While it was perhaps naive to think that Talbot County was finished talking about the Talbot Boys Confederate memorial after the County Council’s decision six months ago to keep the statue where it is, it was surprising to many that it was the State of Maryland’s Open Meetings law that created a second phase of discussion.
Voting unanimously in ruling that the Talbot County Council was in violation of those state guidelines, Maryland’s Open Meetings Compliance Board forced the reopened of this highly emotional controversy. Council members last week were asked to discuss and vote in public on the future of the Talbot Boys to conform with transparency requirements.
Leading the charge was the local chapter of the NAACP ((with the support of the ACLU)) under the leadership of Richard Potter. It was the NAACP that made the original complaint about the Talbot Boys presence on the County Courthouse lawn last year. And, as Potter explains in his second Spy interview, the organization’s local leadership has no intention of backing away from the issue despite the Council’s second affirmation that the statue will stay in place.
In addition to talking about the NAACP’s decision to continue to fight the statue’s removal, Potter also talks about the role and definition of racism in a debate like this one.
This video is approximately six minutes in length
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