Outgoing US President Joe Biden pardoned five people on Sunday, including the late civil rights fighter Marcus Garvey, while he commuted the sentences of two people, the White House announced.
Garvey, who died in 1940, was a civil rights activist convicted of mail fraud in 1923 and sentenced to five years in prison. The sentence was commuted in 1927 by President Calvin Coolidge.
Human rights organizations credit Garvey with being the first man to organize a mass movement among African Americans. The White House said he founded the shipping company Black Star Line and an association that celebrated African history and culture, the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
Other pardons include Daryl Chambers, a gun violence prevention advocate who was convicted of a nonviolent drug-related offense, and immigration advocate Ravidath “Ravi” Ragbir, who was also convicted of a nonviolent offense in 2001, the White House said.
Biden commuted the sentences of two people convicted in the 1990s, whom he praised for their remarkable rehabilitation: Robin Peoples and Michelle West.
Sunday is Joe Biden’s last full day as president, as he hands over to his successor, Donald Trump, on Monday.
