While the Trump administration tries to erase official references to the darkest chapters of the nation’s racial history, efforts continue to recognize and confront it. Since 2018, for instance, the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project (MLMP) has been documenting the post-Civil War reign of terror and acknowledging the lives of its victims. Historical markers have been placed where lynchings occured in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There were at least 38 of them in Maryland, and more than 6,500 Black lynching victims nationwide between 1865 and 1950, according to the Equal Justice Initiative.
The Trumpified Department of Homeland Security might have wanted the U.S. Coast Guard to officially downgrade the noose as a symbol of racial hatred and terror, but the MLMP holds it up in the bright light of honest history.
This week, the MLMP and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra announced the commissioning and premiere of a new chamber work to accompany the dedication in 2027 of Maryland’s first permanent memorial to victims of racial terror lynchings. The piece “will explore themes of loss, resilience and remembrance, offering an artistic response to the memorial’s purpose and narrative,” the MLMP in a news release.
At MLMP’s annual conference in October, the organization heard from the BSO’s first Black music director, Jonathon Heyward, who spoke about the orchestra’s collaboration and the role of music in supporting remembrance and reconciliation.
“Music has the power to resonate, reflect thought, invoke feeling and challenge perceptions where words cannot,” said Heyward. “We are honored to collaborate with MLMP as they build this long-awaited memorial, supporting communities as they confront painful truths and imagine a more just future.”
Added Will Schwarz, the founder of the MLMP and its past president: “America’s history of racial terror has been dismissed for far too long. We believe music has the unique power to make this dark legacy accessible to audiences in an emotional way that can be a vehicle for the reckoning we seek.”
Last year, the MLMP and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture used federal funds to establish a permanent exhibit, Lynching in Maryland. The original funding source is no longer available, but MLMP remains committed to the next phase of the project -- an open competition for the permanent memorial’s design.
And Trump can’t touch them.
“This project continues years of community-based research, documentation and public education,” said Amy Millin, current president of the MLMP. “The memorial — and the artistic work that will accompany it — will offer space for reflection, learning and connection. It is a collective step toward a more honest and inclusive historical record for Maryland.”
Let’s hope we can eventually erase and downgrade the entire Trump administration. Not forget, because this cruel era needs to remain burned into our collective memories. But erased and downgraded, yes.
Thank you, Dan, for always keeping it real. This is important reporting in a time of the daily in-our-face racism and firing of Black public service and military members.