Miami Commissioner Fighting to exonerate Marcus Garvey
/- Originally published in the Miami Herald August 16, 2004
By Jacqueline Charles
MIAMI _ From the pages of history books to murals honoring black heroes, Marcus Garvey's message of racial pride and self-sufficiency still resonates.
Now, 64 years after his death, some in South Florida are joining the decades-long struggle to clear the name of one of black America's most influential and controversial social philosophers, best known for his back-to-Africa movement.
"Marcus Garvey led a movement to uplift humanity," said Dale Holness, a Jamaican-American and Lauderhill city commissioner who recently launched a local effort to have Garvey exonerated by the United States government. "He was about creating self-sufficiency among African people for them to lift themselves up and be proud."
Last month, Holness, a newly elected commissioner, sponsored a resolution at the Lauderhill City Commission supporting Garvey's exoneration. The measure passed and Holness is now working on getting other cities and elected officials onboard.
If he succeeds, South Floridians will be joining others in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut who are also fighting to remove the stigma associated with Garvey following his 1923 U.S. conviction on mail fraud.
Garvey supporters say the conviction and his 2 [ years in federal prison were a U.S. government ploy to end one of the biggest mass movements of black people the country had ever seen. Garvey, discredited, was eventually deported to his native Jamaica and died in 1940 in London.
Since then, there have been letter-writing campaigns and petition drives, all of which have gone nowhere. Even a request by the Jamaican government for presidential pardon didn't get very far. The request was issued in 1983 by Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga to then-Vice President George Bush. Seaga asked Bush, who was visiting Jamaica at the time, to ask President Reagan for a presidential pardon for Garvey on behalf of the Jamaican people.
The issue resurfaced again four years later on the centenary of Garvey's birth, when U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-NY, filed a congressional bill to clear Garvey's name.
Fifteen years later, Rangel is still seeking exoneration.
"We do appreciate and strongly support what Charles Rangel is doing, even though early in the process we were not interested in pardon. Pardon accepts guilt," said Don Rico, a Miami activist and devout Garvey follower who has spent the past 15 years working to keep Garvey's vision alive here in South Florida.
Like many Rastafarians, Rico views Garvey as one of them. In fact, Garvey is considered a prophet even though he was not a Rasta. His philosophical ideologies, such as his "Back to Africa" message, are used as guiding principles by the faith, which took off in the 1930s.
"Marcus Garvey was the best example of pulling black people together around themselves, and being self-reliant," Rico said. "No serious historian can deny the fact: Garvey was the premier person doing that."
To make sure South Floridians never forget Garvey's work, Rico and his nonprofit community organization, the INIversal MARCUS InstiTRUTH (IMI), Inc., celebrates Garvey's Aug. 17, 1887, birthday every year with a lecture and cultural concert.
Both events also honor Garvey's founding of the Universal Negro Improvement Association & African Communities League, 90 years ago this month.
This year's guest lecturer is Horace Campbell, a professor of African-American Studies at Syracuse University. Campbell is the author of Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney.
Campbell said while Garvey was a man of contradictions _ he was a separatist who also spoke of unity _ he was also a visionary whose contributions to both African-American and Caribbean people cannot be denied.
It is only now that some of Garvey's vision is being realized with the movement of more blacks back to places like South Africa and elsewhere on the African continent, and the increasing talk by Caribbean and African governments about creating a unified state.
"For the masses of black people, Garvey has been exonerated," Campbell said. "He is a popular hero. For them, Garvey is not a criminal. The criminals are the ones who put Garvey in jail."
