Editorial | Honour Charles Rangel

When Joe Biden, on his way out of the White House, pardoned Marcus Garvey in January, few public commentators mentioned Charles Rangel, the former long-serving member of the US Congress from Harlem, who died on Monday, at age 94.

They should have. For Mr Rangel, a long-standing friend of Jamaica, had much to do with it. He was a passionate advocate for Garvey’s exoneration.

Mr Rangel also had much to do with other US initiatives of critical value to this island, and to the wider Caribbean, such as the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), a suite of legislative measures that gave duty-free access to the US market to most exports from the region. Indeed, until Donald Trump’s imposition of a minimum 10 per cent tariff on US imports from Jamaica, more than 90 per cent of the island’s exports to America were eligible for duty-free status, under the terms of the CBI.

It is surprising, in the circumstances, that official acknowledgement of Mr Rangel’s passing appeared to have been, inadvertently, we expect, low-key, especially given that his efforts on behalf of the island, whatever may have been his personal preferences, were decidedly bipartisan. In fact, Rangel’s contributions have been acknowledged with conferment on him of the national honour of the Order of Jamaica (OJ).

Mr Rangel’s affinity to the island was no doubt helped by the fact that his long-time congressional chief of staff and close associate was George Dalley, whose parents were Jamaicans who lived in Cuba before going to the US.

Charles Rangel served in the US Congress for 46 years, until his retirement in 2016. He became the first black member of the House’s powerful Ways and Means Committee in 1974, and its chairman in 2006, until he was forced to give up the post four years later after being censured for tax-related ethical violations.

FORCE FOR GOOD

But, even that blemish didn’t diminish the broad esteem in which Mr Rangel was held, and the perception of him as a force for good. And certainly not in the Caribbean, which benefited from his influence in Congress generally and his leveraging of his position on the Ways and Means Committee.

In the ideologically turbulent period of the 1970s when tensions arose between the United States and Michael Manley’s left-of-centre government, Mr Rangel was a key voice in America advocating for Jamaica’s right, and space, to pursue a non-aligned foreign policy.

As the former Jamaican prime minister, P.J. Patterson, who was Mr Manley’s foreign minister, noted in a tribute to Mr Rangel: “He understood that small nations needed space – room to breathe and the freedom to develop their own foreign policies without being boxed into rigid geopolitical frameworks. His advocacy helped Jamaica preserve its sovereignty while nurturing constructive relations with the United States.”

In the 1980s, during Edward Seaga’s administration in Jamaica, Mr Rangel was a strong proponent of the CBI, whose passage in Congress benefited from his seat on the Ways and Means Committee, as did future upgrades to the initiative.

Mr Patterson said that, during his 14 years as prime minister, and before, he “witnessed first-hand Charlie Rangel’s unwavering commitment to Caribbean development”.

PASSIONATE ADVOCACY

But few issues drew more passionate advocacy from Mr Rangel than his pursuit of a congressional resolution exonerating Garvey, the Jamaican national, from his 1923 conviction on trumped-up fraud charges. For years, he raised the issue in the House in July.

For instance, when he did so in 2004, Mr Rangel told his colleagues: “In the 1970s, I met Jamaica’s energetic Prime Minister Michael Manley and became very close to him, professionally but also personally. He taught me more about Marcus Garvey and about his status as a hero in Jamaica. In 1987, the centenary of Marcus Garvey’s birth, I introduced legislation asking for the exoneration of Marcus Garvey for the first time, and have reintroduced the same bill into every following Congress since.”

This newspaper believes that a full exoneration, not pardon, is what Garvey is entitled to, and hopes that he will get it. Which would complete Mr Rangel’s campaign in America.

In the Caribbean, the region should appropriately mark Mr Rangel’s contribution to the development. Perhaps the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) should posthumously award him a subsidiary honour to the Order of the Caribbean Community, which is granted to regional citizens.

Maybe, too, the regional University of the West Indies might explore establishing a permanent Charles Rangel Chair in US/Caribbean Studies at the Department of International Relations at Mona, Jamaica, which would also be related to the P.J. Patterson Institute for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy at the same campus.