Issue #90, March 31, 2021 Contents: • Book: the Struggle Is Eternal
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Issue #90, March 31, 2021 Contents: • Book: The Struggle is Eternal: Gloria Richardson and Black Liberation, by Joseph R. Fitzgerald • Women’s History — Voting in Still Pond, 1908 • The Fenix Youth Project, Inc. — Empowering Youth; Creating Leaders • Commentary: Birds of a Feather-ism — Will that Darkness Destroy the American Dream? • 11 Facts About Salt Marshes and Why We Need to Protect Them • Trying to Keep its Head above Water To read online, go to https://www.CommonSenseEasternShore.org/ ***** Book: The Struggle is Eternal: been out of the spotlight, but Gloria Richardson and Black nevertheless exerted considerable Liberation, by Joseph R. influence as an Eastern Shore civil Fitzgerald rights leader in the 1960s and 1970s. By Jim Block The Struggle is Eternal: Gloria A deliberate, resourceful woman, Richardson and Black Liberation, Gloria Richardson may often have by Joseph R. Fitzgerald (Kentucky, _____ Common Sense for the Eastern Shore, Issue #90, 3/31/21 © 2021 Image: Farm, Dorchester Co. Photo: Gren Whitman 2018), takes an important step in not to privilege one person’s telling her story, a story that sexuality, political, or economic assuredly belongs on the shelf with philosophy, or religion over Frederick Douglass, Henry another’s.” (Fitzgerald, 80) Highland Garnet, and Harriet Tubman. Born in Baltimore in 1922, To begin their efforts, Richardson Richardson will turn 99 in May. (a Howard University sociology major) and CNAC conducted a In January 1962, Deborah needs assessment survey to Richardson, Richardson’s older ascertain what the community daughter, joined with schoolmates thought needed most attention. and some college-age members of Despite the committee’s the Student Nonviolent expectations, the survey found Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to desegregating public protest school segregation and accommodations unimportant. racial injustice in Cambridge, Instead, Black Cambridge residents Dorchester County, Md. At the cited jobs, housing, and schools as same time, some Black Cambridge their greatest needs. citizens organized the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee While Richardson and CNAC (CNAC). Much like SNCC, CNAC’s pushed for voter education and purpose was to engage local people voting rights, the gerrymandered directly and immediately to act on voting districts maintained the their needs as they saw them, Whites’ power. CNAC also pressed rather than slog through the legal for desegregated workplaces and system in slow-moving lawsuits for a badly needed public housing overseen by judges mired in the project. status quo. Protests were organized not by outsiders, but by In the spring of 1963, after CNAC local school and college students. presented an extensive list of demands to the Cambridge City Their efforts ceased when local Council, essentially asking for what leaders, Black and White, promised appeared in the earlier needs to desegregate local public survey, CNAC and its allies held accommodations. When this “nonviolent direct action training promise was unfulfilled, CNAC, led sessions” (Fitzgerald, 91) to by Richardson, took over prepare for demonstrations. At the leadership of the Cambridge efforts. end of March, demonstrations Like SNCC’s operations, CNAC’s began at four locations. Richardson were run locally, free of imposition and others were arrested, but soon from the established civil rights freed. The arrests numbered more groups and churches. The than local resources could manage, egalitarian group, as Fitzgerald so the accused were tried as a writes, “made a conscious effort group in what became known as Common Sense for the Eastern Shore, Issue #90, 3/31/21 2 © 2021 the “Penny Trial,” because the have the power to determine guilty were each fined one cent. Blacks’ rights. The charter amendment passed, Governor In May, the conflict’s momentum Tawes lifted martial law, and increased because police arrested withdrew the Guard, and, teenage demonstrators roughly at according to Richardson’s plan, the Dorset Theater and, in CNAC resumed demonstrations the response, a crowd of protestors next day at a local restaurant. The marched on the local jail. Two subsequent all-night conflict more teenagers were arrested, and included, according to a state soon the town boiled in civil conflict. police official, gunfire “almost on Richardson telegraphed U.S. the scale of warfare” (Fitzgerald, Attorney General Robert F. 109). So, the National Guard Kennedy for demonstrator returned four days later. protection, and two ministers asked for, but failed to get, The Justice Department’s Office of immediate help from Maryland Gov. Civil Rights wanted to meet with J. Millard Tawes. Eventually, a City Richardson, but she refused. She Council request brought in the also refused to speak with National Guard and martial law to President John F. Kennedy, telling make peace. the Justice Department lawyer to tell “those Kennedy brothers they In Annapolis, Richardson and some can both go to hell.” (Fitzgerald, Black and White leaders met with 110) Tawes; little came from this meeting except Richardson’s A week after martial law resumed, demonstrating CNAC’s influence Richardson and the Guard and letting state and federal commander met in a shop. When officials witness the White Richardson left the building to calm Cambridge City Council’s failures. a physical conflict outside, a Guardsman, with fixed bayonet, In June, the Kennedy tried to prevent her. She pushed administration held mediation the rifle away and continued on. An meetings with CNAC and other Associated Press photographer Cambridge civil rights leaders. In caught Richardson’s determined July, the City Council debated a face as she pushed away the rifle. charter amendment to require that His photo showed her courage and public accommodations to be open determination. The famous photo to all. Richardson found their still circulates today. amendment proposal worthless because the White majority could Attorney General Kennedy held a easily use a referendum to undo meeting in July; the attendees the charter change. She also included Richardson, SNCC argued that Whites should not Chairman John Lewis, Maryland Common Sense for the Eastern Shore, Issue #90, 3/31/21 3 © 2021 Attorney General Robert C. Murphy, Richardson in 1960) moved to New and the National Guard York and married photographer commander, Gen. George M. Frank Dandridge. According to Gelston. Cambridge city officials Fitzgerald, Richardson had were not invited. Out of this intended to lead CNAC only so long meeting came the “Treaty of as it needed her. Cambridge,” containing measures CNAC had earlier proposed from As this review has suggested, the previous community needs Gloria Richardson’s civil rights work survey. In return, CNAC pledged to was distinctive. The Cambridge stop demonstrations. Richardson movement was not connected with agreed to ending them because the older, larger civil rights she expected the city government organizations, such as Dr. Martin would not keep the agreement and Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian thereby invalidate it. Her role was Leadership Conference. Richardson widely and highly praised. In spite wanted an operation free of the of that recognition, her role at the traditional gradualist and male- August 1963 March on Washington dominated approach. was limited, perhaps because March organizers feared In the egalitarian Cambridge controversy from her, including her movement, she, as a woman, belief that direct action should be became a key figure. She moved to carried out that day. New York, but her influence in Cambridge remains. She was That summer, as Richardson honored at a Cambridge banquet in expected, the White establishment August 2010. As a child, Victoria organized a referendum petition to Jackson-Stanley, Cambridge’s first undo the earlier desegregation Black mayor (2008-2020), revered charter change. Richardson urged Richardson and has said, “Harriet Black voters to boycott the Tubman and Gloria Richardson referendum because the charter have been my idols since I can change granted rights already remember. They set the path for guaranteed by the Constitution. me.” Voting on the charter change gave White voters unjust power over Blacks’ rights, according to Joseph R. Fitzgerald, The Struggle is Richardson. Fortunately, the Eternal: Gloria Richardson and Black Liberation (Kentucky, 2018) referendum vote defeated the amendment. John Lewis, “Her Legacy Shines on in Cambridge,” Baltimore Sun. In the summer of 1964, https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/secti Richardson’s Eastern Shore civil on/community/cambridge-riot-the-legacy- of-civil-rights-hero-gloria-richardson/ rights work ended. She left CNAC and (having divorced Harry Common Sense for the Eastern Shore, Issue #90, 3/31/21 4 © 2021 Seventy-two men also cast ballots Jim Block taught English at in that municipal election, Northfield Mount Hermon, a according to the Ballot & Beyond boarding school in Western Mass. website. He coached cross-country, and advised the newspaper and the While these three Still Pond debate society there. He taught at residents were the first women to Marlborough College in England vote in Maryland, the push for and Robert College in Istanbul. He woman suffrage — as it was called and his wife, Penny, retired to then — began long before that. In Chestertown, Md. in 2014. fact, it can be traced back to Colonial times, according to the Maryland State Archives. As early ***** as 1648, Margaret Brent appeared before the governor and General Women’s History — Voting in Assembly, asking to be admitted Still Pond, 1908 with two votes — one as a landowner, the other as an By Peter Heck attorney for Lord Baltimore. Her actions make her the first recorded A state historical marker stands at suffragist in America, a distinction Maryland Route 292 and Old Still she undoubtedly would have Pond Road in the village of Still considered inadequate Pond, Kent County. The sign compensation for the Assembly’s commemorates a significant event denial of her request. in this sleepy little town more than a century ago. It wasn’t just women who were denied the vote in the colonies’ The marker reads: “In the village early days.