The descendants of civil rights leader Marcus Garvey have tapped Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and a pair of legal scholars to petition the Obama administration for a posthumous pardon and exoneration of Garvey’s 1925 mail fraud conviction.
In a 41-page petition, announced at a press event Wednesday and filed on June 24 with the Office of the Pardon Attorney, lawyers for Garvey’s son Dr. Julius Garvey discuss the legal precedent backing their bid for a posthumous pardon. The petition argues that, while rare, the Clinton administration and that of former President George W. Bush both granted posthumous pardons in 1999 and 2008, respectively. The petition also claims that the U.S. government, under former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, unfairly targeted Garvey.
