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Gaithersburg reviewing streets, other memorials named after those with ties to slavery

February 3, 2022 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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BY DAN SCHERE |JULY 9, 2020 | 4:35 PM

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The Gaithersburg City Council is reviewing the history of streets and other memorials named after people with ties to slavery. Among the names under review is Benjamin Gaither, the man after whom the city is named.

Gaither, a landowner in Montgomery County, was a member of a family whose roots extended to the Jamestown Colony in the 1600s, Bethesda Magazine reported in 2009. The Gaithers settled in Maryland after the Revolutionary War. Benjamin and his wife Margaret stayed in the area that is Gaithersburg today.

Benjamin Gaither maintained an enslaved labor force, like most landowners at the time, Karen Lottes, the program coordinator of the Gaithersburg Community Museum, wrote in an email to Bethesda Beat. According to census records, he owned 10 slaves in 1800 and 11 slaves in 1810, Lottes wrote.

Another man who owned slaves in Gaithersburg was Frederick A. Tschiffely, who bought 268 acres of farmland in the area where the Kentlands is today, according to state historical records. Tschiffely owned slaves, and in 1856, tried to sell one by placing an advertisement in the Montgomery County Sentinel.

Resident David Goldberg lives on Tschiffely Square Road, which is named after the slave owner. He hopes city officials will change the name.

He wrote to the City Council this month with the request.

“I don’t like living on a street named after a guy who owned slaves,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.

The discussion over the renaming of streets comes after the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died on May 25 in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes. Floyd was on the ground and said repeatedly that he could not breathe, as seen in a video.

That officer, Derek Chauvin, and three others have since been fired and charged criminally.

In the weeks since Floyd’s death, protests have broken out across the country, with some resulting in the removal or destruction of Confederate monuments due to the belief that they uphold slavery’s racist legacy. Those opposed to removing the memorials say the history needs to be remembered, despite the wrongdoings of the past.

In Montgomery County, the County Council has asked County Executive Marc Elrich and Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson to review the names of county streets and facilities. Additionally, there have been multiple petitions asking for schools in the county to be renamed.

During a Gaithersburg City Council meeting last month, Council Member Ryan Spiegel asked the city staff to compile a list of streets and facilities that might be named after people with ties to slavery.

Spiegel, in an interview on Wednesday, said Gaither and Tschiffely are just two examples of slaveholders who lived in the city. The city’s staff is conducting a review that has a much broader scope, Spiegel said.

“Many of the names for Montgomery County’s history can be traced back one way or another to slave ownership or other racist policies and practices from the eras from which they come,” he said.

Spiegel said the city will have to consider nuances, such as in cases in which a street is named after a son or grandson of a slave owner.

The review of the names, Spiegel said, is in the early stages.

“I don’t want to leave the impression that we’ve made a decision and we’re definitely changing names or have a path forward. I think this is something that needs to be a community discussion,” he said.

Spiegel said there are also outstanding questions over how the name of a street — or the city, for that matter — might be changed.

“I don’t exactly know how that works. Does the city have free rein, broad, local government authority to make decisions to change names? What are the logistical implications? Do we have to work with the postal service to make sure it all works out? Do we have to work with public safety services to make sure first responders have updated names of maps and streets?” he said.

Mayor Jud Ashman said on Tuesday that renaming can be complicated, but it is worth taking the matter up for consideration.

“The fact is, Maryland was a slave state and Montgomery County was no exception,” he said.

“I don’t think any renaming would be undertaken lightly. But at the same time, we have to reckon with what the history is.”

Dan Schere can be reached at daniel.schere@bethesdamagazine.com

The History of Lynchings in Montgomery County

Where Slavery Slept

February 3, 2022 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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BY MARK WALSTON |SEPTEMBER 27, 2010 | 12:00 AM Bethesda Magazine

Execution of a slave, in The Anti-Slavery Record, vol. 2, no. 1,... | Download Scientific Diagram

For more than a century, the small stone building stood on the site of today’s National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, its weathered walls attesting to its early 19th-century origins. A photographer from the federal Historic American Buildings Survey captured its crumbling state in the 1940s—the chimney collapsed, a sagging center door flanked by a shuttered window, holes in the shingled roof of the story-and-a-half building admitting the rain and rotting the joists.

The nearby manor house of the estate on which the deteriorating structure once sat had long vanished. But the small stone building remained, a remembrance not only of Bethesda’s past, but of a troubling period in the county’s history: a period when slave quarters such as this were commonplace.

On the eve of the Civil War, more than 5,400 slaves resided in Montgomery County, accounting for more than one-third of all residents. Today, their quarters are often the only visible reminders of their existence. No one is certain how many slave dwellings have survived; the passage of time has obscured many buildings’ original use. But throughout the county, about two dozen documented slave quarters remain—out of the thousands that once dotted the landscape. All serve as reminders of the captive pain of an earlier generation and offer insight into lives often hidden from history.

By the 19th century, the quarters had become a symbol so firmly connected with slavery in all its horrible aspects that Harriet Beecher Stowe needed look no further for a connotative title for her incendiary novel. Sympathetic readers in 1852 well understood the implications of the “small log building close to ‘the house,’ ” the meaning behind Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

That novel had its genesis partially in slave life in the Bethesda area. Stowe recounted how in her work—subtitled Life Among the Lowly—the character of Uncle Tom was to some extent based on her reading of the 1849 autobiography of Josiah Henson, once a slave on the farm of Isaac Riley, not far from the current intersection of Old Georgetown Road and Rockville Pike. Henson described the slave housing on the Riley farm as “log huts, of a single small room, with no other floor than the trodden earth, in which ten or a dozen persons—men, women, and children—might sleep, but which could not protect them from dampness and cold.”

Those log huts no longer remain—although Riley’s house still stands at the corner of Old Georgetown Road and Tilden Lane. Now owned by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, it’s periodically open to the public. Attached to the unassuming, late 18th-century frame house is a wing constructed of logs that has familiarly become known as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”—a mistaken appellation, perhaps, since it wasn’t actually Henson’s cabin, but used primarily as a kitchen. However, a passage in Henson’s memoir relates that, after escaping to Canada and later returning to the farm a freeman, he still spent the evening in “the cabin used for a kitchen, with its earth floor, its filth, and its numerous occupants.”

The arrangement was not uncommon. Domestic servants were often assigned sleeping areas within, above or adjacent to the service rooms of the main house—kitchens, sculleries, pantries and the like. At the Beall-Dawson house in Rockville, a substantial brick dwelling built around 1815 and today operated as a museum by the Montgomery County Historical Society, slaves lived in rooms above the kitchen wing, their quarters plain and unadorned, the plaster walls whitewashed but devoid of the finishes—mantles, chair rails and moldings found throughout the house. In addition to sleeping in these rooms, the domestic slaves carried out the daily chores of sewing, spinning, providing nursery care and whatever else was demanded. A narrow staircase led down to the kitchen below, and a slight flight of stairs went up to the second-floor bedroom in the main block, thus keeping the slaves out of sight but well connected to their expected duties of attending to the household.1 

Such arrangements, however, were reserved for the domestic servants of the wealthier Montgomery County residents. Most owners held fewer than 10 slaves, the majority of whom worked the fields; for them, the accommodations were decidedly more meager. Single male farmhands often were lodged above or adjacent to free-standing farm buildings—meat houses, barns and stables. At Needwood Mansion, an 1857 manor house situated near Redland and now housing Montgomery County Department of Parks, the second story of the estate’s stone icehouse was put to use as slave quarters. The upper room, accessible by an exterior staircase, measured 12 feet by 18 feet. The stone walls were coarsely plastered and a stove flue rose from one wall, about the only indications of human habitation.

Stand-alone quarters for families and groups of slaves often were found on the larger Montgomery plantations, sometimes in a village setting, with rows of identical buildings. A pattern was followed: The closer the quarters were to the main house, the more they resembled the master dwelling in finishes and materials. If the “Big House” was of brick or stone, so were the quarters, albeit scaled-down and constructed purely for aesthetic reasons, the owner not wanting unsightly buildings cluttering the view of the rear yard. The farther from the main house, however, the cruder the dwelling.

The Oakley Cabin on Brookeville Road, just west of the town of Brookeville, is now a museum operated by the Montgomery County Department of Parks. It was built in the 1820s as one of three slave dwellings that sat some 400 yards in front of the main house. Notched oak and chestnut logs, hewn square, the interstices daubed with clay and straw, were stacked atop a fieldstone foundation prised from the surrounding land. Inside the 21-by-15-foot cabin were three rooms, two down—the communal area with a wood floor and a hearth at one end—and a sleeping loft above reached by a boxed staircase. The arrangement, though scant, was decidedly more luxurious than the typical quarters for field hands.

Although wood was the primary building material—as it was for the majority of dwellings in the county—stone and brick quarters did exist. But, being generally more costly to build than log or wood frames, they were found primarily in the yards of the wealthier farmers. At historic Far View, near Brookeville, the stone quarters mirror the Oakley cabin in size and floor plan, with a centered door and flanking window on the northern bay nearest the chimney end matched by a door and window in the southern facade. The quarters offers few other indications of its slave inhabitants, having been converted by its private owners to use as a modern guest house.

Some slaves lived in long, multiunit quarters, often barracks-style, with up to a dozen men, women and children—related and not—living together in an open space that afforded no privacy. Others lived in dormitories, with the interiors partitioned into a common space and a series of small chambers. In 1848, a slave owner in the county advertised the sale of one such dormitory on his plantation near Brookeville, a quarter “25 by 15 feet, log, one and one half stories, divided into seven rooms, lathed and plastered above.”

At Riverview, an early 19th-century estate near Seneca, a large stone quarters, dormitory in style, was built on an L-plan next to the main house, forming an open-ended, U-shaped courtyard. The date “1835” is inscribed in the lintel of the main door. The longer leg of the quarters, about 16 by 30 feet, was believed to be the sleeping area; the shorter leg served as communal space. Other traces of the slave inhabitants were erased in the 1950s, when the building’s interior was substantially altered in its conversion as a youth hostel, offering overnight shelter to hikers and bikers along the nearby Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

Duplexes were also common arrangements for county slaves, with two units built together, connected by continuous exterior walls. At Mount Carmel, near Dickerson, just such a double quarters was built of local stone, 36 feet in length and divided into two separate living units, each with its own exterior entrance, both with one room down and a loft above. Stone fireplaces with brick stacks rise from the ends of the quarters; one is incised with the date “1833.” John Trundle, who owned the estate in the early 19th century, willed Mount Carmel to his daughter, Mary E. Gott, in 1836, shortly after the quarters were constructed. At the time of emancipation, Mary owned 10 slaves—seven of whom were members of a single family, the Halls, including the matriarch, Fanny, and her six children, all living together in the double quarters. Evidence of their occupation was obliterated when these quarters, too, were remodeled into a guest cottage.

Mark Walston is an author and historian raised in Bethesda and now living in Olney.1 2View Comments

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Uncover a heritage of heroes in Montgomery County, Maryland

February 3, 2022 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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At the Josiah Henson Museum and Park, visitors can feel the weight of the past. Interpretive exhibits based on Henson’s writing reveal details of everyday life on a plantation, while a log kitchen offers an immersion into an enslaved cook’s experience. The venue is one of many African American heritage sites throughout Montgomery County, Md., which played a key role in the Underground Railroad.

Almost 80 percent of American tourists participate in cultural heritage activities during their travels, and more of them are seeking out opportunities closer to home. Travelers from the D.C. area can find a rare combination of heritage sites and outdoor experiences in nearby Montgomery County. Home to one of Maryland’s largest collections of African American history, the area has links to heroic abolitionists like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, and offers heritage sites that range from hiking trails evoking the Underground Railroad to living history centers that depict 19th-century plantation life.

Along with the Josiah Henson Museum and Park, African American heritage sites such as Woodlawn Manor Cultural Park & Underground Railroad Experience Trail, Button Farm Living History Center and Oakley Cabin African American Museum and Park give visitors to Montgomery County a deeper appreciation for the efforts of freedom seekers.

“We live in a time where all folks are waking up to other histories,” said Sarah Rogers, the executive director of Heritage Montgomery. “If you learn, you care, and if you care, you want to preserve this place.”

Heritage sites that evoke life before emancipation

Being close to the free North and having access to several bodies of water made Maryland an important location for the Underground Railroad. The Potomac River, C&O Canal and Seneca Creek, for instance, made it more feasible for enslaved African Americans to reach cities like Baltimore and D.C., both of which had large free Black communities. Montgomery County in particular became a gathering point for freedom seekers, largely because of its geography. The county is close to the Mason Dixon line separating the North and South, as well as Pennsylvania, offering easier access to the Ohio Valley and up to and across the Great Lakes into Canada.

The Reverend Josiah Henson, for example, escaped enslavement on the Issac Riley plantation by fleeing to Canada in 1830. Henson then became a conductor on the Underground Railroad, helping 118 enslaved people escape to Canada, and later published an autobiography that included vivid depictions of his enslavement. That autobiography, “The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada,” heavily influenced Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” which became an inspiration for the abolitionist movement.

That history comes alive at the new Josiah Henson Museum and Park. “Josiah Henson’s narrative provides direct insight into the remarkable events he endured, and the freedom he eventually secured for himself, his family and numerous others who were enslaved,” said Cassandra Michaud, the senior archaeologist for Montgomery Parks. Michaud led archaeological investigations that uncovered more than 50,000 artifacts at the Josiah Henson site, largely from kitchen fireplace sweepings, and was a member of the design and construction team for the museum. Visitors can learn context around Henson’s story at the log kitchen, where audio recordings feature formerly enslaved people describing their work experiences. Another exhibit showcases Henson’s direct quotes alongside illustrations created specifically for the museum.

“This site is unusual in that the visitor is learning about the history from the viewpoint of someone enslaved,” Michaud said.

For a more active immersion, visitors can head to the Woodlawn Manor Cultural Park & Underground Railroad Experience Trail. The four-mile route is scenic, but poses challenges meant to evoke an enslaved person’s attempt to escape. “It’s really exploring what it would be like if you decided to run. And it’s quite eye-opening,” said Rogers. Hikers can go it alone or follow a guided trek that provides historical context along the way. Nighttime hikes are also available and can give visitors a deeper sense of what the search for freedom often required.

Afterwards, visitors can explore Woodlawn’s stone barn interpretive center, where exhibits unpack the lives of enslaved people, as well as local communities that were founded by newly emancipated people.

“One of the biggest points that’s examined is the relationship that the Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers, had with slavery. They really started to reflect [on enslavement] and ask hard questions in the early 1800s,” said Rogers.

Experiences that help communicate “the deeper story of slavery”

The story of the Quaker communities in Montgomery County offers a solid jumping off point for a visit to The Oakley Cabin African American Museum and Park. The property, on the site of what used to be an African American roadside community, was once home to three nearly identical log cabins. One of the cabins, known as Oakley Cabin, has been preserved and turned into a living museum. Inside, historical artifacts depict how a formerly enslaved person would have lived after being newly freed. Tours are available that describe life for the area’s African American families during the Reconstruction Era in the 1800s, but the outside of the property is also open to visitors, including surrounding trails and a picnic area.

Anthony Cohen, a historian and the president of Button Farm Living History Center, wants visitors to Montgomery County to think about the “after-effects” of slavery, from Reconstruction to the Jim Crow era to our present legal and justice systems. After leading a walking group through Underground Railroad towns from Maryland to Canada in 1996, Cohen was tapped to help Oprah Winfrey prepare for her role in the film “Beloved.” He created an immersive experience of what plantation life for an enslaved person would have been like, from menial labor to an overnight escape attempt.

The experience inspired Cohen to establish Button Farm Living History Center, where visitors and school groups can participate in “hands-on, tactile” educational programs that interpret plantation life in Maryland and the story of the Underground Railroad.

“All of the experience is in real time, true to life, and we use that as a point of engagement to talk about and communicate the deeper story of slavery that you don’t find in history books,” Cohen said.

On hour-long Button Farm Almanac tours, visitors can go behind the scenes of how the property operates. That could mean encountering cotton plants in the museum garden, where more than 75 varieties of heirloom vegetables and herbs that appeared in Montgomery County’s earliest agricultural records are grown. Children might be prompted to consider what a historical artifact, like a clam shell, would have been used for on the plantation. From those hands-on activities, visitors “get an insight into how enslaved Montgomery Countians lived,” Cohen said.

Those learning experiences also tend to prompt discussions about connections that can be drawn from slavery to today, because Cohen makes it a point to ask visitors thoughtful questions.

“We always ask them, ‘What are the modern parallels? What are the correlations? What is unjust today in similar ways that slavery was unjust then?’ We want them thinking about those issues,” Cohen said.

Learn more about visiting Montgomery County’s African American Heritage Sites

An Old Bridge Speaks About Race and History

February 3, 2022 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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 David Rotenstein posted 12-26-2018 11:44 Preservation Leadership Forum

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Patricia Tyson has lived in her Silver Spring, Maryland, neighborhood for most of her life. She believes that the nearby Talbot Avenue Bridge, which is slated for demolition in early 2019 to make way for the construction of the new Purple Line light rail, has a voice. When Tyson was a child growing up in the African American hamlet of Lyttonsville, the bridge’s rattling wood deck announced her parents arriving home from a long day’s work. Today Tyson says that the bridge speaks to people about history and reconciliation. On a warm fall day in September 2018, Tyson introduced more than 200 people to the bridge’s voice during a festival celebrating its centennial. 

“When I was growing up here, the bridge had a voice. It still has a voice,” Tyson said. “It bridged the gap between two or three neighborhoods. By having this celebration and by the many events that have been happening, it has brought these communities closer together.” 

One Bridge, Multiple Stories 

The Talbot Avenue Bridge was completed in 1918 to carry cars and pedestrians over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Nearly a century later, as plans for the new light rail line moved forward, Montgomery County officials determined that the bridge was unsafe, and they closed it to vehicular traffic in spring 2017. When architectural historians evaluated the bridge for the National Register of Historic Places, they determined it eligible for listing as an engineering resource and recommended that it be documented prior to demolition on that basis. 

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The Talbot Avenue Bridge in June 2017. | Credit: David Rotenstein

But Lyttonsville residents like Tyson have a different understanding about the bridge’s historical significance. For most of the 20th century, Lyttonsville was the “other side of the tracks” from Silver Spring, a sundown suburb where racially restrictive deed covenants prevented African Americans from buying and renting homes—and where Jim Crow rigidly segregated public spaces and businesses. The only African Americans who lived in unincorporated Silver Spring were domestic servants. As late as 1967, people who lived there touted its appeal to whites moving from neighboring Washington, D.C. “It’s nice; there’s no colored here,” one resident told magazine writer Judith Viorst.

To the African American residents of Lyttonsville, the bridge was an essential lifeline connecting them to jobs in Silver Spring and Washington. It also enabled them to access busses to movie theaters and stores in Washington, where their presence and money were welcome. But these facets of Lyttonsville’s history had been rendered invisible. Published histories and historic preservation documents had omitted Lyttonsville and elided the roles that segregation and Jim Crow played in Silver Spring’s history. 

Lyttonsville’s remaining African American residents—many who lived there before urban renewal have moved or passed away—repeatedly told planners working for the Maryland Transit Authority and the Montgomery County Planning Department about the bridge’s importance and their attachment to it. The planners, however, didn’t seem to understand what they were hearing; to them, the bridge was infrastructure—simply old metal and wood. 

Uplifting Black History

In 2016 I began interviewing Lyttonsville residents about the community’s history and its erasure. Their narratives prominently featured the bridge and their attachment to it. As a folklorist and historian, I was sensitive to the importance of space and the significant role that the “other side of the tracks” plays in racialized land-use regimes. 

My first blog post about the bridge inspired The Washington Post to cover the story. Within a year, a local songwriter had composed an instrumental tune about the bridge; more news stories had been published; a community meeting had been held; an  affordable housing and social justice activist based in the United Kingdom had written about the bridge; and a local filmmaker had produced a short documentary about it. By the end of 2017, lifelong Lyttonsville resident Charlotte Coffield was telling people, “The Talbot Avenue Bridge has taken on a life of its own.” 

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Former resident of River Road in Bethesda, Maryland, Harvey Matthews reads a pop-up museum panel on April 21, 2018.| Credit: David Rotenstein


In April 2018 I curated a Talbot Avenue Bridge pop-up museum. At the same time, Lyttonsville residents were forming a committee to plan the centennial celebration. They invited residents from Rosemary Hills, an adjacent neighborhood first developed in the 1940s, as well as people who lived across the bridge in the North Woodside neighborhood.

Since the 1980s, North Woodside and Lyttonsville residents had found themselves in pitched battles over the bridge: North Woodside wanted it closed, while Lyttonsville wanted it to remain open. Some Lyttonsville residents believed that the North Woodside positions regarding the bridge were racially motivated. The 2017 documentary sparked heated conversations and laid the foundation for confronting the difficult history and finding reconciliation. 

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Anne White, right, and Charlotte Coffied listen to speakers during the bridge’s centennial celebration on September 22, 2018. | Credit: David Rotenstein

Anna White moved to North Woodside a decade ago. Until 2016 she knew little about the bridge’s history or about Lyttonsville. For White, the bridge was a scenic amenity where her children enjoyed watching trains pass below. After reading about the bridge in the The Washington Post, White sought more information. “When I heard the history of the bridge, it made me, you know, feel the bridge was all the more important and important to save, as well,” White said in a 2018 interview. “I feel that the bridge is an important civil rights location in this community.” 

The Talbot Avenue Bridge began speaking to White. “I think there’s … the literal sound of the bridge, which we aren’t hearing now,” she said. “And then there’s the figurative voice of the bridge which you can’t put in words, but … when you walk over it, and you think of the past hundred years of history that this bridge has seen and been part of, it does have a voice and a story to tell if we can listen to it.” 

White reached out to her neighbors to understand their feelings about the bridge, and she began forming friendships with Lyttonsville residents. She interviewed them to learn their stories and became sensitized to the social impacts of erasure. 

A Birthday Party for the Bridge 

As one of the centennial planners, Anna White worked collaboratively to design a festival that would celebrate the bridge’s history and lay the groundwork for building future bonds between North Woodside and Lyttonsville. 

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Drummer and member of the Washington Revels Jubilee Voices David Fakunle walking across the Talbot Avenue Bridge to perform at the centennial celebration on September 22, 2018. | Credit: David Rotenstein

White met with North Woodside neighborhood leaders, providing them with examples of the racially restrictive covenants that had kept her neighborhood segregated for most of the 20th century. As a result of her efforts, the North Woodside-Montgomery Hills Civic Association’s board of directors unanimously approved a proclamation renouncing the neighborhood’s racism and the covenants that had been written to uphold it. David Cox, the organization’s president, read the proclamation in an emotional statement during the centennial celebration. 

The centennial planning committee met in Lyttonsville’s Gwendolyn E. Coffield Community Recreation Center and in members’ homes on both sides of the bridge. Early on, members agreed that all decisions would be made by consensus. They selected speakers; hired musicians; invited local officials; and raised more than $2,000 to fund performers, supplies, and a professional sound service. North Woodside got a block party permit to close nearby streets, and local officials helped with traffic control. 

Featured performers included The Washington Revels’ Jubilee Voices and folk singer Lea Morris. Jay Elvove also performed his song, “Talbot Avenue Bridge.” Speakers besides Cox included current and former residents of the Lyttonsville, Rosemary Hills, and North Woodside neighborhoods and then–Montgomery County executive, Isiah Leggett. 

Though the Talbot Avenue Bridge will be demolished, it will continue to connect space and people through conversations about race and history. Its voice, amplified by old and new residents, tells people why old places really matter. 

David Rotenstein is a public historian and folklorist based in Silver Spring, Maryland. He has worked in public history historic preservation for 35 years and he writes about gentrification, erasure, and industrial history.

In the Workplace: Prioritizing Mental Health in the Workplace—The Time is Now for Nonprofits

February 2, 2022 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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woman with depression with her head in her hands

From JULY 1, 2021 ADVANCING PHILANTHROPY

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified mental health issues at an astonishing rate, with a swell of stress, anxiety and isolation that has consistently worsened since early 2020. While there is much to be optimistic about today, coping with the emotional and mental fallout from COVID-19 will continue for years to come.

According to one Centers for Disease Control report, which surveyed adults across the U.S. in late June 2020, 31% of respondents reported symptoms of anxiety or depression, 13% reported having started or increased substance use, 26% reported stress-related symptoms, and 11% reported having serious thoughts of suicide in the past 30 days. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) reports that these numbers are nearly double the rates we would have expected before the pandemic. As in prior studies, this survey showed that risk factors for reporting anxiety symptoms or suicidal ideation included food insufficiency, financial concerns and loneliness.

What was initially thought to be a temporary separation from office life became a radical transition in our work culture today. After all the government-imposed lockdowns, curfews, social distancing, and quarantines, work became more remote, isolating, and socially disconnected. Although all these safeguards were put in place to protect us from a deadly pandemic, the aftermath of this dramatic shift has moved mental health to a new level of importance for nonprofits to address.

african american man sitting at a desk with his head in his hands

The landscape of our workforce has drastically changed, and this has not happened without consequences to the workers themselves. Social distancing and remote work have separated us from our colleagues, donors, and populations we serve—that separation has caused a great deal of emotional disconnectedness and loneliness. Because of this, it has never been more critical for nonprofits to develop and implement, employee mental health and wellness programs.

Over the last couple of years, the conversation around mental health has become more open and public, but where the discussion still falls short is around the stigma faced by working professionals at all levels. Discussing mental health in the workplace is still a difficult subject and one that potentially puts employees at risk of being diminished or unfairly treated by colleagues and organizational leadership. The fear of bias and discriminatory attitudes toward those with a mental illness is what keeps many suffering in silence.

It’s great that organizations are promoting Employee Assistance (EAP) programs and listing available resources. However, we still have a long way to go before the workplace becomes a comfortable environment to disclose a mental illness without the fear of judgment or consequences.

For everyday people (working professionals, seniors, and students), when we disclose a mental illness, we fear losing the three things that matter the most in our lives: family, friends, and our jobs!

Disclosing a mental illness shouldn’t mean giving up anything or losing those who should be supporting you, but for many, that fear is real.

Leaders need to openly show support in order for change to take place. When leaders are vulnerable about mental health and share their experiences or the experiences of those closest to them, it helps create transparency—and acceptance—in the workplace. Sharing stories makes it easier for employees to ask for help when they need it. These stories can also help take the fear out of their own disclosure.

To talk about mental health, you have to understand the stigma and the power it has over people and their decisions about taking care of their mental health. The stigma associated with mental illness can be divided into two types: (1) social stigma, which involves the prejudiced attitudes others have around mental illness; and (2) self-perceived stigma, which involves an internalized stigma the person with the mental illness suffers from.

Some key statistics that help give insight to the growing concern about mental health in both the United States and Canada include:

  • One-in-five Americans and Canadians has a mental illness. (NIMH and the Center for Addiction and Mental Health)
  • Forty-one percent of Americans have dealt with an untreated mental illness. (Mental Health First Aid)
  • On any given week, more than 500,000 Canadians are unable to go to work because of mental health or mental illness. (Canadian Mental Health Association)
  • Forty million Americans suffer from anxiety. (Anxiety and Depression Association of America)

Nonprofit leaders today have the responsibility to look after their people and that requires two very important elements: continuing education and the willingness to leave their comfort zones. The goal for leaders should be to promote the acceptance and inclusion of those managing a mental health challenge or suffering from profound grief and loss. Normalizing conversations about mental health is still one of the best ways to reduce stigma within the workplace.

It’s critical that nonprofits recognize that mental health is just as important as physical health. Those who invest and prioritize mental health, wellness and self-care can create a healthier work culture for their employees.

Promoting mental health and wellness can positively impact employee retention and the recruitment of top talent. These investments can also show a significant improvement in employee engagement, morale and job satisfaction. Nevertheless, where so many organizations fall short is how to act and when to start. Both the research and employees say that the time is now.

Cultivating a culture of empathy, psychological safety and wellness requires consistency and effort. As nonprofit leaders, we have the power to support our employees with dignity and compassion. Leadership today is about taking care of the people responsible for the work, not just the work itself. Now, more than ever, it is essential to instill the importance of nurturing an environment of openness to better support our employees.

Social distancing and remote work have separated us from our colleagues, donors, and populations we serve — that separation has caused a great deal of emotional disconnectedness and loneliness.

We are entering a very interesting period of this pandemic, where the adrenaline and fear have worn off and the crisis is subsiding. However, a number of challenges remain for our sector. As nonprofit professionals begin to work out new flexible work options and return to the office, leaders have an opportunity to be more proactive moving forward when it comes to mental health and wellness. There are several ways organizations can help with this transition that also support employee mental health. Here are just a few helpful strategies:

  • Check-in and listen (regularly)
  • Practice gratitude
  • Create no-meeting days
  • Encourage self-care breaks
  • Celebrate small wins together
  • Make it OK to talk about feelings and uncertainty
  • Recognize and reward good work
  • Prioritize wellness

From May through October, there are various awareness days you can observe at your organization, such as Mental Health Awareness Month in May, Minority Mental Health Month in July, National Suicide Prevention Week in September, and World Mental Health Day on Oct. 10. Take this time to share resources, articles and inspirational stories of lived experiences and recovery—you never know who it will help.

To everyone in the AFP community who is an advocate, caregiver, or willing to share their story of lived experience: Your VOICE changes the mental health and addiction discussion. Your EFFORTS help eliminate the stigma associated with mental illness and recovery. And Your ACTIONS save lives every day.

Words like mental illness, addiction, and suicide can immediately and forever change a person’s life. They did for me. For those who suffer in silence, this can be a life or death issue. I don’t believe most people fully realize how much effort, strength and courage it takes to pull yourself out of a mentally dark place. To anyone struggling right now with their recovery, mental illness, or profound grief and loss—you are brave, you are strong, and you will get through this. Most importantly, always remember, you are not alone.

Talking about mental health today isn’t just a moment, talking about mental health today is a movement. This movement needs more advocates, activists and champions. And while tackling mental health can be challenging, organizations and nonprofit leaders are in a powerful position to help change attitudes and offer a vital support system.

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ian adair

Ian Adair is a nonprofit industry influencer, TEDx speaker, and recognized expert in leadership, fundraising, and nonprofit management. He is a speaker, writer and advocate for mental health awareness and addressing mental health in the workplace. Ian is the author of “Stronger Than Stigma, A Call To Action: Stories of Grief, Loss, and Inspiration!” He is the executive director of the Gracepoint Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Gracepoint, one of the largest behavioral health organizations in Florida. Gracepoint impacts the lives of more than 30,000 individuals each year seeking mental health, medical, and addiction services in the Tampa Bay area.

The Origin of Black History Month—And Why It Still Matters

February 2, 2022 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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African American historian Carter G. Woodson, date unkown. PHOTO FROM BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

No one has played a greater role in helping all Americans know the Black past than Carter G. Woodson, the individual who created Negro History Week in Washington, D.C., in February 1926.

Woodson was the second Black American to receive a Ph.D. in history from Harvard—following W.E.B. Du Bois by a few years. To Woodson, the Black experience was too important simply to be left to a small group of academics. Woodson believed that his role was to use Black history and culture as a weapon in the struggle for racial uplift. By 1916, Woodson had moved to D.C. and established the “Association for the Study of Negro Life and Culture,” an organization whose goal was to make Black history accessible to a wider audience. Woodson was a strange and driven man whose only passion was history, and he expected everyone to share his passion.

This impatience led Woodson to create Negro History Week in 1926, to ensure that schoolchildren would be exposed to Black history. Woodson chose the second week of February to celebrate the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

It is important to realize that Negro History Week was not born in a vacuum. The 1920s saw the rise in interest in African American culture that was represented by the Harlem Renaissance, where writers such as Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglas Johnson, and Claude McKay wrote about the joys and sorrows of Blackness. Meanwhile, musicians like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Jimmie Lunceford captured the new rhythms of the cities created in part by the thousands of Black Southerners who migrated to urban centers like Chicago. And artists like Aaron Douglas, Richmond Barthe, and Lois Jones created images that celebrated Blackness and provided more positive images of the African American experience.

There is no more powerful force than a people steeped in their history.

Woodson hoped to build upon this creativity and further stimulate interest through Negro History Week. He had two goals: One was to use history to prove to White America that Black people had played important roles in the creation of America and thereby deserved to be treated equally as citizens. By celebrating heroic Black figures—be they inventors, entertainers, or soldiers—Woodson essentially hoped to prove our worth, and by proving our worth, he believed that equality would soon follow. His other goal was to increase the visibility of Black life and history, at a time when few newspapers, books, and universities took notice of the Black community, except to dwell upon the negative. Ultimately Woodson believed Negro History Week—which became Black History Month in 1976—would be a vehicle for racial transformation forever.

The question that faces us today is whether or not Black History Month is still relevant. Is it still a vehicle for change? Or has it simply become one more school assignment that has limited meaning for children? Has Black History Month become a time when television and the media stack their Black material? Or is it a useful concept whose goals have been achieved? After all, few—except the most ardent rednecks— could deny the presence and importance of African Americans to American society. Or as my then-14-year-old daughter, Sarah, put it: “I see Colin Powell every day on TV. All my friends—Black and White—are immersed in Black culture through music and television. And America has changed dramatically since 1926. Is not it time to retire Black History Month, as we have eliminated ‘White’ and ‘colored’ signs on drinking fountains?” I will spare you the three-hour lesson I gave her.

I would like to suggest that despite the profound change in race relations that has occurred in our lives, Carter G. Woodson’s vision for Black history as a means of transformation and change is still quite relevant and quite useful. African American History Month, with a bit of tweaking, is still a beacon of change and hope that is still surely needed in this world. The chains of slavery are gone—but we are all not yet free. The great diversity within the Black community needs the glue of the African American past to remind us of not just how far we have traveled but lo, how far there is to go.

The Power of Inspiration

One thing has not changed: We still need to draw inspiration and guidance from the past. And through that inspiration, people will find tools and paths that will help them live their lives. Who could not help but be inspired by Martin Luther King’s oratory, commitment to racial justice, and his ultimate sacrifice? Or by the arguments of William and Ellen Craft, or Henry “Box” Brown, who used great guile to escape from slavery. Who could not draw substance from the creativity of Madam C.J. Walker or the audacity and courage of prize fighter Jack Johnson? Who could not continue to struggle after listening to the mother of Emmett Till share her story of sadness and perseverance?

I know that when life is tough, I take solace in the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, or Gwendolyn Brooks. And I find comfort in the rhythms of Louis Armstrong, Sam Cooke, or Dinah Washington. And I draw inspiration from the anonymous slave who persevered so that the culture could continue.

Let me conclude by re-emphasizing that Black History Month continues to serve us well, in part because Woodson’s creation is as much about today as it is about the past. Experiencing Black History Month every year reminds us that history is not dead or distant from our lives.

Rather, I see the African American past in the way my daughter’s laugh reminds me of my grandmother. I experience the African American past when I think of my grandfather choosing to leave the South rather than continue to experience sharecropping and segregation, or when I remember sitting in the backyard listening to old men tell stories. Ultimately, African American History—and its celebration throughout February—is just as vibrant today as it was when Woodson created it 94 years ago. That’s because it helps us to remember there is no more powerful force than a people steeped in their history. And there is no higher cause than honoring our struggle and ancestors by remembering.

This essay originally appeared in the “Our American Story” series published by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It has been edited for length and clarity, and is republished here with permission.

LONNIE G. BUNCH III is the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian. As Secretary, he oversees 19 museums, 21 libraries, the National Zoo, numerous research centers, and several education units and centers. Previously, Bunch was the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. A widely published author, Bunch has written on topics ranging from the Black military experience, the American presidency, and all-Black towns in the American West, to diversity in museum management and the impact of funding and politics on American museums. His most recent book, A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump, which chronicles the making of the museum that would become one of the most popular destinations in Washington. Learn more about Bunch’s life and work at The Smithsonian.

15 Most Valuable Learning Websites That Are Free

January 27, 2022 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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You know how passionate we are about learning, and we want to see you grow, thrive, and succeed for free. We hope you get value from this article.

01— iTunes U Free Courses

iTunesU is gaining a lot of momentum as a great alternative to traditional studying. The beauty about taking a course through iTunesU is it’s a seamless integration between your Apple devices — making studying anywhere, anytime, a possibility.

If you can listen to a podcast, you can work iTunes U. Many Universities use this platform to share their courses. What caught our mind was the Open Course Psychology with Professor Paul Bloom. He covers religion, hunger, lust, and much more.

Other genres of courses include Art and Architecture, Personal Finances and World History.

02— Harvard Extension

Imagine putting a Harvard qualification on your CV? Well, it’s a possibility with Harvard Extension where you can study virtually, from anywhere in the world — for free.

Some examples of free courses that you can take online include Justice, Humanitarian Response to Conflict and Disaster and Introduction to Family Engagement in Education.

As reported by Business Insider, you can “audit these classes for free or opt to pay $50-$200 for features like graded homework and certificates of completion that you can add to your resume or LinkedIn profile.”

03— Skill Share

Labelled the “Netflix of learning,” Skill Share has over 10,000 courses available, and you can sign up for a 2-month free trial. You can learn a lot in 2-months! But even better, is that once your trial is over — it’s only $2.49 a month!

We loved the “Introduction to 3D Printing: An Easy Start to Your First 3D Design” given by designer and technologist, Lauren Slowik.

One of the most popular courses of 2020 was Still Life Photography: Capturing Stories of Everyday Objects at Home by Sean Dalton and iPhone Photography: How to Shoot & Edit Conceptual Photos on Your Phone by Amelie Satzger.

04— Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Ergonomics in Action, Psychology of Personal Growth and Digital Design are just some of the FREE courses you can do through the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

HKUST was ranked Asia’s number one for 2 years in a row in QS Asian University Rankings 2011 and 2012.

Through this dynamic facility, we recommend “Making Sense of the News: News Literacy Lessons for Digital Citizens” taught by several highly reputable lecturers. It’s a 6-week course helping you to discern fake news, propaganda, hoaxes, satire, advertising, and rumors from the real-deal.

05— Coursera

One of the most well-known free online learning portals is this one, which offers over 3,000 courses!

The platform joins hands with 200+ leading universities and companies and offers anything from a 1-day course to a 12-month course.

The only time you will need to pay for anything, is if you decide to get the certificate to confirm that you’ve completed and passed the course, but if you’re doing it just for yourself — you’re good to start right now!

We really liked the sound of Foundations of Mindfulness, a 5-star rated course given by Dr. Elizabeth Slator.

06— Udacity

Not all courses offered on Udacity are free, but a large portion are — so you’ll need to sift through them carefully to find out which one best suits you.

As reported on Guru99, “The courses offered by Udacity are highly interactive, like quizzes and exercise. Students can get benefit from a project review system which produces detailed expert project review quickly.”

Some options available are Intro to the Design of Everyday Things, Introduction to Virtual Reality and Networking for Web Developers.

07— Google Digital Garage

We raved about this one in our video Top 10 Most Useful Online Courses That are FREE, explaining that there are over 100 courses to choose from. With Google Digital Garage there are zero-time limits, unlimited access, beautifully set out modules and videos.

Courses include Managing your time effectively, creating a long-term social media plan and the one we mentioned, Fundamentals of Digital Marketing, where you’ll learn to identify your online goals, how to build an online presence, how to market your online presence and how to analyze and adapt to online change.

08— Stanford University

The online portal for Stanford University is well laid out, easy to follow and tough to choose which of the amazing courses you’ll begin with… and all of this at no cost to you.

There are free courses covering Arts & Humanities, Engineering, Education, and Health & Medicine. Right now, you could register for the 60-day “Introduction to Internet of Things” course, or you could sign up for Congenital Hypothyroidism: What Every Primary Care Provider Needs to Know.

09— LinkedIn Learning

When we went to check out some of the courses available on LinkedIn, the name that caught our eye was Seth Godin. And if you’ve watched our videos, you’ll know we’ve spoken about him quite a bit.

He offers a quick course titled Creativity at Work: A Short Course from Seth Godin and we watched it immediately. It was worth it.

You can sign up for free for one month to access over 15,000 courses and thereafter it’s around $10 a month.

As Seth Godin says, “If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.”

10— Open Culture Online Courses

There are 1,700 free courses to choose from if you head to Open Culture. As they say on their website, “… you’ll find 200 free philosophy courses, 105 free history courses, 170 free computer science courses, 85 free physics courses and 55 Free Literature Courses in the collection, and that’s just beginning to scratch the surface.”

We particularly liked the Creative Reading and Writing by William S. Burroughs and Growing Up in the Universe.

11— Lifehack Fast Track Class

What we appreciated about this method of free online learning was what Lifehack called their courses — “Life Multipliers.”

Basically, adding value to your life through additional studying.

Costing you nothing, you can start these courses today:

– No More Procrastination

– Focus Like a Top Achiever

– Spark Your Learning Genius

And they’re all quick and easy to follow. You’ve got nothing to lose, so give this site a try and enhance your marketability.

12— Alison

You could be one of 20-million students who benefit from Alison. These learners come from 195 different countries, and they’ve chosen courses from over 3,500 offered.

As the site affirms, they “believe that free education, more than anything, has the power to break through boundaries and transform lives.” And we couldn’t agree more.

Some of their most popular courses include the Diploma in Workplace Safety and Health, Free Online Writing Skills Courses and the Diploma in E-Commerce Web Development.

13— eDX

Just today, around 400,000 people are learning through eDX. With more than 160 member universities, this is one site that will not leave you disappointed.

Their vision says it all:

“As a global nonprofit, we’re relentlessly pursuing our vision of a world where every learner can access education to unlock their potential, without the barriers of cost or location.”

We were drawn to the Protecting Children in Humanitarian Settings course, which is a 12-week program only requiring a commitment of 3–5 hours a week. This is just one of over 3,000 courses available.

14— MIT OpenCourseWare

Very active on Twitter, we love that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is continually striving to bring us the best in free online learning.

You can follow them yourself, @MITOCW. A recent Tweet said, “We are so excited to partner with Julie Shah & David Kaiser to help share materials from their project on Social & Ethical Responsibilities of Computing. Look for more information this fall!” So, that’s something to look out for!

Many of their courses are available in Chinese, Korean and Turkish.

15— Academic Earth

They launched their first free course in 2009 and have never stopped growing. Courses range from accounting, and management to social science and humanities and everything in between.

We love their curated playlists which delve deeply into a group of topics, for example, Love Is In the Air — Perspectives on emotion, love, dating, marriage, and sex from psychology, English, and economics or You Are What You Eat — A variety of perspectives on food and drink, from French Culture to Cannibalism.

Aluxers, we loved compiling this article for you, and we hope you gain so much value from it.

We’d really appreciate it if you took the time to follow us, and of course, a bunch of claps if you enjoyed reading.

Project CHANGE sings the Blues

January 21, 2022 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Jalen N'Gonda 'If Only Honey Was As Sweet As You' - The Henry Westons Sessions - #cheltjazzfest - YouTube

Today Project CHANGE was treated to a Master Class in Music from the inimitable Jalen N’gonda. Those who know the team for the last three years might recognize the family name.

Jalen is back from the UK to do some recording in NYC and to spend some time with the family. Then he heads back to London. He discovered his musical talent late or at least revealed it late, and his parents could hardly believe that their son was a singer-songwriter. They had never heard him sing.

Jalen shared his love of music and discussed with the team how music is a language all kids can relate to. He explained how the heart of all Pop music comes from the Blues, people giving themselves permission to sing their deepest heart song.

Usually the team are happy to share lunch and head back out, but today, they lingered, like they could not get enough of his soul music.

We even started working on our own song:

On this cold Friday morning
Greeting a new year dawning
Being asked to sing, without warning!
You can hear a band forming.


Thank you Jalen.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/H9x6zoAZWibkrifr5

New book challenges Civil War’s old myths

January 18, 2022 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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By Jonathan M. Pitts Yesterday at 6:06 p.m. EST Washington Post

Regular folks and history buffs who believe Maryland leaned strongly toward the Confederacy during the Civil War era have never lacked evidence for the claim.

It was a Marylander, after all, on the U.S. Supreme Court who wrote the opinion in the infamous 1857 Dred Scott case, which found that Black people were not citizens — a ruling that helped spark the fighting. And Marylanders voted for a Southern sympathizer, not Abraham Lincoln, for president in the election of 1860. Then, some 20,000 Marylanders took up arms for the Confederacy.

But such facts can be deceiving if looked at in a vacuum — or so say the scholars behind a critically acclaimed new book that aims to explode long-standing myths about the period.

In “The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered,” a collection of 13 essays assembled and edited by Baltimore historians Charles W. Mitchell and Jean H. Baker, are independent thinkers from as far away as California and England and as close as Johns Hopkins University. They point out, among other things, that contrary to popular belief, Maryland judges refused to put the Dred Scott decision into effect; that more Marylanders voted, in total, for the three presidential candidates who backed the Union than they did for John C. Breckinridge, the Southern Democrat who carried the state in 1860, and that four times as many Old Line State men fought for the Union than for the South.

Maryland, in short, was less sympathetic to the Confederate cause, and more behind the Union, than generations of historians have implied, says Mitchell, a self-taught Civil War expert, author and editor who got the sprawling essay project rolling four years ago.

History, he says, is framed by the values of those who pass it along. In the case of Maryland’s antebellum and Civil War history, the men and women who shaped it first were people who held to the notion that the Southern cause — far from being a bloody campaign to preserve slavery — was a matter of states’ rights. They viewed it as a noble crusade that failed only because the Union side was better equipped and funded.

The earliest chroniclers, he says, were Confederate veterans. The generations of historians who succeeded them wrote at a time when powerful Democrats, North and South, were still working to deny African Americans full enjoyment of their freedoms.ADVERTISING

“The same Confederate sympathizers who had lost the war worked hard to win it in the history books, and for many years, they succeeded,” Mitchell says, including in textbooks used in Maryland well into the 20th century.

It wasn’t until the last 20 years or so, Mitchell adds, that younger scholars began training their focus on the kinds of period documents their forebears ignored.

By diving into court and estate records, schedules of enslaved people, letters written by ordinary citizens, articles in the Black press and more, those scholars, including several represented in the book, began to put together a more comprehensive history — one that weakens Maryland’s “Lost Cause” narrative.

Mitchell and Baker, a former history professor at Goucher College and the author of multiple award-winning books, conceived “The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered” as an entry in that new vein. Early reviewers say they’ve struck a blow for a more accurate, fuller telling of the state’s story.

“The deeply researched and tightly written essays in this volume provide new information and insights on the role of a crucial border state in the Civil War,” writes James McPherson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era,” in his blurb on the essay collection’s book jacket.

And William W. Freehling, another leading Civil War scholar, adds that “multiple generations’ perspectives yield exciting insights on a state as torn as the nation itself: No student of the American Union’s fall and rebirth can afford to miss the revelations.”

For years, the editors say, the “Southernizing” of Maryland history meant omitting important realities inconvenient to the prevailing narrative, including how African Americans lived before, during and after the war. Three of the book’s authors help to fill that void.

University of Maryland history professor Richard Bell, author of the award-winning 2019 book “Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home,” focuses on how a black market network of human traffickers functioned in the slave state of Maryland.

His essay, “Border Wars,” describes how those who ran this “reverse Underground Railroad” kidnapped African Americans in the free commonwealth of Pennsylvania, took them to Baltimore, and kept them in “pens” before selling them into enslavement in the Deep South.

Another author, Jessica Millward of the University of California at Irvine, brings to life individuals such as Charity Folks, a woman who was born into slavery in Anne Arundel County in the mid-1700s and was later freed. By describing how she gave birth to both free and enslaved children, Millward illustrates how such factors as gender could complicate the supposedly clear distinction between slavery and freedom in Maryland.

And it’s Johns Hopkins professor Martha Jones, a prominent scholar of African American history, who combs old court records to show that the Dred Scott ruling had little practical impact locally. Though it portended catastrophe for the state’s 87,000 free Blacks, Jones demonstrates that Maryland judges overwhelmingly defaulted to state laws that kept the group’s essential rights intact.

Mitchell himself adds twists to a topic that has long held his attention. In his 2007 book, “Maryland Voices of the Civil War,” he drew on personal letters and other original source documents to argue that his home state never seriously considered secession.

In his essay, “Maryland Is This Day True to the Union,” Mitchell draws on petitions, pamphlets, voting statistics and public meeting records. They show that even though Breckinridge, the Southern sympathizer, carried the state in the 1860 presidential election, his 45 percent of the state vote was dwarfed by the 54 percent who went for the three pro-Union candidates (including Lincoln, who finished fourth).

Mitchell reiterated the point in a conversation from his home, a rustic 1800s-era farmhouse where Civil War memorabilia is on display. It includes the Union discharge papers of the great-grandfather of his wife, Betsy.

“During the so-called secession winter of 1860, it was actually Union voices that predominated in this state,” he says, adding that his research shows that sentiment remained through the war.

The Louisiana State University Press published “The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered” late last year. It includes contributions from other prominent historians, who focus on such matters as women’s organizations that supported the Union, the horrors that Union soldiers discovered when they arrived at Antietam after that battle ended and the successful recruitment of Union soldiers in Baltimore.

The book is the 13th written or edited by Baker, including a biography of Abraham Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and several influential works on the American suffragist movement.

It’s the third for Mitchell, whose interest in the Civil War was awakened years ago when Betsy inherited a box of memorabilia. The Parkton, Md., man works full time as alumni director for his alma mater, St. Paul’s School.

The new book is unlikely to hit the bestseller lists, he concedes, but he hopes it will add to the unfolding history of the war in his state, helping his fellow Marylanders better grasp who they were and are.

“As a historian, you always look for original source materials that can help you tell a new story or put something you think you know in a new light,” he says. “There’s always something new.”

— Baltimore Sun

Exhausting Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy

January 18, 2022 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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By Robin Givhan Senior critic-at-large January 11, 2022 at 7:36 p.m. EST

The president traveled Tuesday to Atlanta to deliver a speech on the sanctity of voting rights — a geographic choice that speaks to the reality that nothing about this democracy is assured. Nothing is certain. Georgia gave Democrats the edge in the Senate and it was critical in helping Joe Biden win the presidency. It is also the state where election officials have been under extended duress as Republicans demanded recounts, alleged fraud and passed new laws that made voting more of an obstacle course than a walk in the park.

Biden’s visit included a stop at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, a ceremonial laying of a wreath at the crypt of King and his wife Coretta Scott King, private time with their family and a visit to the historical Ebenezer Baptist Church where King was once senior pastor. Biden also spoke from the Atlanta University Center Consortium, an institute that straddles Clark Atlanta University and Morehouse College, from which King graduated. On a day trip that only had the president on the ground for a few hours, there was an awful lot of MLK.

But then, there is always a lot of MLK whenever the subject turns to racial justice, equal opportunity and the dream of a colorblind society. Everyone lays claim to King’s legacy with such certitude that if as many people marched alongside him in the 1960s as have said they did, then there would have been virtually no one standing on the sidelines wielding batons and casting aspersions. The dream of which King spoke would be a reality. And the January holiday in his honor would be a celebration of the American experiment’s completion rather than a remembrance of a promise yet to be fulfilled. But we like our history pretty.

The president arrived in Atlanta with Vice President Harris and a group of Democratic lawmakers — none of whom were Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who seems to be the only Democratic senator who matters, never seems to want what his colleagues want or always seems to have issues with what they want or the speed with which they want it. Biden was also accompanied by activists seeking the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, legislation aimed at ensuring unencumbered access to the polls and minimum federal standards for the way in which elections are conducted. Opponents argue that election security needs to be ramped up to prevent fraud; and, they don’t want Washington setting rules about how local elections are run. Those differing points of view are muddied and tortured by no small number of conservatives who see ballot stuffing and other subterfuge even when there is no evidence it exists. It’s all stalled because of the filibuster, which requires 60 votes in the Senate for legislation to pass.

Biden calls for changing the filibuster in major voting rights speech

In the midst of this, MLK is inspiration, retort, rallying cry and protective cover. The civil rights leader’s name is the conservative rebuttal to concerns about systemic racism. King’s name is a love song for bootstrapping individualists. It’s akin to a glide path to a safe landing for anyone accused of trying to elevate themselves by diminishing others.

During his speech, the president remarked that King’s family had offered a kind of reprimand to those who use his name in vain: “It’s not enough to praise their father. They even said on this holiday, don’t celebrate his birthday unless you’re willing to support what he lived for and what he died for.”

The conservative attachment to MLK is often more romantic than that of his more direct heirs, who are the voting rights activists who have taken to the streets, who agitate for change, who do the hard work of organizing — some of whom decided not to attend Biden’s speech to underscore their exasperation, impatience and disillusionment with the president’s sense of urgency in seeing voting rights legislation passed.

As the memory of King has aged, it’s taken on a smooth-edged, golden hue. Quotations from his speeches have been memorialized in stone but they’ve also been repeated so often and with such disregard for context that they’ve taken on the depth and specificity of a daily horoscope. The words mean whatever you want them to mean.

King was only 39 years old when he died, and while he was more liberal than radical, it’s hard to imagine that he would be so revered if he were a 30-something activist today — a Black man marching in the streets and advocating for fair wages, voting rights, racial justice and a more equitable form of capitalism. He and his fellow protesters would likely be blamed for stirring the pot and creating upheaval in places where everything was just fine before they showed up spouting their un-American ideas — which is precisely what happened in his day.

Over time, King has been recast as a warmhearted preacher who just wanted everyone to get along and only the most base among us disagreed with him. Biden called out some of those wretched names as he was making his plea to lawmakers to stand on the right side of history.

“So I ask every elected official in America, how do you want to be remembered? The consequential moments in history, they present a choice,” Biden said. “Do you want to be on … the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis? This is the moment to decide to defend our elections, to defend our democracy.”

But everyone sees themselves on the side of King. Everyone basks in the glow of his legacy. Few people see themselves as the moral equivalent of Connor, the segregationist head of Alabama public safety who loosed the dogs and opened fire hoses on civil rights activists. They see themselves under the heading of populists protecting the jobs, homesteads and rights of working-class America. They are not Davis, the leader of the Confederacy. They are proud Southerners protecting their history and heritage. They are not Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama standing in the doorway of the University of Alabama as Black students tried to enter. They are concerned parents worried about critical race theory and fretting that their children will be made to feel bad for being White.

As Biden stood in the late afternoon sun, the background populated with young people, he argued for democracy’s future by appealing to the country’s sense of history. He made plain his desire to get rid of the filibuster so the stagnating legislation could pass. “I’ve been having these quiet conversations with members of Congress for the last two months,” he said. “I’m tired of being quiet.”

He pounded the lectern. He said “damn” and then backpedaled to “darn.” He warned of democracy’s fragility. And he invoked King’s name, forever hopeful that its glow isn’t so blinding that it can still enlighten.

Image without a caption

By Robin Givhan
Senior critic-at-large