MENU

Sections

  • Home
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • Editors and Writers
    • Join our Mailing List
    • Letters to Editor Policy
    • Advertising & Underwriting
    • Code of Ethics
    • Privacy
    • Talbot Spy Terms of Use
  • Art and Design
  • Culture and Local Life
  • Public Affairs
    • Ecosystem
    • Education
    • Health
    • Senior Life
  • Community Opinion
  • Sign up for Free Subscription
  • Donate to the Talbot Spy
  • Cambridge Spy

More

  • Support the Spy
  • About Spy Community Media
  • Advertising with the Spy
  • Subscribe
June 15, 2025

Talbot Spy

Nonpartisan Education-based News for Talbot County Community

  • Home
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • Editors and Writers
    • Join our Mailing List
    • Letters to Editor Policy
    • Advertising & Underwriting
    • Code of Ethics
    • Privacy
    • Talbot Spy Terms of Use
  • Art and Design
  • Culture and Local Life
  • Public Affairs
    • Ecosystem
    • Education
    • Health
    • Senior Life
  • Community Opinion
  • Sign up for Free Subscription
  • Donate to the Talbot Spy
  • Cambridge Spy
2 News Homepage News News Portal Lead

Breaking News: Talbot County Council Votes 3-2 to Move the Talbot Boys

September 14, 2021 by John Griep

The county council voted 3-2 Tuesday night to move the Confederate statue on the courthouse lawn to the Cross Keys Battlefield in Harrisonburg, Va.

Cross Keys is a private park under the custody, care, and control of Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation.

Councilman Frank Divilio had the administrative resolution prepared for introduction and vote at the council’s regular meeting.

Divilio was joined by Council Vice President Pete Lesher and Councilman Corey Pack in voting to relocate the statue. Council President Chuck Callahan and Councilwoman Laura Price voted against the move.

Divilio said he had tried to find a local site, but no one wanted the controversial monument.

Price, who had had an administrative resolution prepared to provide for a unity monument that would add a Union soldier statue and the names of Talbot’s Union soldiers to the base, said she thought the issue deserved a public hearing and planned to introduce a numbered resolution at a later date instead.

Price and Callahan urged Divilio to delay a vote on his resolution so a public hearing could be held. But Pack noted a council majority had denied several requests from community groups for meetings to discuss the statue.

The draft administrative resolution to relocate the statue is below.

DRAFT_Administrative_Resolution_-_Relocation_of_Talbot_Boys_Statue_-_September_2021

The 3-2 vote garnered applause from the audience, which consisted almost entirely of those who supported moving the monument, and cheers from the larger crowd gathered outside. Audience seating in the county council chambers is limited to about 30 people, available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 2 News Homepage, News Portal Lead Tagged With: civil war, confederate, monument, removal, statue, talbot boys, Talbot County Council

Cook Backs Removal of ‘Talbot Boys’ Statue

August 21, 2020 by John Griep

This video is about two minutes long.

Easton Council President Megan Cook personally believes the statue to rebel soldiers should be removed from the courthouse grounds.

Cook said she attended two recent rallies protesting the Talbot County Council’s 3-2 vote to keep the “Talbot Boys” statue outside the courthouse.

“And I personally believe it needs to be removed as the courthouse is a place where all residents expect justice and equality,” she said.

Cook noted the town council previously had issued a welcoming statement that the town believes “a more diverse community is a stronger, more vibrant community and is committed to treating all of its residents in a fair and just manner.”

“And I hope that the actions of the county council do not cast a heavy shadow on the amazing town and community we have here in Easton,” she said.

Easton Mayor Robert Willey said there had been some confusion about the town’s role concerning the statue.

The statue is on county property on the courthouse green. The town’s involvement would only occur if the county council votes to remove or modify the statue, he said. At that point, the town’s historic district commission would consider the county’s decision.

Willey also noted that the county would be responsible for issuing assembly permits, if required, for rallies on the courthouse grounds since it is county, not town, property.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 2 News Homepage Tagged With: Easton, megan cook, rebel, removal, talbot boys

Talbot Boys to Stay; Protesters Call for Statue Removal and Council Members to be Voted Out

August 12, 2020 by John Griep

The county council voted 3-2 Tuesday night against removing the statue atop the rebel monument on the courthouse lawn.

The vote on Resolution 290 came after a majority of the members of the Talbot County Council voted against, or abstained from, amendments that called for removing the entire monument, not just the statue.

Protesters affixed signs to the statue calling for the monument’s removal and for council members who voted against removal to be voted out. Photo by John Griep

Council President Corey Pack and Councilman Pete Lesher voted for removal; members Frank Divilio, Chuck Callahan, and Laura Price voted against.

The vote, held in council chambers closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic, drew a quick response from local residents fighting to have the statue removed.

Signs reading “Take it down” and “Vote them Out” were affixed to the statue and a growing crowd gathered on Dover Street outside the courthouse to shout “take it down,” “no justice, no peace,” “black lives matter,” and other chants that could be heard inside the council chambers.

A banner reading “No hate in our state” later was unfurled as the demonstration continued.

After a brief recess near the end of the meeting, the council decided to suspend the remainder of the session.

“We understand that citizens are quite upset over the earlier vote taken today so council is going to go ahead and suspend the balance of this meeting,” Pack announced. “Basically we’re at the end of the meeting.”

“I know there has been a number of people online (teleconference) for public comment. We certainly will take any comment in writing that persons will have,” he said.

Pack, who proposed Resolution 290, had previously voted against the monument’s removal.

“Where I was five years ago is not where I am today,” he said before the final vote. “People change, times change. And I’ve said repeatedly that a man who fails to change his mind will never change the world that’s around him….

“I do not support the Talbot Boys statue remaining on the courthouse lawn. I don’t think it’s appropriate. I know what I’ve said in the past and I’m very much aware of what I’ve said in the past, but it is not appropriate to keep that symbol on the courthouse lawn,” he said.

“I’ve made my apologies to myself, I’ve made my apologies to … persons previously because of my vote in the past. It’s not one of my better votes and I’m ashamed to have voted that way.

“But that’s done, that’s in the past,” Pack said. “We can only look to the future and only make those changes today which will impact our future. I think that not removing that statue will certainly say a lot about this county, a lot about this council as we move forward through the rest of this term and into the next.”

Lesher, in comments before the vote, said the decision would speak to what the county believes in and its failure to change and said he was worried about the effect on the county’s tourism and hospitality industries.

“The removal of this monument … would not change the history of this county and it may not directly improve anyone’s economic or physical well-being, but the number who’ve expressed their feelings in this matter have made it clear that this, this is indeed a powerful symbol and our actions on it tonight, I’m afraid, sadly speak to who we are now as a county and the extent to which we have not yet changed.

“I hope, I aspire, to be better than this.

“Our failure to act to remove this monument from the courthouse square, in our failure to do so, Talbot County increasingly puts its tourism economy at risk along with our legendary reputation for hospitality,” Lesher said. “Whatever it may have meant in the past, the Talbot Boys today is not viewed as a welcoming symbol, that we accommodate all people here with equity and with justice.

“Now, more than ever, if Talbot County’s economy is to recover from the devastating impacts of COVID-19 pandemic, I fear that we further imperil it by allowing us to remain the last holdout of a Confederate monument on public property outside of a battlefield or a cemetery in the state of Maryland.”

Saying it applied to the situation in Talbot County, Lesher also read an excerpt from the speech New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu made in May 2017 after that city removed its Confederate monuments:

“To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past, it is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future.

“History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. Surely we are far enough removed from that dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong. And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African-Americans or anyone else to drive by this property that they as members of the public own occupied by reverential statues and names of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd.

“Centuries old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place. We are better together than we are apart.”

Before the vote, Divilio, Callahan, and Price pushed for delay, arguing the council’s decision to close its meetings to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing technical issues with the audio for the live video and teleconference of meetings had restricted public input.

Divilio and Callahan also called for the public to decide the issue by putting the statue’s removal on the ballot in 2022, while Price argued that the resolution was improperly introduced because the council only was meeting during the pandemic to deal with critical operations and the budget.

“I’d like to push it down the road a little bit,” Callahan said, noting the two amendments introduced Tuesday night.

He said it is difficult to hold meetings without the public in attendance.

“This is a big deal for a lot of people and it’s a big deal for us to make such a historical decision on something that is 150 years old. We’re changing the way we’re looking at history,” Callahan said. “I think we better really take a couple steps back and make sure we’re doing the right thing and at this time I don’t think we’re doing the right thing.”

Price also opposed taking action Tuesday night and suggested Resolution 290 had been improperly introduced.

“Because we have had no public input on amendments 2 or 3, I believe that that is inappropriate for us to take any votes on the amendments this evening and additionally the entire resolution should not have been introduced under our emergency order,” Price said. “We were only supposed to deal with critical legislation and the budget at this time. As an example, we let several pieces of legislation expire including short-term rentals that’s also supposed to be voted on this evening.

“Certainly this is a worthy issue to be given its proper attention but it is not appropriate to vote on tonight when we still lack sufficient public comment, knowledge of the cost of any removal, approval of the historic district commission … and knowledge of where and how the statue will be stored,” she said. “Because we have not had that feedback from the public and I believe this resolution was introduced at a time that was deemed only critical to county operations and the budget, I believe that we should not vote on anything this evening, but especially the amendments which have had no public input at all.”

Pack noted amendments are often introduced by members and voted on without additional public hearing and the proposed amendments were not deemed as substantive changes to the overall bill.

And, unless Resolution 290 is passed, there is nothing to take before the Easton Historic District Commission, he said.

Pack and Lesher also noted the first amendment, which would have changed Resolution 290 to include the removal of the entire monument, had been publicly available before the July 28 hearing on the resolution.

“If the statue is simply removed, there will never be a statue that represents a very complex period in the county’s history,” Price said. “If people haven’t come together with any effort over the past five years, it surely isn’t going to happen once it’s gone.”

Divilio said he had offered an idea for a unity statue, suggesting a group be formed to develop a design and raise funds for a new monument.

“I’m committed to move forward with a plan, a committee, and a ballot question so that we can put this issue to rest with full public input at the nearest possible election,” he said.

“Now it’s time for us to put it back to the community, if they’ve asked three different councils to change their opinion and we’ve tried, we’re putting it back to the community to put it on a ballot question would be my plan so that everybody has an opportunity to voice their opinion.”

With the pandemic and a budget freeze, Callahan said it was the wrong time for the council to vote on the issue. He also called for the public to decide the fate of the statue.

“I think that this should be in the hands of the community and not our hands. This is something that should be voted on from the community. People have asked me many, many times can you put it on the ballot? We all know we can’t do that this go-round. We’d have to do it in ’22.

“It’s only fair that the community make that decision, not us. I feel very uncomfortable with something that’s happened 155 years ago and I’m making a decision on whether this thing should go or not. I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think that should be my decision, I don’t think it should be the council decision, I think it’s the community that should be making that.”

Callahan also noted a prior council had rejected the statue’s removal in recent years and had said it would consider a Union statue if a group proposed one.

Pack noted Callahan had frequently said in the past that county voters had elected him to make decisions.

“So you can’t go back and forth and say one day they hired you to do a job … and now say you’re going to throw it back on the people,” Pack said.

Divilio interjected, arguing that Pack was twisting his and Callahan’s comments, but Callahan said to let Pack finish.

Pack noted he had not mentioned Divilio’s comments and was simply highlighting Callahan’s prior statements contradicting his stance on the statue removal.

“Let’s go back five years ago,” Callahan responded. “We’re dealing with your change right now; you’ve done flip flopped 180 degrees. We’re dealing with that as a council. So if I feel like it’s the wrong time and we need the public to vote on this, that’s what I think. So don’t tell me I’m this and I’m that ….”

After a somewhat heated discussion between the two men, Callahan said, “We’re talking history here…. And nobody’s here that’s on that statue — there’s 84 names on that statue — and they can’t stand in front of us and tell us what their thoughts are. And that’s something you need to think about too.”

This is the third time the county council has rejected calls to remove the monument, which has a statue of a young flag bearer holding the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia atop a base listing the names of 84 men from Talbot County who fought against the United States.

As the nation continues to grapple with the wounds of its history of slavery, white supremacy, and racism, and amid cries for equal justice for all races, former rebel states have seen fit to remove the battle flag of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army and to remove statues to rebel leaders from public spaces.

Mississippi voted this summer to remove the battle flag from its state flag. Richmond, Va., capital of the Confederacy, removed all Confederate monuments from Monument Avenue.

In Talbot County, more than 400 patriots fought for the Union, significantly higher than the 84 rebels who fought against their state and country.

Marjorie Opalski, right, and daughter Jessica listen to the county council Tuesday night outside the courthouse lawn. Photo by John Griep

As the council met Tuesday night, Marjorie Opalski and daughter Jessica stood at the main Washington Street entrance to the courthouse lawn. Marjorie Opalski held her cell phone, listening to the council discussion on speaker, as Jessica held a sign that read: “No Confederate statues.”

While mother and daughter were the only two demonstrating earlier Tuesday night, a crowd began gathering on the lawn after the vote, moving to the entrance to the courthouse’s south wing, where the county council meets, before moving to the sidewalk along Dover Street where they chanted for justice and the statue’s removal outside the windows to the council chamber.

Among the crowd were Easton Council President Megan Cook and Talbot NAACP President Richard Potter. A marked Easton Police Department SUV drove down Dover Street several times, but didn’t stop.

Talbot County Sheriff Joe Gamble and a deputy arrived about 8:30 p.m. and went inside the building for a period of time before Gamble left less than 30 minutes later.

At about 9 p.m., the demonstrators split into several groups to ensure all exits from the south wing of the courthouse were covered and council members would have to face citizens upset about the vote.

This video is approximately 39 minutes in length 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 2 News Homepage, News Portal Lead Tagged With: confederate, confederate flag, county council, courthouse, statue, talbot boys

Talbot County Council Votes to Keep Talbot Boys in Place; Protesters Chant for Justice

August 11, 2020 by John Griep

The Talbot County Council voted 3-2 tonight to keep the controversial Talbot Boys statue on the county’s courthouse lawn. With Council President Corey Pack and Councilman Pete Lesher voting to remove the Confederate memorial, the balance of the council, including Council Members Chuck Callahan, Frank Divilio, and Laura Price, voted in the majority to keep the Talbot Boys in place.

Shortly after the decision, some one hundred protesters spontaneously arrived in downtown Easton to voice their opposition to the decision.

The Spy will have a full report on the vote on Wednesday.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 2 News Homepage, News Portal Lead Tagged With: black lives matter, confederate, county council, protest, statue, Talbot, talbot boys

Council Can Vote Tuesday on ‘Talbot Boys’ Removal

August 10, 2020 by John Griep

The county council can vote Tuesday night on the latest effort to remove the “Talbot Boys” from the courthouse green.

Resolution 290, introduced by two of the five council members, calls for the removal of the statue of a young flag bearer carrying the battle flag of the rebel Army of Northern Virginia. As introduced, the resolution would allow the base, containing the names of Talbot County men who fought against the United States, to remain.

An amended resolution has been introduced by Councilman Pete Lesher and Council President Corey Pack, who introduced the initial resolution. The amended resolution calls for the removal of the entire monument and removes language that would have banned depictions of soldiers.

Lesher also plans to introduce two amendments during Tuesday night’s meeting, according to the agenda.

One would change language concerning the statue’s relocation to have the monument safely stored in the care of the county “until a place for its ultimate relocation can be identified and prepared.”

The second would establish a restricted county fund to receive any private contributions toward the cost of removing the monument.

During a July 28 public hearing on the resolution, the overwhelming majority of those calling into the meeting of the Talbot County Council urged members to completely remove the monument.

The council also was given a petition with 30-plus pages of signatures of people calling for the Talbot Boys to be removed from the courthouse green. A video entitled “I am Talbot County” also was submitted into the record.

“Statues are not how history is taught. It’s not about erasing history, but about what history to glorify,” one caller said. “What we do not support is a monument glorifying the Confederacy.”

Another caller cited a community survey in which 63% of respondents said racism is an issue in Talbot County.

“The Confederacy should not be glorified and that’s what the Talbot Boys statue does,” another caller said.

“This isn’t the first time the removal of the monument has been discussed. I hope it will be the last,” he said. “The question now is what side of history do you want to be a part of.”

“To commemorate is to celebrate” and the statue symbolizes racism and slavery, another caller said.

David Montgomery disagreed.

“The monument is to soldiers of Talbot County, not to slavery, not to the Confederacy,” he said.

Montgomery argued that it was highly unlikely that Talbot’s soldiers were fighting to preserve slavery.

Paul Callahan argued that Talbot’s rebels were fighting against Lincoln’s unconstitutional actions during the war against the secessionists.

“During the Civil War, what was done in Maryland was unconstitutional, unlawful, and brutal,” Callahan said, citing martial law, the suspension of habeas corpus, and the arrests of thousands of Marylanders suspected of Southern sympathies.

But Benjamin Rubenstein noted that Talbot’s rebel soldiers fought for the Confederate States of America.

“Even if they didn’t own slaves, they fought to protect slavery,” he said. “There’s no place for racism and white supremacy” on the public square.

Larrier Walker agreed that the fact that someone fought in a war could not be separated from “what they fought for.”

“Where in Germany are there statues or memorials to Hitler or the Nazis?” he asked. “There are none. To African-Americans and others, the Talbot Boys are just like Hitler and the Nazis.”

Henry Herr, who circulated the petition for the statue’s removal, noted the seceding states went to war against the U.S. in order to preserve slavery.

“The vast majority of historians have proven it time and time again,” he said.

“This symbol is a scourge of Talbot County,” Herr said. “Stand up for the minorities in your community who have been begging you to take it down.”

One caller said he was related to 10% of the names on the Talbot Boys monument.

He noted that the monument has 84 names, but many times that number from Talbot County fought for the United States.

The “time has come to remove” the monument and show that “Talbot County does not hold racism as a central tenet,” he said.

Others noted that the courthouse green was the site of the county’s slave auctions, where the KKK met in the 1880s, and where thousands gathered — just a few years after the Talbot Boys monument was erected — in an attempt to lynch a black man accused of sexually assaulting a white girl.

Keith Watts said the statue stands on hallowed ground — the site where thousands of Talbot’s slaves were brought to auction, where families were torn apart, “sold on the very spot that that statue stands.”

“Those people have no voice now. They need to be heard down through the ages,” Watts said. “The weight of history is on you tonight. The eyes of the nation and world are on you tonight. If Mississippi can do this, Talbot County can do this.”

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 2 News Homepage Tagged With: civil war, confederate, monument, Talbot, talbot boys, Talbot County Council

Removal of ‘Talbot Boys’ Statue Topic of Tuesday Night Public Hearing

July 26, 2020 by John Griep

UPDATE: At the advice of the county health officer, the Talbot County Council has closed its meetings to the public. Members of the public will not be allowed to attend in person. Information on how to view the meeting virtually or listen by phone is at the end of this story.

A proposal to remove the statue of a rebel flagbearer from a monument on the courthouse green will be up for public comment Tuesday night.

The public hearing on Resolution 290 — set for 6:30 p.m. July 28 in the Talbot County Council chambers — largely will be virtual. The council chamber is limited to 10 audience members to ensure social distancing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Concerns about the coronavirus — with cases dramatically increasing in Talbot County in the past three weeks — scuttled the original plan to hold the public hearing in the Talbot County Auditorium at Easton High School.

Resolution 290 — introduced by Council President Corey Pack and Councilman Pete Lesher — calls for the removal of the statue of a young man carrying a rebel battle flag atop the monument base listing the names of Talbot County men who went to war against the United States.

The resolution also would prohibit “new statues depicting persons, signs, or symbols associated with military action … on County-owned property” and calls for new monuments  to focus on “the names of those American servicemen and women who served in the conflict.”

It also makes it clear that the prohibition “does not apply to the statue of Frederick Douglass, who is remembered for his contributions to civil society. ”

Resolution 290

The resolution was proposed by Pack; Lesher joined him in its introduction but said he would seek to amend it to remove the entire Talbot Boys monument.

Pack, who previously has voted against the removal of the monument, changed his mind after the May 25 death of George Floyd and ensuing protests against racism in the U.S. Floyd, a Black man accused of passing a counterfeit $20, died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

In addition to Pack, two other council members, Laura Price and Chuck Callahan, previously have voted against removing the Confederate monument. Lesher and Councilman Frank Divilio are both in their first terms on the county council and have not voted on the issue.

Divilio, during the council’s June 23 meeting, suggested a unity statue that would list the names of Union and rebel soldiers from Talbot County, with a statue depicting soldiers from each side.

His proposal is modeled after the Civil War monument in Chestertown, which lists the names of soldiers from both sides, and the state of Maryland monument at Gettysburg, which shows a wounded Union soldier and a wounded rebel soldier helping each other on the battlefield.

Tuesday’s council meeting begins at 6 p.m. in the Bradley Meeting Room in the south wing of the Talbot County Courthouse. The 10 available seats will be available on a first-come basis and face masks must be worn at all times inside the council chambers unless addressing the council.

To view the meeting virtually:

  • Go to www.talbotcountymd.gov, click on the picture of the Talbot County Council on the bottom left hand corner of the page and you will be directed to the video streaming page (which you may access directly at www.talbotcountymd.gov/index.php?page=council-meeting-videos). Closed captioning is available on the livestream video.
  • Watch via YouTube at www.youtube.com/midshorecommunitytelevision
  • Easton Cable subscribers may view the meeting through TV-Channel 98
  • Listen to the meeting by calling 833-491-0327

To provide public comment:

  • Submit written public comments to the Talbot County Council via email to [email protected] or via mail to County Council, Courthouse, South Wing, 11 N. Washington St., Easton, MD 21601.
  • To provide public comments verbally during the County Council meeting, call 833-491-0327

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 2 News Homepage Tagged With: county council, removal, Talbot, talbot boys

‘Talbot Boys,’ Diversity Issues Cause Contention at County Council Meeting

June 24, 2020 by John Griep

Editor’s note: This article has been updated since its original publication. The public hearing for Resolution 290 is 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 28, at the Easton High School Auditorium.

The question of the “Talbot Boys” statue and issues concerning diversity created unusual contention among county council members at Tuesday night’s meeting.

The Talbot County Council considered two proposals concerning the monument and statue to Confederate soldiers on the courthouse grounds; two administrative resolutions regarding diversity; and a request to send a letter supporting federal legislation on police accountability and training.

Council President Corey Pack sought most of those measures, noting he had changed his mind on the statue, which he voted to retain four years ago.

Pack has proposed removing the statue but keeping its base, which names county residents who had served in the armed forces of the Confederate States of America — including some who moved to Talbot after the Civil War, also known as the War of the Rebellion.

Resolution 290 would require the removal of the Talbot Boys statue and would prohibit any statues depicting persons, signs, or symbols associated with military action on Talbot County property.

Councilman Pete Lesher joined Pack in introducing the resolution, but noted he would seek to amend it to include the removal of the base as well.

A public hearing on Resolution 290 is set for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 28, at the Easton High School auditorium.

Councilman Frank Divilio offered a different approach, one that was slated for discussion only on Tuesday night.

Divilio suggested a unity statue that would list the names of Union and rebel soldiers from Talbot County, with a statue depicting soldiers from each side.

His proposal is modeled after the Civil War monument in Chestertown, which lists the names of soldiers from both sides, and the state of Maryland monument at Gettysburg, which shows a wounded Union soldier and a wounded rebel soldier helping each other on the battlefield.

Pack also asked fellow council members to consider two administrative resolutions — one to require the development of a diversity statement to include in the county employee handbook and another to require a report from the county manager regarding diversity training for county employees.

Both resolutions refer to the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department and said Floyd’s death “has prompted important conversations across the country about racism and has galvanized support for concrete steps at all levels of government to promote police reform and greater cross-cultural sensitivity.”

No vote was taken Tuesday night on developing a diversity statement after Councilman Pete Lesher’s motion to move the resolution to a vote died for lack of a second.

The council voted 4-1, with Councilwoman Laura Price opposed, to require the diversity training report from the county manager.

A future report will provide additional details.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 2 News Homepage Tagged With: council, diversity, talbot boys, Talbot County

Op-Ed: Pack, Lesher Show Courage on ‘Talbot Boys’ by Peter Franchot

June 19, 2020 by Opinion

The past several months have brought momentous change in our country and our state, as we all have grappled with a global pandemic that sadly has claimed too many lives, made so many people sick and brought our economy to a halt.

For some weeks now, we also have been confronted with the brutal murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and that of Rayshard Brooks by an Atlanta police officer at a Wendy’s drive-thru.

Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot

Those horrifying incidents, which stirred painful memories of the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile and too many others, serve as a devastating reminder that institutional racism is still a corrosive reality in our country, and that not all Americans enjoy the same equal rights and protections under the law.

A few weeks ago, Easton was the site of a peaceful protest in front of the Talbot County Courthouse. The protesters gathered to express their anger and frustration with the racial discrimination that continues to divide this amazing community, and did so in a true spirit of peace.

Since that memorable event, the Talbot Boys Monument — both the mere fact of its existence and its prominent location on the Talbot County Courthouse lawn — has once again become a focus of public outcry.

As many of you already know, I have called for the removal of this awful statue, which was dedicated at the height of our nation’s “Jim Crow” era and romanticizes white supremacy and an act of treason against the United States.

Talbot County is one of my favorite places to visit. Over the years, I have attended many meetings, events and special occasions in your thriving towns from Oxford, Easton, and St. Michaels, to your prosperous farms and waterways from Tilghman, Trappe, and Cordova.

Talbot has so many centers of commerce and economic activity, cultural and educational offerings and medical facilities. It is a magical place of beauty, recreation and open spaces. I also have met so many wonderful people — of all ages, races and creeds — which for me and others makes the Talbot Boys Monument stand in stark contrast to the community I have come to know and enjoy.

There is no place in Talbot County, in Maryland, or our larger society for statues embracing heroes of slavery, violent white supremacy and treason.

People of all colors throughout the country are speaking out.

They are tired of being subject to the remnants of a time when human beings were allowed to be bought, sold and traded as the property of others, and were subject to the worst possible forms of physical abuse, sexual assault and emotional ruin, simply because of the color of their skin.

They are tired of living with harassment, abuse, economic discrimination, violence and murder because of the color of their skin.

They are tired of the endlessness of it all.

Placed on the courthouse lawn in 1916, the Talbot Boys Monument is not an historical edifice and its supposed educational value is that it has served as a propaganda tool to romanticize white supremacy, to legitimize acts of treason and to civilize the brutality of slavery.

If you want to experience a real hero, take a few steps to the other side of the courthouse lawn and admire native son, orator, writer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who fled his years of enslavement on a Talbot plantation to freedom and to become a true statesman.

I am in full support of the bipartisan effort by Talbot County Council President Corey Pack and Talbot County Councilmember Pete Lesher in drafting a resolution to bring down the Talbot Boys statue. Both men have shown strength and courage in standing up for what is right for all citizens of Talbot County.

Their beliefs mirror the community’s resolve. I would urge the remaining council members to consider their careful and thoughtful arguments and to listen to the expressions for justice and equality by the protesters.

This is a time of moral clarity for our country. It is a time to do away with symbols that treat men and women differently simply because of the color of their skin. It is time to blot out images that conjure hurt and fear.

I believe Talbot County is up for the challenge of doing what is right.

I have faith that the voices of this community will be heard.

Peter Franchot is comptroller of the state of Maryland. He plans to run for governor in 2022.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Op-Ed Tagged With: jim crow, Op-Ed, Opinion, peter franchot, removal, Talbot, talbot boys

Douglass: On the Cause of the Civil War and Honoring Rebel Soldiers

June 15, 2020 by John Griep

As Talbot County again debates the propriety of maintaining a statue on the grounds of the county courthouse to soldiers who fought for the Confederate States of America, it may be illustrative to read the words of Frederick Douglass concerning the cause of the war and whether rebel soldiers deserved the same honors as Union veterans and war dead.

Douglass, arguably the greatest native of Talbot County, was born a slave and escaped north to became a world-renowned orator and statesman and a leading abolitionist.

In speeches during and after the Civil War, Douglass made it clear that slavery was the reason for the rebellion of southern states against the United States of America.

In a lecture delivered repeatedly in the winter of 1863-1864, Douglass said:

“We are now wading into the third year of conflict with a fierce and sanguinary rebellion, one which, at the beginning of it, we were hopefully assured by one of our most sagacious and trusted political prophets would be ended in less than ninety days; a rebellion which, in its worst features, stands alone among rebellions a solitary and ghastly horror, without a parallel in the history of any nation, ancient or modern; a rebellion inspired by no love of liberty and by no hatred of oppression, as most other rebellions have been, and therefore utterly indefensible upon any moral or social grounds; a rebellion which openly and shamelessly sets at defiance the world’s judgment of right and wrong, appeals from light to darkness, from intelligence to ignorance, from the ever-increasing prospects and blessings of a high and glorious civilization to the cold and withering blasts of a naked barbarism; a rebellion which even at this unfinished stage of it counts the number of its slain not by thousands nor by tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands; a rebellion which in the destruction of human life and property has rivaled the earthquake, the whirlwind and the pestilence that waketh in darkness and wasteth at noonday.

It has planted agony at a million hearthstones, thronged our streets with the weeds of mourning, filled our land with mere stumps of men, ridged our soil with two hundred thousand rudely formed graves and mantled it all over with the shadow of death. A rebellion which, while it has arrested the wheels of peaceful industry and checked the flow of commerce, has piled up a debt heavier than a mountain of gold to weigh down the necks of our children’s children. There is no end to the mischief wrought. It has brought ruin at home, contempt abroad, has cooled our friends, heated our enemies and endangered our existence as nation.

Frederick Douglass

“Now, for what is all this desolation, ruin, shame suffering and sorrow? Can anybody want the answer? Can anybody be ignorant of the answer? It has been given a thousand times from this and other platforms. We all know it is slavery. Less than a half a million of Southern slaveholders — holding in bondage four million slaves — finding themselves outvoted in the effort to get possession of the United States government, in order to serve the interests of slavery, have madly resorted to the sword — have undertaken to accomplish by bullets what they failed to accomplish by ballots. That is the answer.”

— From www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1864-frederick-douglass-mission-war

During the Decoration Day ceremony on May 30, 1871, at Arlington National Cemetery, Douglass continued to remind the nation that the war had been fought over slavery. He also made clear his thoughts that rebel soldiers — who had fought for slavery — should not receive the same honors as Union soldiers — who had fought for their nation and for liberty and justice.

Honoring the “Unknown Loyal Dead” buried at the cemetery, Douglass said:

Those unknown heroes whose whitened bones have been piously gathered here, and whose green graves we now strew with sweet and beautiful flowers, choice emblems alike of pure hearts and brave spirits, reached, in their glorious career that last highest point of nobleness beyond which human power cannot go. They died for their country.

No loftier tribute can be paid to the most illustrious of all the benefactors of mankind than we pay to these unrecognized soldiers when we write above their graves this shining epitaph.

When the dark and vengeful spirit of slavery, always ambitious, preferring to rule in hell than to serve in heaven, fired the Southern heart and stirred all the malign elements of discord, when our great Republic, the hope of freedom and self-government throughout the world, had reached the point of supreme peril, when the Union of these states was torn and rent asunder at the center, and the armies of a gigantic rebellion came forth with broad blades and bloody hands to destroy the very foundations of American society, the unknown braves who flung themselves into the yawning chasm, where cannon roared and bullets whistled, fought and fell. They died for their country.

We are sometimes asked, in the name of patriotism, to forget the merits of this fearful struggle, and to remember with equal admiration those who struck at the nation’s life and those who struck to save it, those who fought for slavery and those who fought for liberty and justice.

I am no minister of malice. I would not strike the fallen. I would not repel the repentant; but may my “right hand forget her cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,” if I forget the difference between the parties to that terrible, protracted, and bloody conflict.

If we ought to forget a war which has filled our land with widows and orphans; which has made stumps of men of the very flower of our youth; which has sent them on the journey of life armless, legless, maimed and mutilated; which has piled up a debt heavier than a mountain of gold, swept uncounted thousands of men into bloody graves and planted agony at a million hearthstones — I say, if this war is to be forgotten, I ask, in the name of all things sacred, what shall men remember?

The essence and significance of our devotions here to-day are not to be found in the fact that the men whose remains fill these graves were brave in battle. If we met simply to show our sense of bravery, we should find enough on both sides to kindle admiration. In the raging storm of fire and blood, in the fierce torrent of shot and shell, of sword and bayonet, whether on foot or on horse, unflinching courage marked the rebel not less than the loyal soldier.

But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause. We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic. We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation’s destroyers. If today we have a country not boiling in an agony of blood, like France, if now we have a united country, no longer cursed by the hell-black system of human bondage, if the American name is no longer a by-word and a hissing to a mocking earth, if the star-spangled banner floats only over free American citizens in every quarter of the land, and our country has before it a long and glorious career of justice, liberty, and civilization, we are indebted to the unselfish devotion of the noble army who rest in these honored graves all around us.

— Text of Douglass speech from Philip S. Foner and Yuval Taylor, “Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings.”

Douglass also warned of the “Lost Cause” mythology developed after the war that the rebels had been fighting for states’ rights, not to preserve slavery. And he challenged the laudatory obituaries about General Robert E. Lee in 1870 and opposed any monuments honoring Lee or supporting the Lost Cause interpretation.

In 1989, historian David Blight wrote this about Douglass:

In the midst of Reconstruction, Douglass began to realize the potential power of the Lost Cause sentiment. Indignant at the universal amnesty afforded ex-Confederates, and appalled by the national veneration of Robert E. Lee, Douglass attacked the emerging Lost Cause.

“The spirit of secession is stronger today than ever …,” Douglass warned in 1871. “It is now a deeply rooted, devoutly cherished sentiment, inseparably identified with the ‘lost cause,’ which the half measures of the Government towards the traitors have helped to cultivate and strengthen.”

He was disgusted by the outpouring of admiration for Lee in the wake of the general’s death in 1870.

“Is it not about time that this bombastic laudation of the rebel chief should cease?” Douglass wrote. “We can scarcely take up a newspaper . . . that is not filled with nauseating flatteries of the late Robert E. Lee.”

At this early stage in the debate over the memory of the war, Douglass had no interest in honoring the former enemy.

“It would seem from this,” he asserted, “that the soldier who kills the most men in battle, even in a bad cause, is the greatest Christian, and entitled to the highest place in heaven.” …

As for proposed monuments to Lee, Douglass considered them an insult to his people and to the Union. He feared that such monument building would only “reawaken the confederacy.”

Moreover, in a remark that would prove more ironic with time, Douglass declared in 1870 that “monuments to the Lost Cause will prove monuments of folly.”

As the Lost Cause myth sank deeper into southern and national consciousness, Douglass would find that he was losing ground in the battle for the memory of the Civil War.

— Taken from https://blogs.dickinson.edu/hist-288pinsker/files/2012/01/Blight-article.pdf

In 1894, in one of his last public speeches, Douglass continued to make the case that the American public should not forget that the rebels fought to preserve slavery and waged war against the nation.

“Fellow citizens: I am not indifferent to the claims of a generous forgetfulness, but whatever else I may forget, I shall never forget the difference between those who fought for liberty and those who fought for slavery; between those who fought to save the Republic and those who fought to destroy it.”

Among those debating the issue today, some still continue to believe that a major cause of the war was states’ rights, and not slavery. This view was expounded by Southerners after their decisive loss as part of the “Lost Cause” mythology of the war that included a romanticized view of the Old South and slavery itself. (For a synopsis of the Lost Cause ideology, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy#:~:text=The%20Lost%20Cause%20narratives%20typically,superior%20military%20skill%20and%20courage)

Among those spreading the revised narrative after the war was Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the Confederate States of America.

Yet Stephens — just a few weeks before rebel troops started the war by firing on American soldiers at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, S.C. — made it absolutely clear that he agreed with Douglass: The cause of the war was slavery and the Confederate states were founded on the idea of white supremacy.

In what became known as the Cornerstone Speech, Stephens — after highlighting what he cited as several improvements in the Confederate constitution over the U.S. Constitution — said:

The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

— Excerpt from https://www.owleyes.org/text/the-cornerstone-speech/read/text-of-stephenss-speech#root-38

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Archives Tagged With: frederick douglass, lost cause, slavery, talbot boys, Talbot County

The Future of the Talbot Boys in 2020 with Council President Corey Pack

June 15, 2020 by Dave Wheelan

Long before the murder of George Floyd last month, the Talbot County Council has been wrestling with the future of the Talbot Boys monument on its courthouse green. Five years ago, in the wake of the Charleston Church Massacre in 2015, the local chapter of the NAACP petitioned Talbot County to remove the confederate statue. And after a considerable public debate, the Council unanimously voted to keep the Talbot Boys with the then Council president, Corey Pack, speaking on its behalf to defend their decision in November of 2015. 

Five years later, Corey Pack is still Talbot Council president, but his conviction that the Talbot Boys memorial not be removed has changed dramatically. After much soul-searching after the tragedy in Minneapolis and the growing support of the Black Lives Matter movement, Pack and his current council colleagues will be moving forward with a resolution on June 23, that would remove the sculpture of the confederate soldier from its base. That proposal will open up a process that will once again ask Talbot County citizens for public comment, and Mr. Pack is the first to admit that there is much to say about this compromise solution where the names of those who served in the Confederacy remain in place.

In his Spy interview on Sunday, President Pack outlines the rationale for this proposal, including the belief, based on his own research, that the United States Congress had approved a bill that designated all who served in the Confederacy as United States veterans. That is one of several considerations Pack notes in detailing a deliberate process to reach his conclusion that the Talbot Boys base should remain. Pack also discusses what he is recommending as action steps for Talbot County to be on the forefront of ending racial inequality. 

(Editor’s fact check: The U.S. Congress did not designate those who fought for the Confederacy as U.S. veterans. This claim, which began circulating in 2015 after the Charleston Church Massacre, is based on a 1958 law that gave the widows of Confederate veterans a pension benefit. At that time, there were an estimated 1,500 Confederate widows alive; the last known surviving Confederate veteran had died seven years earlier, in 1951.)

This video is approximately twelve minutes in length.

 

 

 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 1 Homepage Slider, 3 Top Story Tagged With: Corey Pack, talbot boys

Next Page »

Copyright © 2025

Affiliated News

  • The Chestertown Spy
  • The Talbot Spy

Sections

  • Arts
  • Culture
  • Ecosystem
  • Education
  • Mid-Shore Health
  • Culture and Local Life
  • Shore Recovery
  • Spy Senior Nation

Spy Community Media

  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
  • Advertising & Underwriting

Copyright © 2025 · Spy Community Media Child Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in