Saturday’s Day of Acknowledgement at Maryland Hall was well attended, well organized, and impactful.
Not everyone thinks an “apology for slavery” by the government of Anne Arundel County makes sense. I’ve been told by well-meaning people, both white and Black, that it’s time to move on.
But when both the Anne Arundel County Human Relations Commission and the Caucus of African American Leaders made the request, I thought long and hard about how an apology could be done in a way that might contribute to healing, and few deny that our county and our country are in need of some healing.
So Asha Smith and her brilliant team in our Office of Equity and Human Rights went to work. They pulled together historians, county agency leaders, and a brilliant economist who specializes in the subject of reparations, and created what one attendee described as a “really beautiful arc.”
Instead of writing a full Weekly Letter on this week of Thanksgiving, I am sharing some words that I spoke at the event, and sharing the actual proclamation, which I also wrote, apologizing on behalf of the government of our county.
I will start with words that I spoke at the Inauguration of Wes Moore as the 63rd Governor of Maryland.
“I am a direct descendant of a man named Dr. George Hume Steuart who arrived here from Scotland in 1728, purchased land, and made his fortune in the tobacco industry on the backs of enslaved men, women, and children from Africa.
“He lived in a house on land that later became the site of Government House, the Governor’s residence. He lived right there.”
I then pointed from the steps of the Capitol Building to the adjacent Government House.
Today, I live in a house on land in Davidsonville that Dr. Steuart purchased in 1747. He returned to Scotland with his eldest son to claim his inheritance during the Revolutionary War, but his other offspring remained, and his great great granddaughter, Annette Steuart Pittman Wise was my great grandmother.
She purchased the property where I live from the Catholic Church, which had acquired it as a gift from two sisters who were great granddaughters of Dr. Steuart. The Church had promised to pray for the souls of those sisters at mass every Sunday.
In 1867, the brother of those two sisters, my great great great grandfather, William Donaldson Steuart submitted on behalf of his mother a list with the names and ages of 126 men, women, and children who as of November 1, 1864, had been enslaved by her.
He submitted that list to the Clerk of the Court of Anne Arundel County in the hope that the federal government would compensate her - that she would receive reparations from the government.
I’ve been asked how this history affects me, or if it does.
Shame is the best word to describe the feeling. Sadness is another. Sometimes there’s a flash of anger.
I’ve not yet met a person whose ancestry has been traced to enslavement on the land where I live. If I ever do, I will want to know that person, their ancestors, their family history. But those things are hard to find. Black history has been erased, deliberately.
What my ancestors did was dehumanization. It was an attempt to remove the human connection between white people and Black people.
It was done out of greed. It was done to make money. Some people think that makes it ok. That it’s simply a function of capitalism, and that cruelty is justified if it delivers progress, and that progress is measured in wealth - whether it is the wealth of a king, wealth of an elite class, or wealth of a race.
Resistance in America to that way of thinking has been led by descendents of enslaved African Americans.
Over and over again, Black leaders and their Black followers have resisted the greed and white supremacy that has threatened our economy and our democracy.
They have led our country toward humanity when we needed it most. Dr. Martin Luther King and Barack Obama were there for us, and many before them and since.
Today, in this moment, as I look for the leadership that will bend the arc of the moral universe back toward justice, I see people like Christine Davenport - strong Black women, descendents of enslaved Americans, standing strong, organizing, and singing “We shall overcome, someday.”
Because they know the tune. They know the words.
And we all must learn to sing with them.
And then I read this…
EXECUTIVE PROCLAMATION
On behalf of The Residents of Anne Arundel County, Maryland
WHEREAS, For 214 years, from 1650 until November 1, 1864, the government of Anne Arundel County, its elected leaders, and its employees, enforced the enslavement of Black residents and their children through its courts, its sheriffs, its jails, and its methods of torture and execution; and
WHEREAS, The enslavement and trauma inflicted on our county’s Black residents was used to build infrastructure that remains today and wealth that has been passed from generation to generation of primarily white families; and
WHEREAS, After Maryland Emancipation, Anne Arundel County Government failed to apologize for its role in the enslavement of its residents, and enforced laws that denied its Black residents the liberty and justice that were provided to its white residents; and
WHEREAS, Between 1875 and 1911, Anne Arundel County allowed its white residents to remove Black suspects from County custody, drag them through Black residential communities, and murder them by lynching, with no fear of prosecution for their acts of terrorism; and
WHEREAS, After 1911, when the State of Maryland opened Crownsville Hospital for the Negro Insane, Anne Arundel County law enforcement regularly removed Black residents from their communities and put them in that facility as a means of circumventing the courts and denying the right to legal representation; and
WHEREAS, Until court-ordered desegregation in 1956, the government of Anne Arundel County maintained a separate and under-resourced system of education for Black students, and after that time used school districting policies and capital budgets to deny Black students the quality of facilities enjoyed by their white counterparts; and
WHEREAS, Anne Arundel County Government, in cooperation with private developers and federal, state, and city government, demolished the county’s most vibrant Black commercial and residential district, the Old Fourth Ward in Annapolis, to build government offices and parking, thereby displacing Black property owners, and moving residents into public housing that was later allowed to deteriorate; and
WHEREAS, While policies have been implemented by Anne Arundel County Government in recent years that seek to address some impacts of the aforementioned history, disparities in wealth, poverty, student achievement, wages, and housing security persist; and
WHEREAS, The Anne Arundel County Human Relations Commission and the Anne Arundel County Caucus of African American Leaders have requested that Anne Arundel County issue an official apology for the aforementioned history, particularly for upholding and enforcing the institution of slavery; and
WHEREAS, Throughout history, apologies have been issued by governments, institutions, and individuals as an acknowledgement of harm and as a foundation for healing.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, STEUART L. PITTMAN, County Executive and direct descendant of Anne Arundel County enslavers, do hereby offer on behalf of the government of Anne Arundel County and the people thereof, an acknowledgment of injustice, harm, and everlasting trauma that was inflicted on enslaved Black residents of our county, their families, and their descendants.
With this acknowledgement of history, we collectively offer our inadequate but deeply felt apology that has for 160 years been withheld, and pledge to never allow this history or this acknowledgement to be forgotten.
Furthermore, we call upon all of our residents and the institutions that serve them to teach and to learn about this history and to work together toward atonement, healing, liberty, and justice for all.
Given under my hand and the Great Seal of Anne Arundel County this 22nd Day of November in the Year of the Lord, Two Thousand Twenty Five.
To view the program and video, click here.
Until next week…