Also in Newark today at St James AME Church on this Juneteenth, Governor Murphy signs an executive order with the goal of pardoning thousands of New Jerseyans.

He says the move will make history and provide relief to those who have suffered from unfair incarceration.

Senior political correspondent David Cruz explains how the new clemency program will work and how it will make the process faster.

It was 159 years ago today when General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce a new beginning in our nation's story.

The enslaved people of America had at long last been declared free.

In case the symbolism wasn't clear enough.

Governor Phil Murphy quoted scripture and spirituals before a largely black and brown audience at the St James AME Church on Martin Luther King Boulevard in Newark.

The event, a Juneteenth signing of an executive order.

Creating a new clemency initiative that will make our process for glint granting legal relief to New Jerseyans fairer, more equitable and far more accessible here in New Jersey.

Receiving a pardon or having your sentence commuted was not a matter of either fairness or objectivity.

It was a matter of who you knew and how well connected you were to those in power.

That's why there have been just over 100 pardons or commutations over the last 30 years in New Jersey.

The Murphy executive order doesn't change that immediately.

It establishes a six member clemency advisory board and the criteria for expedited considering portion of requests.

The members of the board will consider applications for clemency on an ongoing basis and ultimately offer impartial recommendations on who should be granted a pardon or a commutation.

Importantly, this executive order will also clearly spell out the categories of individuals who will receive expedited review by the Clemency Advisory Board.

We have reviewed best practices from around the country and from social science to identify individuals who, based on the time that has elapsed since their offense and or the nature of their offense, will be at the front of the line for consideration for pardons.

Young offenders of nonviolent crimes, victims of sexual abuse, and those most adversely affected by the war on drugs.

And as noted by Wallace, Peoples who performs under the name Wallow 267.

Their families.

Stand up.

If you came here to represent your homey stand up.

We're going to look at them.

Look at them.

They came here.

They could have been at work.

They could have done anything.

Someone called out of work.

They came here to represent the friendly brother, the homie, the sister that they walked the track would be cheerful with.

Did they win against the guards?

We put grievances in, went to the hole with.

So today, I just want to salute your man because you only had to be here.

Unjust incarcerations, exacerbated by a road to freedom paved for the privileged but impassable for the rest.

The governor says it'll be six months before the first recommendations reach his desk.

Deferred?

Yes, but no longer denied.

I'm David Cruz, NJ Spotlight News.