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Truth and reconciliation for Howard Cooper

Mr. Louis Diggs, a historian of Baltimore County’s Black communities, attends a ceremony to commemorate the Howard Cooper Marker at 220 Courthouse Court in Towson. Credit: Anthony DePanise, GovPics
ANTHONY_DEPANISE
Mr. Louis Diggs, a historian of Baltimore County’s Black communities, attends a ceremony to commemorate the Howard Cooper Marker at 220 Courthouse Court in Towson. Credit: Anthony DePanise, GovPics

Howard Cooper was just 15 when he was lynched at the Towson jail in 1885. Historians say the mob feared the Supreme Court would void his conviction by an all-white jury … for assault of a white girl.

Why will the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission hold a hearing tomorrow on Cooper’s murder? Commission vice chair Charles Chavis says the pattern of racial terror … stretches to ten African-Americans gunned down in Buffalo, New York this month.

“We have to recognize the importance of valuing and validating the historical trauma and the truths that Black communities have suffered. And we have to recognize that these are not one-offs, anomalies; this is a part of a legacy and a system.”

Links: Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, MLTRC Hearing for Howard Cooper, MLMP Howard Cooper Project, Outrage in Rockland: The Lynching of Howard Cooper video.

Sheilah Kast is the host of On The Record, Monday-Friday, 9:30-10:00 am.
Melissa Gerr is a Senior Producer for On the Record. She started in public media at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn., where she is from, and then worked as a field producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. She made the jump to audio-lover in Baltimore as a digital media editor at Mid-Atlantic Media and Laureate Education, Inc. and as a field producer for "Out of the Blocks." Her beat is typically the off-beat with an emphasis on science, culture and things that make you say, 'Wait, what?'