New Push to Clear Garvey’s Name is USA Takes Spotlight in Black History Month Fireside Chat February 20

Washington, D.C. - A push to get Jamaica’s first national hero Marcus Garvey’s name cleared of criminal charges in the United States is back at center stage. Caribbean Americans will be saluting the contribution Jamaica’s first national hero made to the world during a special Black History Month celebration in the USA February 20.

Jamaica’s first national hero Marcus Garvey.The Black History Month Fireside Chat will be held via Zoom on Sunday, February 20, 2022, at 4:00 p.m. (EST) to mark the new effort to exonerate Garvey, who died in 1944 (Justice4Garvey.org).

Organizers are enlisting people around the world in the move to petition President Joseph Biden to grant a posthumous exoneration to the legendary human rights activist. Garvey supporters have argued for decades that his prosecution and imprisonment in 1925 were a highly unjust act.

In his recent Throne Speech opening the current session of Parliament, Governor General Sir Patrick Allen said the Government of Jamaica will be stepping up diplomatic efforts to clear the name of the country's first national hero, whom many believed to have been wrongfully convicted for mail fraud in the United States nearly 100 years ago.

Ambassador Audrey P. Marks, the Jamaican Ambassador to the USA, will address the Black History Month 2022 Fireside Chat, which will have Mr. Garvey’s granddaughter, Nzinga Garvey, as a keynote speaker for the event, along with Washington DC attorney Ambassador Curtis Ward, former Jamaican representative on the United Nations Security Council.

Iconic civil rights leader and former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Jackson Young is among special invitees. Meanwhile, Dr. Karren Dunkley, Global Jamaica Diaspora Northeast USA Representative, will moderate the Fireside Chat.

The virtual Fireside Chat is being hosted by the Jamaican Nationals Association of the Washington, DC, led by President, Dr. Elaine Knight. The Caribbean-American Political Action Committee (C-PAC), the Global Jamaica Diaspora Council Northeast USA, Jamaican Association of Maryland (JAM), and the Montgomery County Executive’s Caribbean American Advisory Group (CAAG) have collaborated with JNA on this significant event.

C-PAC is leading the coordinated global petition with the full support of Dr. Julius Garvey, Marcus Garvey’s only surviving child. Supporters are to sign the online petition at https://bit.ly/exonerategarvey, which links directly to the White House. For the American President to consider the petition, it needs to gather 100,000 signatures between February 1 and March 2, 2022. More information at: www.justice4garvey.org.