Issue #98, July 21, 2021 Contents: • Gloria Richardson's Life • the Truth
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Issue #98, July 21, 2021 Contents: • Gloria Richardson’s Life • The Truth About Police Reform • Blacks: Free and Enslaved on the 17th Century Eastern Shore • The Supreme Court: The Last Day • To Do the Right Thing • Ocean City Experiencing Staff and Housing Shortages this Season To read online, go to https://www.CommonSenseEasternShore.org/ ***** Gloria Richardson’s Life Well-known on the Eastern Shore and beyond, she was the primary By CSES Staff leader of the civil rights protests in Cambridge, Md. in the middle Gloria Richardson, who followed in 1960s. the footsteps of her fellow Eastern Shore heroes Frederick Douglass Richardson advocated for civil and Harriet Tubman, died in New rights and economic justice. She York on July 15, 2021. worked in Cambridge for good jobs, _____ Common Sense for the Eastern Shore, Issue #98, 7/21/21 © 2021 Image: Marsh grass, Blackwater NWF, Dorchester Co. Photo: Gren Whitman housing, schools, and health care, Jim Block, “Book: The Struggle is as well as desegregation. In an Eternal: Gloria Richardson and Ebony magazine article, she said Black Liberation, by Joseph R. her “only constituency was African Fitzgerald,” Common Sense for the Americans facing severe poverty Eastern Shore. and racism in Cambridge.” Her https://www.commonsenseeastern choice of tactics was often more shore.org/book-the-struggle-is- strident than the nonviolence eternal-gloria-richardson-and- espoused by other major civil black-liberation-by-joseph-r- rights leaders. fitzgerald She moved to New York in 1964 where she continued to work for ***** civil rights and justice. The Truth About Police Reform The following resources talk about her life and her activism: Michelle Gregory John Lewis and Mike Morgan Recently, in Ocean City, video (photos), “Smoke Screen,” recordings of encounters between Baltimore Magazine. the Ocean City Police Department https://www.baltimoremagazine.co and members of the public once m/section/community/cambridge- again brought the important issue riot-the-legacy-of-civil-rights-hero- of criminal justice and police gloria-richardson/ reform into the spotlight. “Gloria Richardson Dies at 99; Led Unfortunately, every time one of Early Cambridge Civil Rights these events occurs, the calls for Movement,” Chestertown Spy. police reform are met with the https://chestertownspy.org/2021/0 false narrative that reform is anti- 7/17/gloria-richardson-dies-at-99- police or an attack on our brave led-early-cambridge-civil-rights- first responders. This faulty movement/ thinking could not be more detrimental to the safety of our Gary Gately, “Gloria Richardson, community and our public servants. fiery civil rights activist in Maryland showdown, dies at 99,” The truth is that police reform is Washington Post. beneficial for both the community https://www.washingtonpost.com/l and our law enforcement officers. ocal/obituaries/gloria-richardson- However, our current policing dead/2021/07/16/efff2b7e-2253- structure is not working and is in 11e5-84d5- major need of reform. To combat eb37ee8eaa61_story.html crime, we need a complete toolbox, and that is what reform can give. Common Sense for the Eastern Shore, Issue #98, 7/21/21 2 © 2021 Law enforcement is necessary to our law enforcement even more protect society, but they are complex and contribute to many of tasked with too broad an the issues we see in policing today. undertaking with the tools provided. Establishing accountability and The actions of a few officers have providing access to new training resulted in brutality or tragic loss and techniques will improve how of life. In addition, these events we police our community. The have caused fear and distrust of majority of police officers are police in many communities and decent people who provide a have made the job of our law valuable service. They risk their enforcement officers much more lives every day to serve our difficult. communities and keep us safe. These officers agree that those Police reform is good for who don’t follow protocols or who communities because it will help abuse the community are bad for prevent these types of encounters the profession and need to be held from happening in the future, keep accountable. Police reform would unprofessional officers from being create the necessary mechanism to hired again, and rebuild trust. The hold bad actors accountable and objective of police reform is that no ensure that when they get in matter what we look like or where trouble for not upholding the we come from, we all want to know standard of law enforcement, they we can make it home to our cannot just move elsewhere and families at the end of the day. continue their mistreatment of the community. But in the current debate over this issue, the ways in which police Police reform would also provide reform is also good for the police additional education in de- officers is often overlooked or not escalation and implicit bias. The discussed. greater the variety of tools we provide for law enforcement, the There can be no doubt that the more likely it becomes possible to actions of a few bad actors have create positive outcomes for harmed the community's situations like these. perception of the whole profession. These feelings of fear towards Police reform would also help police police and overall distrust make it officers by reducing the so our communities are less likely overwhelming burden we put on to cooperate with police, and them. In our society today, we ask create an unsustainable tension our police to investigate crime, between the community and our address poverty, do traffic stops, police departments. These effects solve mental health issues, work in make the already difficult job of schools, and handle pretty much Common Sense for the Eastern Shore, Issue #98, 7/21/21 3 © 2021 every societal failure we face. We day. Both the community and our need a more holistic approach, one police can’t afford to stay in this in which we don’t depend on just cycle because our elected leaders one group. refuse to put in the hard work required to create legislation, We must also give police the tools educate the community about the to prove they followed the correct legislation, and then turn it into protocols and procedures. law. We need local leaders who are Introducing body cameras for on- willing to address these issues and duty officers is one such policy not “virtue signal” in an effort to be initially perceived as an attack on popular or pander. law enforcement. In actuality, it gave our officers the ability to It’s time to expect more — to defend themselves when they were expect our elected officials to put accused of wrongdoing but had in the hard work. followed the proper protocols and procedures. In theory and practice, I am running for State Senate in police reform isn’t “anti-police”; it District 38 to overcome the hyper- is a tool to provide accountability, partisan divides and address issues transparency, and to allow police just like this. My plan includes officers to show how they serve the diversifying our resources that will community in a positive light. improve community interactions, ending "broken window" and for- In politics today, many of our profit policing, and creating elected leaders and special community oversight. We can interests are resorting to catchy better support the police when we slogans and inflammatory rhetoric don't ask them to shoulder to mislead the public and create society's failures. We can do better fear about police reform. Instead of for all of us. implementing policies that address the issues raised by their constituents, they are focused on Michele Gregory is a Salisbury scoring political points with their City Councilmember and Candidate base while dividing our community for State Senate District 38. and blocking meaningful reform in the process. The problem with this ***** approach is that slogans and inaction won’t address the issues nor help our police. At the end of the day, until we have serious conversations about police brutality and the need for reform, we will continue to exist in an endless cycle that is getting worse by the Common Sense for the Eastern Shore, Issue #98, 7/21/21 4 © 2021 Blacks: Free and Enslaved on free Blacks who immigrated to the 17th Century Eastern Shore Somerset County from Virginia to escape punishment. They bought By Jeanette E. Sherbondy small lots of land and established their roots. Many of their What was slavery like on the descendants still live here: the Eastern Shore of Maryland? It was Driggers and Johnsons, Robert essential to the growing colonial Butchery’s offspring, and the economy, but the history of slavery Grinedge family. Some owned land, was somewhat distinct from that of others were tenants, some married early Virginia and the western Whites and Indians, but they did shore of Maryland and quite not have the legal standing of different from the later slavery of Whites. The Maryland government the Deep South. The answer has to prohibited them from serving in include the free Blacks. The history local militias and they couldn’t of the Eastern Shore is remarkable testify against Whites in a court of for its long history of free Blacks. law. The first 13 slaves in Maryland On the upper Shore where soils arrived on the docks of St. Mary’s were more suitable, there were in Southern Maryland in 1642, but small tobacco farms. Initially the much later on the Eastern Shore. English traded with the Indians for International transportation was the plant, but that soon became easy by ship from the Atlantic to unsatisfactory because they the Chesapeake Bay and then up wanted larger quantities of tobacco the rivers.