Juneteenth celebration to include commemoration, essay winners

Jun. 12—Editor's note: The Cumberland Times-News and Allegany County Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Committee collaborated for this article as part of an ongoing series, and will team to facilitate upcoming community discussions on topics including the history of the press in reporting racial terror lynchings.

CUMBERLAND — A century ago or more, most newspapers weren't careful to use words such as "alleged," and that's apparent in the case of William Burns, 18, who was accused of killing a Cumberland Police officer in 1907.

Burns was transported to the local jail, and while he awaited trial, a mob abducted, beat and shot him to death.

Although several local officials were present, no one was ever held accountable for the lynching of Burns.

Local historian Heidi Gardner said previous discussions of Burns in public record seem to be based on the same two or three newspaper articles that had a few obvious conflicting pieces of important information.

"With investigation, I uncovered around 50 public primary and secondary sources and then charted every detail and statement in them to attempt to discover what closest approximated fact," she said via email and added as stories were told, they were often miscommunicated, embellished or manipulated "even in reputable news sources."

Lack of bias was next to impossible to achieve because stories were always told from one perspective and to a particular audience, Gardner said.

"Only one of these sources found was an African American publication contemporary to the lynching," she said. "Over time, the predominance of storytelling and record keeping from the perspective of white, often wealthy communities has contributed to a view of these narratives, which at their core are racist in their retelling, perhaps not in their intent, but certainly in their impact as the experiences of victims, descendants and eventually entire Black communities are rendered invisible."

Research is intense work under any circumstances, Gardner said.

"But uncovering the reality and horrifying details of a historical stranger's brutal murder at the hands of hundreds of your city's residents is sobering, to say the least," she said. "That is what the work has really been — bringing the life of one teenaged Black man, entirely deprived of dignity and due process back into our collective story."

Members of every social and economic class in Cumberland in 1907 gathered and participated in an extrajudicial execution of a young person accused but not convicted of a crime, Gardner said.

"What is most remarkable about this gruesome account is actually how unremarkable it is," she said.

"A white mob pulls an accused Black man from a jail cell, torturing and killing him. The murderers and others abuse the body postmortem and then attempt to burn the body," she said. "Officials do not intervene. The deceased lays in the street while the witnesses and more gather to take souvenirs from the body and surroundings. Thousands of people view the body as a spectacle. No one is held responsible."

The details of Burns' killing are the same as hundreds of other lynchings in communities throughout the first half of the 20th century, Gardner said.

"How can something so unique happen so casually by happenstance and with such frequency?" she said. "It can't. Our community is part of a legacy of terror and bringing the truth out of the shadows for light and examination is necessary."

Blanket pardon

Last month, Gov. Larry Hogan issued a full posthumous pardon for 34 victims of racial lynching in Maryland between 1854 and 1933.

According to a press release from his office, the extrajudicial killings violated fundamental rights to due process and equal protection of law.

"It is the first time in history that a governor has issued a blanket pardon for the victims of racial lynchings," the release stated.

"The State of Maryland has long been on the forefront of civil rights, dating back to Justice Thurgood Marshall's legal battle to integrate schools and throughout our national reckoning on race," Hogan said via the release.

"Today, we are once again leading the way as we continue the work to build a more perfect union," he said. "My hope is that this action will at least in some way help to right these horrific wrongs and perhaps bring a measure of peace to the memories of these individuals, and to their descendants and loved ones."

Hogan also sent a letter to President Joe Biden encouraging him to establish a U.S. Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Commission.

In 2019, Hogan enacted into law a measure to establish the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the first of its kind in the U.S., the release states.

"A national commission would further this important work by examining racial healing through a larger lens," the governor wrote.

Earlier this year, the governor directed his chief legal counsel to review all available documentation and newspaper accounts of racial lynchings in Maryland, the release states.

The victims on Hogan's pardon list includes a 13-year-old boy named Frederick who was hanged from a tree in or near Cecilton in 1861 after allegations of attempted rape for which he was arrested.

Also, Jim Quinn, who was taken from a train in or near White Hall by 30 men and lynched from a nearby tree in 1869 after allegations of assault for which he was committed to jail.

"John Jones, who was traveling by carriage, waylaid by a group of men in the woods" and hanged in or near Elkton in 1872 after allegations of arson for which he was arraigned and remanded to jail.

"Isaac Kemp, who, after a mob stormed a Princess Anne jail, was shot dead while still chained in his cell" in 1894, after charges of murder.

And, William Burns.

Will Schwarz is president of the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project, Inc., which so far has uncovered 40 racial terror lynchings in the state.

"It can change depending on what we learn," he said of the count.

"Of those 40, there were 34 who were already in the legal system," Schwarz said. "Those were the people who were eligible for pardons because they had already been injected into the system."

The other six people might have been lynched before they were arrested.

"We just don't know enough to make that determination," he said.

Schwarz attended and spoke at the ceremony where Hogan announced the pardons.

"When (Hogan) started reading off names, it was really powerful," he said.

Clory Jackson is founder of the Brownsville Project and a co-lead of the Allegany County Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Committee.

"We appreciate the intent behind Governor Hogan's pardoning of the 34 victims of racial terror lynching and hope to explore the impact of pardoning many victims who were never actually found guilty," she said. "We need to explore what causes society to immediately characterize some people as criminals without due process and to then justify brutality against those same people."

Racial terror and the tropes used to dehumanize Black people are tactics of the past and present, Jackson said.

"We can see this when we look at the story of people like William Burns, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others," she said. "How we talk about these people in our homes and in the media matters. We need to stop using punitive language and terms to describe victims when discussing racial violence."

Jackson talked of national, state and local efforts to do truth and reconciliation work regarding racial terror lynching.

The Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established by House Bill 307, is authorized to research cases of racially motivated lynchings and hold public meetings and regional hearings where a lynching of an African American by a white mob has been documented.

"The healing is the part that we really want to get to," Jackson said.

Commemorative event

A commemoration for William Burns will be held at 9 a.m. June 19 outside of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 16 Washington St., Cumberland.

The event is part of the Allegany County NAACP's Juneteenth celebration.

"Remembering and knowing our true history is important in understanding our present and creating a better future," Allegany County NAACP President Tifani Fisher said.

"We value our partnership with The Brownsville Project and ACLTRC on this initiative," she said.

Ian Robinson, a local musician known under his performing name Black Guy Fawkes and vice president of the Allegany County NAACP, said all walks of life are welcome at the event.

Gardner said the event will honor the individual life that was taken, and also encourage stories from the communities affected by the climate of terror that lynchings foster over generations.

"The rest of us, specifically the white community, need to hear these stories," she said.

"It is time to acknowledge that what happened was intentional and has continued to this day to be justified on the basis of an alleged crime," Gardner said. "To have not admitted this fact publicly anytime any part of this story is told is further racial terror and gaslighting to our local Black community and to the descendants of the Black men who were present at the time."

Emmanuel Parish Rev. Martha Macgill said Burns never received due process, equal protection or a fair trial under the Constitution.

"He was killed horribly while a crowd watched," she said via email.

The commemoration will allow folks to "remember that William Burns was a young man who lived among us," Macgill said.

"In order for our community to be a place that seeks reconciliation and healing for past sins and a place that endeavors to move forward together in justice and peace, the voices of our past that were silenced by terror or prejudice must be given a place to be heard," she said. "Emmanuel Church is honored to be the sacred ground that is the site of the Equal Justice Initiative's commemorative marker giving voice to the life of William Burns, a child of God."

The service will also recognize winners of the Equal Justice Initiative Racial Justice Essay Contest, which was open to Allegany County Public Schools high school students.

According to EJI's website, the organization collaborates with communities to memorialize documented victims of racial violence and foster meaningful dialogue about race and justice.

"The Community Soil Collection Project gathers soil at lynching sites for display in haunting exhibits bearing victims' names," the website states.

"The Historical Marker Project erects narrative markers in public locations describing the devastating violence, today widely unknown, that once took place in these locations," it states. "These projects and the other engagement efforts that community coalitions develop, center the African American experience of racial injustice, empower African American community members who have directly borne this trauma, and invite the entire community to use truth to give voice to those experiences and expose their legacies."

The local EJI essay contest winners will receive a scholarship prize of up to $5,000.

Sarah Welsh, equity and student outcomes coordinator for Allegany County Public Schools, worked with teachers to engage students to submit their work for the contest.

During the contest, high school English Language Arts and Social Studies teachers, as well as school counselors and interventionists, received supplemental materials from EJI to help students choose a topic and conduct their subsequent research.

"One teacher also used the young adult adaptation of Bryan Stevenson's 'Just Mercy' with her students," Welsh said via email.

"In comparison to some of the essay contests and Black History Month activities in the past, this experience for students was an expansion of the more traditional themes that tended to largely focus on abolition and civil rights leaders," she said. "In this contest, students researched topics ranging from enslavement, racial terror lynching and violence, housing discrimination and redlining, to racial health disparity, and beyond."