The Move the Monument Coalition strongly supports the federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by the NAACP, ACLU and the Maryland Office of the Public Defender demanding the immediate removal of the Confederate statue from the Talbot County courthouse lawn.
“We are thrilled about this development,” said Denice Lombard, a member of Move the Monument Coalition. “It’s long overdue to move this statue that supports slavery when Confederate symbols are being removed in droves across the country, including from the Capitol, US military bases and from the Mississippi flag. Let Talbot County take a stand on the right side of history for all its citizens.”
The coalition, which represents a broad swath of Talbot County residents, calls on the County Council to vote immediately to remove the statue, the last on public land in Maryland. The lawsuit amply describes how the monument is a remnant of a racist and divisive past that does not represent the views of most Talbot County residents.
As Kisha Petticolas, a Black lawyer who has worked in the Easton Office of the Maryland Public Defender and a plaintiff in the suit, put it: “Every day, I have to walk past that statue to get to work. It’s an unavoidable and painfully constant reminder of a time when white people fought for Black people to stay enslaved.”
Richard Potter, president of the Talbot County NAACP and also a plaintiff in the suit, called for the “immediate removal of this white supremacist statue. Confederate monuments have no place in modern day America.”
We wholeheartedly agree and urge all Talbot County residents to join us in Easton June 19 for a march and rally to call for removal of the Confederate monument.
.
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.