Baltimore church’s slavery reparations a concept that deserves to be copied

Congratulations to the members of Memorial Episcopal Church in Bolton Hill for establishing a fund to make reparations for slavery (“Episcopal church established by Baltimore slave owners creates $500,000 reparations fund,” Jan. 29). Better late than never! I hope that other religious entities follow suit.

Maryland was founded as a Catholic colony, and there is a very large Catholic footprint in the state and in Baltimore. We know that Catholics had slaves and we know that most Catholic institutions were segregated. Ironically, missionaries came from London to minister to African Americans as most Catholic white people would not.

The Josephite Fathers and the Franciscan Sisters of Baltimore arrived in Baltimore to do missionary work as white Catholics would not do this. The Archdiocese of Baltimore has significant land holdings and historic art work which should be monetized to create a fund for reparations. This is long overdue. Religious congregations such as the Sisters of Mercy and the Jesuits who conducted segregated institutions in Maryland should also be generous in making reparation payments for the harm they have caused. Nuns in Ireland have been forced to deal with scandals of the Magdalene Laundries and the Mother and Baby homes.

Apologies are welcome but empty if they fail to provide financial redress. We need to model our local religious outreach on our the example of our Episcopalian friends. We should begin now.

Edward McCarey McDonnell, Baltimore

NAACP: End voter disenfranchisement in St. Mary’s County

The St. Mary’s County Branch

#7025 and the Maryland State Conference-NAACP strongly encourage a favorable committee vote on House Bill 655. This bill is about improving democracy at the local level. For decades, several districts in Maryland have operated under an at-large voting system for county commissioner election. Although the county commissioners are required to reside in the district they represent, the current system allows citizens countywide to vote for all county commissioner candidates regardless of district. The citizens of each county commissioner district have the right to select who represents their interests without influence from voters outside of their district. In the coming week, the Maryland General Assembly has the opportunity to make a change before the U.S. Department of Justice gets involved.

Del. Brian Crosby, a Democrat who represents District 29B (St. Mary’s), has filed a bill in the Maryland General Assembly that seeks to rectify this injustice happening in St. Mary’s County and other counties around the state. It requires that county commissioner candidates win a plurality of the votes in the district they hope to represent. Every state and federally elected official in Maryland has to win in the district in which they are running. The people residing in the rural counties in Maryland deserve the right to have that same rule apply to their county elections.

In St. Mary’s County, specifically, this results in the disenfranchisement of a large number of our minority voters. Votes from the rest of the county dilute the votes from their community. It is unacceptable. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits voting practices or procedures that result in discrimination or the abridgment of the right of any citizen to vote. Most challenges that fall under this section involve at-large voting schemes (United States of America v. Town of Lake Park, 2009). This at-large voting essentially silences the votes of the largest community of minorities in St. Mary’s County and mirrors systems that have been changed because they violate the Voting Rights Act. House Bill 655 would fix that.

This unjust system is in place in Calvert, Charles, Garrett and Queen Anne’s counties as well as in our own county of St. Mary’s. We stand in solidarity with the NAACP branches of those jurisdictions and with the Maryland State Conference of the NAACP, and we are calling for reform. Those who champion democracy and civil rights must do everything they can to strengthen it. This bill is one way the Maryland General Assembly can strengthen democracy in our state.

We deserve the right to select the people that represent us at all levels. Help make that a reality for us.

William R. Hall III, California

The writer is president of the St. Mary’s County Chapter of the NAACP.