2nd Assistant Secretary-General

Samia AkomaHigh Chancellor

Asim NkrumahAuditor General

I-Nia Reginia RogersCounsel General

Khabyr HadasMinister of Education

Zama CookMinister of Information

Chuck BanksMinister of Labour & Industries

Serwah NkrumahMinister of Transportation

Dr. David L. HorneInternational Organizer

Lewin S. BaileyHigh Commissioner of Canada

Nyata ToureDistrict Two Commissioner

Kwame BintaDistrict Three Commissioner

Mensah SaleemMichigan State Commissioner

Sadie MadisonAdministrator – Council of Elders

Marcus Garvey, Jr.Special Representative

Sababu NkrumahSpecial Representative

31 August 2011

Universal Negro Improvement Association-African Communities League Official Statementon the Exoneration of Honorable Marcus Garvey, Founder and President General of the UNIA-ACL, 1914-1940.

The official position of the UNIA-ACL Parent Body on this issue is that the Honorable Marcus Garvey deserves to becompletely exonerated and not merely pardoned. A pardon* — especially a partial pardon — is a tacit acknowl-edgement that Mr. Garvey was guilty of a crime to begin with. He wasn’t, and that fact needs to be stated by the Amer-ican government. His 1923 conviction for mail fraud was based on police misconduct, harassment, and racial animusagainst a popular Black leader.

That is and has been the UNIA-ACL’s official position since 1987, the year of the 100th Centennial of the Birth of theRight Excellent Marcus Mosiah Garvey. In 1986, Congressman Charles Rangel of New York had introduced legislationfor a joint House-Senate Resolution to pardon the Honorable Marcus Garvey. The UNIA-ACL requested an adjust-ment to that legislation, so that it would call for exoneration (also known as a full and complete pardon), and not agovernment restatement re-commuting his sentence. The UNIA-ACL has been in full support of that legislation sincethen, and the bill has been re-introduced in every session of Congress through the 111th of 2009-2010.

In 1986-87, hearings were held before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, then chaired byCongressman John Conyers. The Honorable Charles L. James, then President-General of the UNIA-ACL; Marcus Gar-vey, Jr.; Dr. Julius Garvey, M.D.; Dr Tony Martin, the noted historian; Queen Mother Moore; Congressman Rangel; Dr.John Henrik Clarke; Dr Yosef ben-Jochannan; Dr. Robert Hill; Judith Stein, and many others testified before the com-mittee.

The UNIA-ACL Presidents General from Reginald Maddox (1989-1992), Marcus Garvey, Jr. (1992-2004), RedmanBattle (2004-2008), Nwalimu Gee (2008-2008), and Senghor Jawara Baye (2008 to present), have unceasingly sup-ported efforts for Mr. Garvey's name to be exonerated and restored. Former President General Redman Battle evenestablished an official Exoneration Committee, led by 2nd Assistant President-General Yaw Kwayke Davis, to workwith Dr. Julius Garvey and Congressman Charles Rangel on this legal issue. That committee remains functional today,and it is still pursuing its exoneration objective.

Recently, we have witnessed an upsurge of citizen interest in this issue. Several persons have written letters, signedpetitions, and sent e-mails to government offices requesting a pardon for Mr. Marcus Garvey. **While the UNIA-ACLis sympathetic to those efforts, they do not represent the UNIA-ACL’s official position and those persons are actingon their own. The UNIA-ACL Government demands an exoneration for Mr. Garvey, and the only acceptable pardonwould be a complete and total pardon which expunges

Mr. Garvey’s conviction, eliminates any penalties, restores any money or property lost, and is accompanied by a gov-ernmental apology for violating Mr. Garvey’s rights and impugning his good name. The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Gar-vey deserves nothing less. His words and deeds are revered all over the world and shall be forever.

One God, One Aim, One Destiny,

Senghor Jawara BayePresident-General/Administrator

*In American jurisprudence, a pardon is for a criminal act, not a civil liability. A partial pardon allows a sentence re-duction and early release (as in commutation), or a return of all of a person’s civil rights lost with a conviction, butthe criminal conviction and status as a convicted felon do not change. A Full and Complete pardon, issued by gover-nors and the President, “places the legal and civil status of the convicted back to where it was before the crime wascommitted — it’s as if the crime never took place (and the person was never arrested, charged and convicted), as faras the law is concerned. “ One’s non-criminal status is restored — in other words, a person is exonerated. Full andcomplete pardons are, however, rare.

**Additionally, the argument used in the alleged letter from the Obama Justice Department refusing the individual re-quests for a pardon, i.e., the U.S. Government does not grant pardons to deceased Americans, is not really true. HenryO. Flipper, the Black West Point cadet who was drummed out of the Army through legal frame-ups and persistentracial persecution, was pardoned by Bill Clinton in 1999 – 59 years after Mr. Flipper died – and 117 years after he hadbeen falsely convicted. The federal precedent for Mr. Garvey, in a similar racial case. has thus already been set.