38.
That's the number of unresolved murder cases Maryland’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has documented in its final report.
Lawmakers created the commission six years ago to research Maryland’s history of racial terror through lynching between 1854 and 1933.
The work is now complete, and the board has sent 84 recommendations to the General Assembly aimed at repairing the harm caused by these killings.
Commissioner Nicholas Creary spoke about the findings and why the work matters. The transcript below has been edited for clarity and length.
KAMAU: Nicholas, how did you first get pulled into this work? What drew you to this history, and how did that lead to your role on the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission?
CREARY: It actually started as a research project with students when I was teaching at Bowie State University. We were surprised to see there was a racial terror lynching in Prince George's County, not far from campus. And as we went through that and saw, the the numbers of of racial terror lynchings that occurred across the state, I began thinking about the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And thought, ‘What would something like that look like if we were to do that here in Maryland? ’
KAMAU: Is there one story or a particular case that has stayed with you? And why does it resonate so deeply?
CREARY: The Howard Cooper lynching sticks out. That was in 1885 in Towson. We found out that, contrary to what was written in the Baltimore Sun at the time saying that he was this young man in his early twenties, looking at census records, he couldn't have been more than 15 years old.
He was a 15-year-old boy, accused of trying to assault a white woman. And he was one of the few victims of racial terror lynching who actually had a trial. But that trial was a travesty of justice. I mean, the jury did not leave the jury box, and they came back with a conviction in under four minutes.
And the Black community in Baltimore, started raising money so that he could appeal to the US Supreme Court. And the mob (because they saw that, they were going to file the appeal) went into the jail and took him out and killed him.
KAMAU: Part of your work confronts why the deaths of Black bodies were ignored or minimized for so long, even while other groups’ suffering gets more recognition. How do you talk about that with people who ask why this matters now?
CREARY: It matters now, because that oppression has not ended, it has adapted successively.
We're asking the state of Maryland to say yes, it was complicit and involved, and in many cases… either derelict in their duty to protect the 14th Amendment’s equal protection under the laws and due process rights you know, guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.
In many cases, states attorneys and police and sheriff's offices participated in those lynchings, in those murders. I'm hoping that people will acknowledge this history. We can't escape it. If we want to move forward with the hope of reconciliation, we have to look at this holistically.
KAMAU: Finally, we’re in a moment where some are pushing back hard against efforts around racial equity and inclusion. After six years of this work and 84 recommendations, what gives you hope that this kind of truth-telling can lead to change?
CREARY: What gives me hope is that there are people of goodwill and people of conscience. So much of what the commission was able to do could not have been done without the support of those grassroots organizations.
I mean, this wasn't just the 17 or 18 members of the commission and staff from the Attorney General's office. No, this was a grassroots thing. I mean, there were literally hundreds of people coming to these hearings and sharing their experiences and their ideas for what reparations should look like.
So I think there's a general groundswell of grassroots support for the work that the commission has done, and seeing that work be implemented.
