Northeast
Democratic governor faces pushback from lynching research commission over reparations stance
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Members of the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission pushed back against Gov. Wes Moore’s objection to creating a reparations commission, asserting that their work ties directly to the immediate action he calls for.
“I mean, we’re doing it,” Nicholas M. Creary, a member of the commission, told Fox News Digital.
“If it goes according to plan. We’re going to be getting draft legislation introduced into session this year. So whether he thinks we need to talk about it or do more, my guess is that the reparations commission isn’t just going to necessarily study, but they’re also going to make recommendations for things to do,” Creary added.
The Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report last month after being established in 2019. The report is described as the first state-sponsored effort in the United States to investigate, document and “reckon with the history of racial terror lynching within its own borders.”
The Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report last month after being established in 2019. (Getty)
MARYLAND RECOMMENDS $100K PAYMENTS TO DESCENDANTS OF LYNCHING VICTIMS AFTER STUDY
Moore vetoed an effort to establish the Maryland Reparations Commission. His reasoning for vetoing the commission stemmed from a need for immediate action. The governor penned a letter stating that it was a “difficult decision” and also that “now is not the time for another study.”
In an interview with “The Breakfast Club’s” Charlamagne tha God, Moore explained that he is a “person of action.”
“Exactly. I mean, listen, what I said was, ‘I’m a person of action. I don’t need more studies.’ I’m like, ‘We’ve done four studies over the past 20 years on similar types of elements,’” Moore said in October. “By the way, one of which my wife worked on. And, so, when we’re now talking about doing a two-year study on something that I already know the answer to, I’m like, ‘What are we studying?’”
The governor’s veto was overridden by state lawmakers. The Maryland Reparations Commission would appoint 23 members to assess local, state and federal policies from the Reconstruction and the Jim Crow eras. The commission will recommend reparations ranging from cash compensation to a statement of apology.
While the members told Fox News Digital that the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission is separate from the Maryland Reparations Commission, they defended their work, as it is similar.
Charles Chavis, who is part of the state’s Lynching Truth and Reconcilation Commission, said that their work could help address the more immediate issues the governor seeks to solve in regard to racial justice.
Among 84 recommendations, the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission proposed that state leaders atone for the past through cash payments. The commission recommended that $100,000 per person be issued to descendants of lynching victims after a state-sponsored lynchings study. (OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty Images)
“When we look at homelessness on the eastern shore – the various issues that have been plaguing Maryland’s eastern shore and other areas, there’s a direct line that can be drawn with some of these incidents of racial terror and racial violence that have yet to be addressed,” Chavis said. “The state has been aware of this. And so to take the governor more on this point, yes, let’s do something about it. And I think that is what the legislation is dealing with.”
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS HOSTED STATE-FUNDED COMMITTEE MEETING WHERE PROFESSORS ADVOCATED FOR REPARATIONS
In their report, the commission concluded that state officials and institutions were complicit in 38 lynchings that followed the Civil War and that the perpetrators were never held accountable in any of the deaths. Among 84 recommendations, the group proposed that state leaders atone for the past through cash payments. The commission recommended that $100,000 per person be issued to descendants of lynching victims.
The recommendations consist of nine categories, including apology and acknowledgment of responsibility, symbolic reparations, material reparations, criminal justice, community healing, mental health, education, media and implementation.
MARYLAND GENERAL ASSEMBLY CALLED OUT FOR OVERRIDING GOVERNOR’S VETO ON ‘FOOLISH’ REPARATIONS COMMISSION
The commission members said that reparations are bigger than monetary compensation. Commission member David Fakunle said there is no cost to educating the public about the truth of Maryland history.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore vetoed an effort to establish the Maryland Reparations Commission. His reasoning for vetoing the commission stemmed from a need for immediate action. The governor penned a letter stating that it was a “difficult decision” and also that “now is not the time for another study.” (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“There are a lot of these things that can happen with no cost at all, and can certainly be the utilization of resources that are already being applied to certain elements of the state’s running, so to speak. And so we have to be patient. We know about patience when it comes to this work,” Fakunle told Fox News Digital. “We don’t want people to reduce the repair of this legacy to money. That is very limiting, because first and foremost, we should not put a price tag on a person’s life, although we are doing it in this case. But what we are acknowledging is that there are so many things that allow this to happen without any accountability.”
Chavis said one of the reasons he’s proud of the report is because it addresses the issues Moore has expressed.
“Our report should do nothing more than provide additional evidence as to why the present day reform is needed. But we can’t pretend like these injustices and this harm and the community issues have just happened out of nowhere. They have a history and there’s a legacy attached to the community’s suffering that needs to be alleviated,” Chavis said.
Moore’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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President Trump is visiting the Lehigh Valley next week.
Mr. Trump will speak at Mack Trucks in Macungie, Pennsylvania, Tuesday at 2 p.m. Macungie is roughly 10 miles from Allentown.
Mack Trucks is a 1.7 million square-foot facility in Macungie that assembles heavy-duty trucks for North American and export markets, according to its website.
“Mack Trucks are a symbol of America’s manufacturing strength,” Rep. Dan Meuser said in a Facebook post about Mr. Trump’s upcoming visit to Pennsylvania. “Their Lehigh Valley operations are a pillar of the local economy, employing Pennsylvania workers and driving the nation’s trucking industry.”
In the lead-up to the 2024 election, Mr. Trump visited Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, multiple times. He’s also visitied during his second term.
In December 2025, Mr. Trump said in a speech in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, that he was “crushing” inflation and called affordability concerns a “Democratic hoax.”
One week later, Vice President JD Vance aimed to calm the affordability concerns at a Uline facility in Alburtis, about 13 miles southwest of Allentown.
Tickets are available for Mr. Trump’s visit to Macungie next week on a first-come, first-serve basis.
“They were truly the unrelenting voices of their time, and made sure that this was something that happened because they knew it was important,” Jess Motyl-Szary, director of Rhode Island Pride, said in an interview on Thursday.
The 1976 pride march came after local Bicentennial Committee organizers “refused meeting space for the group of community members hosting the Congress of People with Gay Concerns,” according to research by Matthew Lawrence and published on the Providence Public Library’s website.
“Calling themselves Toward a Gayer Bicentennial Committee, the group sued the official Bicentennial Committee and won the right to assemble at the Old State House, where about 30 people met in June 1976 to discuss civil rights concerns,” according to Lawrence.
But the contingent also had to fight to join the Bicentennial Parade after they were initially denied the right to do so by officials who pointed to the state’s anti-sodomy law at the time, according to Motyl-Szary.
The 76ers “knew that being a part of an existing parade meant there was a little bit of safety there, because it was an existing infrastructure,” Motyl-Szary said.
“But it also meant that there was a much higher visibility for them to be able to be out there, be proud, and show other people who might not have been out that there is a safe space for them,” Motyl-Szary said.
With the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union, they won the right to march, she said.
“It wasn’t safe to be out in the ’70s,” Motyl-Szary said. “Incredibly great people marched. Some had to march with paper bags on their heads because there were no legal protections to protect their jobs, their home, their families, but [it was] still incredibly brave to go out there, create visibility, and create this organization.
“Being here 50 years later, and being a part of their legacy has been so incredible,” she said.
A lot has changed for LGBTQIA+ Rhode Islanders in the decades since, Motyl-Szary said.
“But the closeness of it still feels relevant because we’re seeing these continued attacks in our community, and a very real resurgence of attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community, especially our trans brothers, sisters, and siblings,” Motyl-Szary said.
Since returning to office last year, the Trump Administration has taken aim at transgender rights across the country, especially after President Donald Trump signed an executive order recognizing two sexes, male and female. Among other actions, Trump has often sought to tie adherence to the order with federal funding requirements, and the administration has also attempted to gather private medical records from hospitals that provided gender-affirming care to transgender children and teens.
Reflecting on what pride means to her right now, Motyl-Szary said pride festivities are new to at least somebody every year.
“Someone is coming and getting to feel this embrace, this huge hug of their community for the first time every year,” she said. “And in a time like this, when our community is being told that we are hated by the rest of our community, by the rest of our country, when we are told we should hate ourselves, coming out and celebrating ourselves, loving ourselves, loving each other is so incredibly important. Our community creates the space that we need.”
Motyl-Szary said she also believes that “queer joy is resistance.”
“There is a real need for us to have a space and a celebration of who we are and to remind ourselves that we are worthy of love and that we are worthy of being a part of a community that gathers, celebrates, and fights for ourselves and our rights,” she said.
Rhode Island Pride kicks off on Friday night with the “Golden Anniversary Eve” party from 6 to 8 p.m. at the 195 District Park in Providence, Motyl-Szary said.
Festivities continue at the park on Saturday with yoga at 10 a.m. and PrideFest entertainment beginning at 11 a.m., alongside approximately 260 vendors, she said. A rally at 2 p.m. will focus on “what’s happening, get people motivated to be involved in [the] community to speak up and be an activist in whatever way is right for their path of activism,” Motyl-Szary said.
The Illuminated Night Parade steps off at 7:30 p.m. at Washington and Empire streets before moving through downtown Providence, according to organizers.
Christopher Gavin can be reached at christopher.gavin@globe.com.
SHELBURNE — Norman Rockwell lived for a time in suburban New York City and died and was buried in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. But for 14 years in between, the artist spent perhaps the most prolific period of his career in Vermont creating his best-known works.
That’s how Shelburne Museum curator Carolyn Bauer sees it — and how the museum’s latest exhibition treats the artist.
“Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont,” which opens June 20 and runs through Oct. 25, displays 40 of the 175 covers Rockwell famously created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine during his time in Vermont between 1939 and 1953.
Also on display are prints of “The Four Freedoms,” maybe his most famed works of all, which represent American ideals spelled out by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. Paintings in the exhibition include “The Young Lady with the Shiner” and “The Tattoo Artist,” both whimsical, recognizable pieces used as covers for The Saturday Evening Post.
“It’s very accessible work and approachable,” Bauer said.
The display features the three paintings that inspired the exhibition, given to the Shelburne Museum by Rock of Ages, the Barre granite quarry and monument maker. Those Rockwell paintings filled a significant gap in the museum’s art collection, which includes works by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Grandma Moses and Andrew Wyeth but, until recently, none by Rockwell, perhaps the best-known artist to have lived here.
“It feels like a homecoming in many regards,” Bauer said.
Moving to southern VT, finding ‘the every American’
The exhibition frames Rockwell’s time in Vermont around the tenor of the times in America. As the Great Depression was ending, World War II was looming and the nation was growing more urban and industrialized, much of the public was yearning for greater simplicity, Bauer said.
Rockwell was among them, leaving New Rochelle north of New York City for the quietude of Arlington in southern Vermont.
He was not alone. Contemporary artists including Mead Schaeffer, John Atherton and Gene Pelham would settle in Arlington too, creating what Bauer termed “the golden illustrator days” in Vermont.
Rockwell’s art, as the 152-page hardcover catalogue accompanying the exhibition notes, shows “how Vermont itself came to embody American ideals in the national imagination.”
Rockwell and his fellow Arlington artists used each other as models in their creations. “They really would work collaboratively,” Bauer said.
Pelham’s daughter, Melinda, is shown in the exhibition in two works: “The Babysitter,” a painting of a girl holding a crying baby that’s on loan from The Fleming Museum at the University of Vermont and an admission submission Rockwell sent to Kellogg’s of a girl clutching a cereal-laden spoon to her mouth.
Doctors, mail deliverers and shopkeepers from Arlington populated his work. Bauer said Rockwell usually gave models $5 and a can of Coca-Cola.
“He was recycling and using just about everybody in town,” Bauer said. That included himself: Rockwell added his own visage to the multiple faces in “The Gossip,” which shows him lashing out at a woman who’s started the rumor-mongering.
Bauer said Rockwell wanted to cultivate a sense of place by using Vermonters known for their austere self-reliance at the forefront of his work. He also found “the every American” ideal in town, Bauer said, though his art reflected a pronounced lack of diversity.
In later work, Rockwell would confront race and segregation as the Civil Rights Movement swept the U.S.
“He was progressive,” Bauer said.
Inspired by paintings donated by Rock of Ages
“Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont” was inspired by the 2025 museum acquisition of a trio of Rockwell works that once hung in the Barre offices of Rock of Ages. The granite company contacted the museum asking if it could donate the paintings, Bauer said, prompting staffers to wonder momentarily, “Is this real?”
Rockwell created advertisements for Rock of Ages and gave the paintings upon which the ads were based to the company. “Kneeling Girl” from 1955, making its debut at the Shelburne Museum, takes place in front of a gravestone engraved with the name Newton.
Rock of Ages donated two versions of 1963 work “The Craftsman,” a muted draft and a more luminous final version that were first displayed at the museum last year. They depict Rock of Ages stonecutter George Seivwright working in the shadow of a memorial bearing the name “Norwell,” a portmanteau of Rockwell’s first and last names.
Bauer called the paintings “incredible works of art that were circulated widely” in ads, brochures and pamphlets touting Rock of Ages and its world-famous Vermont granite. Though Rockwell had left Vermont for Massachusetts by the time he created those paintings, they do what Rockwell had done when he lived in Arlington — show the nation and the world what Vermont and Vermonters are capable of.
“We are just eager for our visitors to see these paintings,” Bauer said.
If you go
WHAT: “Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont”
WHEN: June 20 through Oct. 25
WHERE: Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education, Shelburne Museum
INFORMATION: $8-$25 museum admission; free under age 5 and for active military and Shelburne Museum members. shelburnemuseum.org
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@burlingtonfreepress.com.
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