To the Honorable Council of Talbot County: I respectfully request you approve a resolution to remove the Confederate Monument, known as the “Talbot Boys”, from the Talbot County Courthouse lawn as soon as possible.  The statue (and base) represent the darkest chapter in American history, when it was legal and accepted to enslave men, women and children simply because of the color of their skin.  A chapter that, astonishingly, has not yet been closed, as represented by the continuing struggle for equality in America.  The statue was erected in 1916 during the Jim Crow era to ‘honor’ men who fought against the United States in support of racism and white supremacy – erected specifically as an affront to African Americans.  It is reprehensible to have it stand in front of the county courthouse, the site where all people are supposed to receive equal justice under the law.  The figure representing Justice is blindfolded – the Talbot Boys in front of our County Courthouse says this is not true if you are black.

Move it to a battlefield or war cemetery if you must, or, better yet, bury it as an long overdue acknowledgement that racism in America should be buried once and for all.

George Dappert
Cordova

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My Family has been in Talbot County since 1672. They were slave owners. I am not proud of that. It is just one reason why the entire monument must be removed from the Courthouse grounds–the place of justice, the guarantor of rights for all people.

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To the Talbot County Council: Like you, I’ve been reading articles and letters on both sides of this issue, thanks to our local news outlets. I’ve been talking with friends.  I’ve been thinking a lot about it.

I very much support the idea of knowing our history. I think too often we have forgotten our history which includes acts of aggression and suppression from our earliest days which we don’t like to acknowledge and talk about. The truth is we need to talk about it more, more frankly, more honestly, more openly.

But knowing our history does not mean somehow glorifying it. The Talbot Boys statue to me does not only acknowledge those who fought in a terrible war on the side of slavery but rather gives them a place of “respect and prominence” on the Courthouse lawn next to, of all people Frederick Douglass!

There have been a number of suggestions about moving the statue to a different location, a less offensive location,  a “learning“ location. Maybe a group of Talbot residents could be appointed to see a relocation carried out.

But with so many County residents finding it offensive and hurtful, GET IT OFF THE COURTHOUSE LAWN.

Connie Lauffer
St Michaels

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As our community once more debates the monument memorializing Confederate troops at our courthouse in Talbot County, the conversation almost always leads to a discussion of Talbot County’s ‘heritage.’ I have thought a lot about that term over the past few days. With that, please sit back and enjoy yet another white man’s take on this sensitive issue.

What action or practice qualifies as our heritage? Can heritage be good or bad, but important, nonetheless? What is the Eastern Shore’s heritage? What is Talbot County’s? The first that comes to mind is our watermen and farmers. Surely, those occupations, passed from parent to child for generations, qualify as our local heritage. As do the hobbies of sailing, biking, artistry, and more. I would also concede a person, or group of people, can become a part of a community’s heritage, if that community continues to learn from that person or people.

The statue to Frederick Douglass, colleague and confidant to arguably the greatest president this country has ever had, meets that high standard. I learned about him and his lasting impact on our society in both Easton Middle & High schools. Does a monument memorializing Confederates do that? Not even our local schools bother teaching students about it! And so, setting aside the fact that far more men from Talbot County fought for the Union Army than the Confederacy and that a monument honoring solely Confederate rebels actually distorts, rather than preserves, history, does a four year blip in the history books of Talbot County meet the high standards of determining a community’s heritage?

The Waterfowl Festival, Plein Air, even Oxford Regatta are part of this community’s heritage. These are institutions, like the Avalon Theatre, that continue to have long-lasting impacts on our community. The Confederacy lasted four years – even the band Nirvana lasted longer than the C.S.A. – it is not a part of our heritage.

Removing this monument, both the statue and the pedestal, from the grounds of our courthouse is neither an insult to the bravery of a select number of our ancestors, nor an act of political correctness. Rather, it is an acceptance that the cause for which our ancestors fought – the continued enslavement of human beings – was wrong. It is an acceptance that we as a community have grown from the days of Jim Crow and the resistance of civil rights. It is one, small way this community can attempt to heal the racial divide in this country so that a young black man never has to walk into a judicial system already rigged against him and question the cruel irony behind placing a statue of arguably the most famous abolitionist in our nation’s history opposite a memorial honoring those who fought to oppress and subjugate him.

If you want to talk to someone with a strong heritage and history of opposing the government, go talk to an Irishman – there aren’t any more Confederates left anyway. It is time to end this needlessly distracting debate over ‘heritage’ and remove this misleading and distorting monument.

Patrick Firth serves on the Talbot County Democratic Central Committee, the Board of the Talbot County Democratic Forum, and is a resident of Trappe.

Our bone spurred buffoon of a president showed his real colors these last couple of days. Friday the color was yellow when he went to hide from the protesters in the White House basement bunker. After being criticized for this cowardly behavior (where were the Secret Service?), he saw red on Monday and ordered Lafayette Square cleared of peaceful protesters who only exercised their 1st Amendment right of free speech. Military police and federal officers from different agencies were called in. They dispersed a gas similar to tear gas and shot at the protesters with rubber bullets. Mounted Park Police also scared away protesters with their horses. The whole scene was like a page stolen from a banana republic’s playbook.

The bone spurred buffoon then proceeded across Lafayette Square with his retinue of Secretary of Defense Mr. Esper, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley and others to the boarded up historic St. John’s Episcopal Church. The bone spurred buffoon then held a bible high. Nothing was said. This was just a photo op without protesters.

The regions Episcopal Bishop, Mariann Budde, was furious and delivered a televised speech saying that her church should not be part of a photo op without warning by a President who probably never opened a bible.

Many former military officials, some of whom served in the bone spurred buffoon’s administration, condemned bringing in the military to DC. General Mattis who served as the first Secretary of Defense wrote a very damning letter in the Atlantic Magazine. Many military officials pointed out that the US military is there to protect us from foreign enemies, not from peaceful American protesters.

The Mayor of DC tried to evict all military and federal police from DC. She may not have succeeded to do that yet, but she allowed 16th street leading away from the White House to be painted in gigantic, yellow letters across the double carriageway and running for several blocks: BLACK LIVES MATTER.

Lena Gill
Easton

Today is May 21th. In three short months 92,500 persons have died of covid-19 in the US.  United States have about 4.5% of the world’s population but 31% of covid-19 cases. The number of covid-19 cases in the US is about 1.500,000 to date. President Trump applauds himself for having done such an excellent job controlling this epidemic and orders businesses to open up.  Cases of covid-19 are still increasing in some states.  He also informs the public that he is taking hydroxychloroquine as a covid-19 preventative, which it is not according to the medical profession, while he refuses to wear a mask when he meets the public.  He never expresses any empathy with the families of the 92,500 who have died here of a virus which has been much more successfully controlled in many other countries.

A protest with body bags lined up outside the White House was planned for today.  People are disgusted by Trump’s childish antics and inability to express the needed leadership.  

“Mourning in America” is also the name of an ad put together by the Lincoln Project, a group of former Republicans, headed by George Conway III and Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain’s presidential campaign.  George Conway III is a well-regarded lawyer but more famous as the husband of Kellyanne Conway, President Trump’s advisor.  This ad seriously angered Trump and caused him to put out a tweet storm directed at the members of the Lincoln Project.  The ad can be seen on YouTube.  It talks about how “…under the leadership of Donald Trump, our country is weaker, sicker and poorer.  And now, Americans are asking, ‘If we have another four years of this, will there even be an America?’”

Lena Gill
Easton

As a nation, we are facing the worst economic blow since the Great Depression. State and local governments around the country are preparing austerity budgets as we enter an extended ‘new normal’ in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. But not St. Michaels. The majority leadership of the town commissioners apparently believes the old normal will come charging back over the next fiscal year. That is contrary to what most leading economists and business leaders expect.

Unlike other municipalities, we are handing out pay raises, and committing the town, in this time of uncertainty, to new debt for capital projects that should be delayed. The commissioners, by a vote of three-to-two, have passed a budget that snips a bit here and there, but falls far short of what’s needed. The majority leadership is forging ahead with building a new $3-million-dollar town office that’s too big, too expensive, and in the wrong place. They also want to spend another $200,000 to extend brick sidewalks on Talbot Street far beyond the core business district. And they are dipping into the town’s reserve funds to balance a bloated budget.

We can’t go on as if this pandemic never happened and will soon disappear. St. Michaels depends heavily on tourism for revenue. Will tourists come flocking back? Not likely, since all of the events that have drawn them in the past have been cancelled. And probably not likely until we have a vaccine, widespread testing, contact tracing, and proven drugs for treatment. Yet the leadership has budgeted for a mere 25-percent drop in tourism traffic.

This is not a time for head-in-the-sand policies. And it’s not a time for business-as-usual. Yes, the commissioners claim they can adjust the budget later, if necessary. Instead, we should be reducing our debt load rather than adding to it. We should be investing in our future now…building on our resources to diversify the local economy. If we don’t act now, the owners of the town’s 835 taxable properties will be left to carry the entire load.

This is a critical moment in our town’s history and there is no room for error, and no room in our budget for excess, or personal agendas. We are asking the majority leadership to restructure the budget now, instead of waiting until the full weight of financial ruin is upon us. We all hope the town will recover quickly, but we should also be prepared if it doesn’t.

David Breimhurst
Tad duPont
Cathy Stinchcomb
Sue Ann Raring
John Novak
Marie Martin
Marian Brown
Sara Robins
Maggie Anderson
Scott Anderson
Karen Wald
Ron Watson
Ann Watson
Jonathan Dietrich
Aida Kahlil