Jan. 19 (UPI) — On his final day in office, President Joe Biden pardoned five people, including a prominent civil rights activist who died in the 1940s and the speaker of the Virginia House.
“America is a country built on the promise of second chances,” Biden said in a statement issued by the White House Sunday.
“As President, I have used my clemency power to make that promise a reality by issuing more individual pardons and commutations than any other President in U.S. history.”
Biden said he would exercise his powers to pardon five people and commute the sentences of two more that he said “have demonstrated remorse, rehabilitation, and redemption.”
The president pardoned the late Marcus Garvey, a civil rights leader convicted of mail fraud in 1923. He died in 1940. He founded the first Black-owned cargo shipping line, Black Star Line, and created the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
Biden also pardoned Rep. Don Scott, D-Portsmouth and the first Black person to serve as Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates. He was convicted in 1994 of a nonviolent drug offense and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Scott, a Navy veteran, worked as an attorney after his release.
“My journey — from being arrested as a law student to standing here today as the first Black Speaker of the House of Delegates in Virginia’s 405-year history — is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of second chances,” Scott said in a statement.
Biden pardoned Darryl Chambers, a gun violence prevention advocate who was sentenced to 17 years in prison, also for a nonviolent drug offense, in 1998. Chambers is a native of Wilmington, Del., where Biden also lives.
Ravi Ragbir was an advocate for immigrant rights in New York and New Jersey and also convicted of a nonviolent drug offense in 2001. Biden also pardoned Kemba Smith Pradia, who was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 1994, also for a nonviolent drug offense.
These were just a few of the 2,500 people Biden pardoned for nonviolent drug offenses in his final weeks in office.
He also commuted the sentences of death row inmates to life in prison and issued a full pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, his most profile presidential pardon in recent months.
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