US President Joe Biden has pardoned five people including the late civil rights activist Marcus Garvey, the White House said Sunday, just hours before he cedes the Oval Office to Donald Trump.

Garvey, who died in 1940, was a Jamaican-born writer and orator seen by some as a Rastafarian prophet who advocated for the African diaspora to return to the continent and reclaim it from European colonizers.

He was convicted of mail fraud in the United States and sentenced to five years imprisonment — but that sentence was commuted by President Calvin Coolidge, and he was later deported back to Jamaica.

Rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. called Garvey “‘the first man of color in the history of the United States to lead and develop a mass movement,'” the White House said in a statement.

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Garvey “created the Black Star Line, the first Black-owned shipping line and method of international travel, and founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which celebrated African history and culture,” the statement said.

“Advocates and lawmakers praise his global advocacy and impact, and highlight the injustice underlying his criminal conviction.”
Garvey became an inspirational figure for Rastafarians — including reggae icon Bob Marley, heavily influencing much of his music, which in turn made Rastafarianism international.

With its resistance to colonialism and racism, Rastafarianism is at once a philosophy, a religion and a way of life.
The name came from the word “Ras” for chief and “Tafari,” the first name of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie before he was crowned king. Garvey was seen by some as a Rasta prophet.

He also founded a newspaper, Negro World, which advocated an independent black economy within the framework of white capitalism.

In 2017 there was speculation that Biden’s old boss Barack Obama, the first Black US president, would pardon Garvey.

Biden also pardoned gun violence prevention advocate Darryl Chambers, immigrant advocate Ravi Ragbir, Virginia lawmaker Don Scott, and criminal justice advocate Kemba Smith Pradia, all convicted of non-violent offenses, the White House said.

It was the latest in a slew of pardons and clemencies Biden granted in his final days in office, including commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people in one day in December — and the controversial pardon of his troubled son Hunter.