SOUTH FLORIDA – While pleased that Marcus Garvey has finally been pardoned by the United States government on questionable charges a century ago, David Hinds of reggae band Steel Pulse says it would have meant more if it came from Barack Obama, the country’s first black president.
Garvey was one of five pardons issued by president Joe Biden on January 19, one day before he left office. Caribbean governments, Diaspora and Pan African groups have aggressively lobbied for the Jamaican’s name to be cleared for decades.
Barack Obama
Many of them, including Hinds, believed Obama would have been the president to pardon Garvey, Jamaica’s first National Hero who died in 1940 at age 52.
David Hinds
“To my surprise, I actually expected Donald Trump to have done the pardoning just like what he did for the legendary pugilist/boxer, Jack Johnson; not to mention that Trump has a way to do the opposite to what everyone else does or thinks, just for the hell of it. It has never left my psyche that Obama had a chance to do what was done today, but passed on it for whatever reason,” said Hinds. “Disappointing, because it would have been good to have recognized that it was a man of color that made it happen. Nevertheless, God has a way to bring things around in full circle and I’m extremely pleased to know that Garvey’s only remaining son, Julius, is still alive to have seen this eventful day.”
Obama left office in 2017, after serving two terms as president.
Marcus Garvey Sentenced
Marcus Garvey
Garvey, a pivotal figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, was imprisoned in 1925 for mail fraud. His supporters argued that the sentence stemmed from a personal vendetta by J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
After his sentence was commuted in 1927 by president Calvin Coolidge, Garvey was released from an Atlanta, Georgia prison and deported to Jamaica.
David Hinds, 68, wrote Worth His Weight in Gold (Rally Round), one of Steel Pulse’s biggest songs. Inspired by Garvey, it is taken from True Democracy, the band’s 1982 album.
Interestingly, he was born in the United Kingdom to Jamaican parents who were from St. Ann parish where Garvey was born. Yet, they never discussed his legacy.
Songs of Steel Pulse
“My first knowledge of Marcus Garvey was in the songs of Burning Spear. They resonated because my parents came from the same parish as Garvey, yet had never mentioned not one single word about him. I confronted my parents on how dare they kept me so misinformed. Their response was that it never occurred to them that I would have been interested,” Hinds recalled. “I tip my hat to Burning Spear to have guided me in this path of consciousness.”
Burning Spear, who is also from St. Ann, brought renewed focus on Garvey through Marcus Garvey, his epic 1976 album. It contains the haunting title song which remains a roots-reggae anthem.
Julius Garvey, a surgeon and medical professor who lives in the US, welcomed Biden’s gesture. He said it is the first step to his father’s exoneration.
The pardon was also widely praisedby Caribbean leaders.
