“Of course,” we say, yet the massive polarization and divide in America are based on loyalty to personality and attraction to policies and promises….not core ideals. When the majority of Americans vote according to their sacred beliefs, our country gets sound leadership, and the United States becomes more united. Because our nation is a rare democracy founded upon shared ideals which most Americans try to live by. Our founding principles like freedom, justice for all, honesty, and commitment to the common good are America’s soul.

How do you confirm that your core values are driving your vote? Here are a few easy tests to confirm that answer. Bring to mind the person who most profoundly shaped your character during your formative years. For many, that “ most influential person” is a parent, a teacher or coach, or maybe a close friend or another family member. We all have someone who helped shape our core beliefs and behavior as we grew up.

Picture that person who had the greatest impact on you. And then write down the most important core principles they lived by—the ones you most admired. Perhaps you identified with their honesty, kindness, or decency. Or you were impressed that they were inventive, sly, or rebellious. Or it was their open, trusting, and respectful nature you deeply admired.
All that matters is that you pick the traits that you most admired. Jot them down.

Growing up, my hero was Milton Hershey, the chocolate magnate, who saved my life and the lives of countless orphans. As best I can, I have tried to emulate his core values of:

HONESTY, RESPECT ( for all ), and SERVICE above self.

These are now my aspirational ideals. I use them to pick my friends, my priorities, and presidents.

Back to your core values list. Are you applying them as a critical screen to pick our next president and congressional leaders? Sure, other factors like policies, programs, and promises make a difference. But nothing drives behavior like a leader’s core values… Just as it does for us. We all know that politicians can and do say just about anything. But what they stand for and how they treat people, that is driven by who they fundamentally are.

Self-assessment #2. When we pick our “ Greatest Presidents Ever,” we tend to heavily weigh their character. What they stood for, not just what they said and did. What core traits do you most admire in your “ Best President Ever”? More importantly, are you requiring these character strengths of our national leaders in this election?

And a final reality check of one’s core values. What sacred principles and behaviors do you want your children and grandchildren to embrace? The “Shadow of the Leader” tends to be cast further and deeper than we ever suspect. And children are especially susceptible to the behavior modeled by our national leaders. It can influence their lives forever.

So, for your family, community, and your country, what cherished values are you voting from and for in this vital election? Your voice and vote matter more than ever! And character counts. Our shared and sacred values are America’s soul. And all are at risk.

Johnny O’Brien is President Emeritus of the Milton Hershey School and founder and CEO of Renaissance Leadership, Inc. He lives in Easton, Maryland. 

Land protection creates great value in any community. Whether preserving a farm, a coastal habitat, or land for a park, the impact affects all layers of our society. The benefits are found in our food systems, the natural environment that surrounds us, and the public places we create for people. 

By creating more places for people, whether for recreation, transportation, or outdoor dining, we create opportunities to foster deeper connections to our lands and communities. We empower local businesses, foster healthy lifestyles, and build an overall better quality of life during a time when all three are desperately needed.

This October has been designated Walktober by the Maryland Department of Transportation and other partnering agencies. During this month they are encouraging towns to become more walkable as the and other agencies like AARP, America Walks, Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration, Maryland Department of Health, and Department of Natural Resources all recognize the many benefits walkability brings to any community. Here’s what we can do. 

In Incremental Approach

Incremental steps can make these projects easy and inexpensive to implement. Tactical Urbanism, or demonstration projects, is a bottom up method for residents to test designs and locations for outdoor seating, new bike lanes/sidewalks, or parklets. If the testing works, towns can raise money to create a permanent solution, building upon a foundation that starts with prioritizing people in the placemaking process. 

However, if they do not create the desired effects, they can be easily dismantled. To avoid pitfalls, it is critical to evaluate potential scenarios for positive and negative outcomes, and to include key stakeholders in the process. Open Street efforts should foster a collaborative relationship between Main Street and Downtown Associations, Public Safety and Public Health Officials, and others who are affected by street closures.

We’ve Done This Before

For most towns this is not a new concept. Consider how our Eastern Shore towns transform for events like the Tea Party Festival in Chestertown, the Waterfowl Festival in Easton, and regular First Friday events. Streets become pedestrian malls, allowing people to move freely and safely to shops, restaurants, and attractions. Local citizens and tourists have the opportunity to discover new businesses, get their steps in, and simply enjoy being outside.

We should prioritize space for people more often. Consider the positive outcomes from opening select streets on daily or weekly routines. One outcome is towns better serve and support the needs of their residents. Most citizens want a strong connection to their neighborhoods and businesses, but it is difficult to do that when we prioritize space for cars over people.

Pushing the Eastern Shore Open Streets Movement Forward

Eastern Shore towns like Cambridge, Chestertown, Denton and Easton have already started this process, working with business owners and volunteers in their respective communities to close streets to cars and creating places for people to dine out at a local restaurant or enjoy the open space, while maintaining safe distances. They see these changes as a way of supporting their local businesses and their residents. 

The temporary transformation of streets into places for people to walk and bike is well-suited to become a permanent practice and a different type of conservation – one that enhances public space for people without the requirements of a car. This is the method championed by groups like Tactical Urbanism, Better Block Foundation, Project for Public Spaces, AARP Livable Communities, and Strong Towns who advocate for building people friendly places (Placemaking) and doing so step by step. 

Whether these measures work or not, they should be tried and tested. This is Placemaking. Try what you think is best for your community. Get feedback, make changes. If it works, consider making it a part of your town’s unique fabric. 

Owen Bailey is the Town Projects manager of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy is lives in Chestertown, Maryland.

It was a raucous debate. Sure it was a “High-energy performance” from a “Part angry bar-room debater.” Yes he was, “Bulldozing his way through the 90-minute debate.” Admittedly he was, “Shaking his head and scoffing pityingly.” He did keep, “Interrupting to attack.” He surely, “Let loose” and “Unleash(ed) his inner barroom brawler.” And, “His smile veered—yes—between amused and condescending.”

All true. Joe Biden’s debate performance with Paul Ryan in October of 2012, according to the actual quotes above, was all of these things…and the press loved it. “Joe Biden’s alpha-male display leaves Paul Ryan overwhelmed in VP debate,” The Guardian, 10/12/12. “Biden comes out swinging at debate,” Reuters, 10/11/12. “Joe Biden Looked Like a Deranged Bully in the Debate …”, US News 10/12/12…oops, how did that get in here?

Vice-President Biden made a few promises in the 2012 debate. On Benghazi he promised, “One, we will find and bring to justice the men who did this… And secondly, we will get to the bottom of it.” Hmmmm

He also said, about Afghanistan, “With 49 of our allies in Afghanistan, we’ve agreed on a gradual drawdown so we’re out of there by the year — in the year 2014… But we are leaving. We are leaving in 2014, period.” Really?

During the first Presidential debate of 2020, Biden said, “Here’s the deal. The fact is that everything he is saying so far is simply a lie.” Can that be accurate?

Here’s a perspective: Trump does make commitments…but he follows through. Want a partial list from Politifact?

Take no salary

Create private White House veterans hotline

Make no cuts to Social Security

Slash federal regulations

Place lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying for foreign government

Defund Planned Parenthood

Nominate someone from his list of justices to replace Antonin Scalia

Ensure funding for historic black colleges

End the defense sequester

Keep Guantanamo Bay Detention Center open

Move U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem

Reverse Barack Obama’s Cuba policy

Cancel the Paris climate agreement

Ask countries we protect to pay more for joint defense

Increase veterans’ health care

Suspend immigration from terror-prone places

Limit legal immigration

Use U.S. steel for infrastructure projects

Stop TPP

Renegotiate NAFTA

Raise tariffs on goods imported into the U.S.

Save the Carrier plant in Indiana

Won’t say ‘Happy Holidays’

Create a 10-percent repatriation tax

Reverse Barack Obama’s 2016 gun executive order

Not bad for, “The worst president America has ever had.” Joe Biden, 9/29/2020

Steve Carns is a former executive with IBM Corporation and a twenty-five year resident of Talbot County. He lives in the town of Easton. 

Good citizenship requires we all take a careful look at who we want to represent us. An election is fast approaching. Let’s do that…and quickly.

Among the astounding recent coverage of clearly planned active dismantling of our election by over-riding legal votes and appointing new state electoral members in swing states who will be installed to only vote for Trump, are attempts and actual successes in rewriting guidance of the CDC and FDA. Andy’s name appeared again in a recent short Star Democrat article and he was interviewed by The Spy Wednesday as pre-election coverage later also offered to his opponent. Flip- flop and spin abounded.

Andy Harris is taunting all of us in District 1 and even the entire US. He and two of his longtime friends now comprise a recently formed Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) for an experimental COVID-19 drug trial. Not a vaccine, thank goodness, or at least not yet. But more on that later. It so happens that the drug CEO sponsor is also their friend. This is entirely irregular. An elected official has never placed him or herself in such a role. Not even once. Being a clinician has nothing to do with this and there are many, many boarded critical care/ICU physicians who could fill the committee role. So too, biostatisticians. Real ones. In true form of the new Republican Party, this is a simple bold abuse by Harris of his elected position. He is counting on you to view it otherwise. A little information can help you decide.

A DSMB is meant to operate in complete separation from both the sponsor of a new product, as well as the FDA from whom– if all goes well- they will seek a license for market approval and use. The DSMB is in the middle as they deliberate. Their evaluations are meant to be held in complete privacy from the sponsor and the regulating Agency. When there is an adverse event among the trial patients, it is the DSMB that reviews the data and evaluates risk of the proposed drug if widely deployed. They determine safety of the human trial participants as the trial accrues, as well as evaluate trial progress towards its stated IND protocol efficacy goals. However, under emergency use review (EUA) there is a bit of difference from a full license review: i.e. the members get to decide if observed benefits outweigh risks, and sometimes parse this for subsets of users if a large enough trial has been designed, not that there are not risks.

Each DSMB is intended to have one biostatistician and additional MD clinical members, typically each of them an expert in a clinical area relating to the product. In this case, in addition to no MD member being an infectious disease expert or pulmonologist, or intensive care expert (albeit there is crossover for some but not all anesthesiologist boards), there is also, and importantly, no biostatistician. No one on this very small DSMB has actual credentials which indicate they could calculate a required sample size for a rule they will support, determine an error margin or use sequential analysis to construct a mathematical boundary for stopping rules of safety or futility if their lives depended on it…. but yours and mine just might.

And don’t forget the lives of the people who will first be enrolled in these trials. More on that too because in addition to a very small, randomized trial with patient consent for the drug under review by this DSMB, there is a less obvious ongoing one for expanded use when circumstance will most likely delimit any truly informed consent under critically exigent conditions. Luckily having been used for years in the EU for erectile dysfunction, the drug probably won’t cause serious harm if patients are very closely monitored, nor perhaps ever get licensed for its new putative indication, but that is definitely not the point.

Back to facts. This Board lacks independence as well as the usual requisite skills. Andy should never have accepted or possibly even promoted his own membership on it. He brushes aside recent Politico criticism saying: “they don’t like Republicans.” A laughably easy excuse, but in this case, Politico surely has a point!  He was dismissive of its contents, but there’s much more to know. You may want to pause here and read this short article before proceeding.

Andy Harris’ membership on any DSMB is a complete travesty as a show of gray ethics. It does not matter that he is “donating” his service (one wonders what that might actually consist of).No elected Congressman or Senator has ever tried to play such a role and never so boldly as to do so while also being a sitting member on a congressional subcommittee which has budget approval for aspects of the FDA! And just how did his CEO friend bring this 50 year essentially dormant product with only animal and in vitro evidence for this newer indication back to life as a listing in the FDA CoronaVirus Technology Accelerator Program? That’s a good question begging investigation of Harris’ subcommittee work for another day. But the drug also has expanded access, has changed its trial primary endpoint just recently after an early ‘look’ at the data (which has sample size and statistical ramifications that I hope the FDA reviewers will later evaluate), and could actually be utilized with no consent in certain situations. I hope this does not happen to you or me…because in one write-up the drug sponsor states it has already been previously used in “certain ICUs where it was felt to have benefit”. Previously used? Where? With consent? Whose? “Felt” to have benefit? Improperly tested hydroxychloroquine comes similarly immediately to mind, or convalescent plasma which had an encouraging sound, or zinc and all manner of other hopeful elixirs for COVID-19 disease.

But let’s examine the fact that Harris does not have the credentialed expertise needed to play the biostatistician that he claims as his dual role on the committee. How do I know? In addition to actually being one and having participated in domestic and international DSMBs which have always REQUIRED one fully credentialed biostatistician, designed, taught and analyzed 100s of clinical trials, actually have regulated biologic products via carefully vetted re-analyses of sponsor-provided trial data when employed by the FDA, Andy himself has told us so.

Years after his MD training, he enrolled in a shortened program designed for MDs to enhance their business skills of health and healthcare and remarks that he has been involved in papers that contained statistics. That’s it. He entered a program with coursework that was not in-depth statistics nor biostatistics and trial design, much less trial analysis. Of course it included business and investment models in medicine, and coursework centered on program goals of health policy and health finance and management. This was the MHS program – not to be confused with a substantially quantitative track of the longer MPH program, and certainly not that of a PhD, ScD or DrPH. Grants and articles mentioned, with appended authorships, are likewise no simple proof of his own quantitative expertise and applications. Nor just enrolling patients (“being involved in”) clinical trials along the way or appearing at an IRB (institutional review board). Andy is a part-time MD. Let’s leave it at that.

But serving with only two other members, one also without DSMB experience, and one a biologist, and having long personal relationships with not only both of them but also the CEO of the product now re-named RLF-100, which was first registered in the EU as aviptadil for ED, should give one pause. Not because it might not help less severely affected COVID-19 patients suffering due to putative ACE-2 downregulation (though some pulmonologists debate this mechanism), but rather because for some reason it never received license approval in the US for the first indication, either.

Rewriting and overriding guidance for EUA, Emergency Use Authorization, is also chilling. That is because these fast track submissions now fall first under EUA. Without adequate expertise on their own, one can imagine that these three members will simply flip through the pages offered by LavinConsulting, LLC- the registered outside, contract research organization (CRO) who has worked for this drug sponsor in the past, and go on their merry way pushing things forward if the CRO report so suggests.

The CEO drug sponsor himself even seems to agree, having been quoted as saying this DSMB “really doesn’t have much to do”. When the health and safety of human beings is at stake, there should at least be an appearance of much to do. Clearly someone else is handing the detailed and otherwise time-consuming analyses and assessments that are apparently just to be passed along as conclusions of the DSMB. Even so, the DSMB needs to have the expertise to carefully review the generated pages, find any errors, obfuscations and/or exaggerations made by the drug company, and carefully evaluate the provided data and analyses. It is, however, very interesting that the CEO seems to already know or expect little committee oversight, and feels confident enough to state it publically. I suppose that’s just a typical way to energize investors and venture capitalists, but I find it chilling if true. And Andy is meanwhile also our Congressman.

So why is Harris even doing this?

Does he really think the people in his district, ours, will believe it is only because he is trying to help the pandemic situation and not just his friend’s drug review and later marketing and investment efforts? How exactly did they get fast track review status? It’s time to learn more. For now, we know Harris has disabused mask wearing and closure or stay-at-home orders as nonsense or over-reach, calling it a “cult of masks”. He then walked that back in a mumbled statement about what he really meant–how masks might have caused complacency as singular efforts. It is not as if he earlier supported them. And he fought to open Maryland business and allow congregating more widely while case counts of those specific weeks increased in Dorchester County and then regionally. But in his interview with The Spy he also pushed the ideas again, incorrectly saying counts and the epidemic were abating and saying churches were singled out. As if church services, choirs, rally rants aren’t proven super-spreader events. Every talking point a spin version of his earlier days, except retaining his wishes to commemorate the Confederate States of America by leaving the Talbot Boys statuary on public courthouse property.

And then of course a list of his other congressional votes: repeal (without a shred of documented replacement value) the ACA and effectively eliminate pre-existing condition coverage, do not expand Medicaid that would have saved Maryland huge healthcare dollars, keep government in extended lockdown the last year, be an active member of the Freedom Caucus, support coal while defending removal of clean air and water regulations, demean the State Dept abroad, instead vote to waste available appropriations to build the ridiculous, never-to-be-finished Wall …. perhaps his version of immigration ‘reform’.

And he calls himself a physician? Do no harm?

So far we know we have a climate and healthcare opponent, a COVID-19 mitigation denier now entering a last push for back-walking spin, and a non-biostatistician meeting the needs of his friends per a hopeful money-making drug, all while being our elected Congressman. How and why and to what end he has inserted himself into the approval process for our regulated drugs and therapeutics and perhaps even FDA oversight and appropriations per his congressional committees, deserves investigation.

Talbot County wisely did not support him last go ’round and it is time to enlighten the rest of our District. Harris has even rudely and boldly claimed he does not have to worry much about winning or campaigning for this election given his opponent’s newer entry and her smaller campaign war chest. His purported help for watermen and agriculture has been too little, too late to make any real difference; it’s not just about a few belatedly acquired special work visas, his support of changes to trade agreements could have hurt. His constituents absolutely DO deserve his close attention and congressional assistance….all of them!

Now he plans to provide window dressing for Trump in Denton this weekend and get his name and a photo in some media just ahead of the next election. They’ll certainly make quite a performance duo. Harris is an embarrassment. Skip the rally lies and unhinged delusionary content delivered as rousing superficial chants to energize a real cult. Get to the polls or an official dropbox early; use the mail only if you must. We need a true representative, one whose primary concern is our interests and needs, not those of his political party, the current President, his friends, or himself.

Pamela Getson is a PhD biostatistician and former Director of the Statistical Core Group of Children’s Hospital while on Faculty at the George Washington University School of Medicine/Pediatrics. In addition to teaching and research, she designed and evaluated clinical trials, and later served as a senior math/biostat reviewer of data submitted in support of new biologic vaccines at the FDA/CBER. Now living on the shore permanently, she has resumed her love of sailing and nature.

On the same historic night of the announcement of America’s first Black female nominee on a major party ticket, Talbot County Council members voted against the removal of a Confederate statue from its courthouse lawn. The statue, named Talbot Boys, depicts a soldier carrying the Confederate flag and commemorates 84 Confederate soldiers who fought against their country and the more than 400 Union soldiers from Talbot County, Md. during the Civil War.

A new era for anti-racism

Social media has made it hard to look away from situations that make us uncomfortable, and it has changed how we see the world. Americans now witness a frequent deluge of viral videos exposing blatant racism and structural inequalities, from the retaliation of a white woman threatening to call the cops on a Black birdwatcher in Central Park to the horrific murder of George Floyd who died with the knee of a white police officer on his neck.

Over the past several months, the Black Lives Matter movement has gained significant and wide support from all ethnic and racial groups, including white Americans. An increased outcry for racial justice has led both protestors and public officials to remove dozens of Confederate statues. In Mississippi, lawmakers agreed to replace the Confederate emblem from their state flag, and in Richmond Va., once the capital of the Confederacy, the monument of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, was removed.

As a nationwide reckoning occurs, residents on the Eastern Shore of Maryland have practiced their democratic right to protest. They have done so peacefully, in towns such as Easton, Chestertown, St. Michaels, Salisbury, and Cambridge.

Talbot County clings to its Confederate statue

Elected officials across the U.S. have decided that their communities cannot live in peace while Confederate statues remain. Unfortunately, Talbot County Council members Laura Price, Chuck Callahan, and Frank Divilio, chose to ignore the divisiveness perpetuated by the presence of the Talbot Boys statue and disregarded calls for its removal by peaceful protestors and fellow Council President Corey Pack and Councilman Pete Lesher.

The three Council members who voted against the statue’s removal used thinly veiled excuses to justify their votes. They cited the pandemic’s interference with in-person public comments, the need to preserve history, and even though they were elected to represent their constituents, they claimed that the decision should be made by the people through a ballot initiative, which would not occur until 2022. To be clear, the pandemic did not stop public officials from removing Confederate statues in towns and cities such as Alexandria, Va., Louisville, Ky., Jacksonville, Fl., Asheville, Nc., Birmingham, Al., Denton, Tx, and more.

Like most Confederate statues, the construction of the Talbot Boys monument did not directly follow the end of the Civil War in 1865; instead, its creation occurred during the Jim Crow segregation era when Confederate statues were used as a means of racial intimidation. During the same era that the Talbot Boys statue was erected, gruesome lynchings occurred along Eastern Shore.

Proponents of the statue argue that keeping it preserves history. Still, for people of color, that history is a painful reminder of slavery and a time when many of their ancestors lacked fundamental human rights. Bluntly, all monuments idealizing Confederate troops are rooted in racist beliefs and are intentionally oppressive. These statues place white supremacy on a pedestal by perpetuating a myth that people who fought to maintain the institution of slavery were war heroes.

Cultivating a better community for all on the Eastern Shore

We want to live in a community that is engaging in continuing education and allyship, not afraid of it. As individuals who have moved here, categorized by the local term “come here’s,” we have grown to love the Eastern Shore for many of the same reasons that lifelong residents do.

However, we are greatly disappointed by the County Council’s decision to delay the removal of the Talbot statue and the excuse that “well, it’s just the Eastern Shore,” cannot and will not be accepted. Do we want to be the last place in Maryland with a Confederate statue on a state-owned property? Sadly, we know some white people will say yes to that question, but many will not.

As white individuals, we will never be able to fully understand how community members of color feel when walking underneath a confederate statue, especially when that statue is on a courthouse lawn, a place meant to ensure justice and equality for all. Yet we can listen to, believe in, and take the painful emotions seriously that they have expressed. We can become better allies by showing up to support racial equality and speak up when we see racist acts. This is well within our capabilities. We know it is in yours as well.

We encourage all to learn more about the available resources in your community and dive deeper into understanding why this interpretation and idealization of history are oppressive. Continue to critically think, discuss, and be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Lastly, evaluate if your elected officials are the people you want leading us during this time of social transformation.

Myra Ray-Howett is public administration fellow at Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy & Administration College of Arts & Sciences of the University of Delaware. Katelyn Kean is the registrar for the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

Every day that passes with Republicans refusing to extend economic relief to people who have lost their jobs because of the pandemic reinforces a sad truth: Andy Harris and his Republican colleagues just don’t care about you.

Sure, they care about corporations who want tax breaks. They care about industries who want bailouts. They care about employers who want immunity from lawsuits by workers who get sick from going back to work. They care about their contributors, their cronies, their VIP insiders – you know, the ones from “The Swamp” they said they’d clean out. Republicans care about them – a lot.

But they don’t care about you. They don’t care about working people who, through no fault of their own, have lost their jobs and need help. They don’t care about curtailing the pandemic and slowing its spread, now into rural areas like our district. They don’t care about the hardships on health care and other frontline workers who are exposed to the virus every day. They don’t care about making sure people who need health care have affordable insurance and can avoid catastrophic expenses, even when health care needs now are so great.

This makes me mad, because I care. I served for 20 years in the military because I care for this country, my fellow service members, and my fellow Americans. I provided relief to victims of Hurricane Katrina and received a Humanitarian Award. I have fought for people who deserve equality. I want to serve in Congress because, now more than ever, Congress needs people who care.

I care that government provides the resources necessary to beat this pandemic and to lead the recovery so that we can all get back to our lives as soon as possible. I want to help workers and small business owners who are hurting now and make sure they can survive financially until they can get back to work – safely. I care that everyone has a chance to receive the basic necessities in life, including health care and education. I care that rules apply to everyone equally, and no individuals or groups receive special treatment or are left out.

I care about providing high-quality, affordable health care for everyone. That’s why I support Medicare for All. Andy Harris voted against an act that requires states to comply with, and not opt out of, the ACA’s mandate that insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions. I believe that pre-existing conditions should be covered by insurance companies with no exclusions. I am committed to ensuring that the health care system works for all Marylanders, and that nobody goes bankrupt because of a medical bill.

I want to speed the recovery from the pandemic by rebuilding our infrastructure, which would create good jobs that provide living wages. Rebuilding our infrastructure would replace old, worn-out roads, bridges, and other transportation and utility systems and help us transition to a more sustainable and eco-friendly world. Not only is clean energy good for the planet, it also makes good business sense. We can be the world’s leader in climate-friendly products and create better economic opportunities for everyone.

I care about protecting the Chesapeake Bay and our environment. The Bay and its tributaries are part of our district’s heritage, livelihood, and culture. Working and playing on the water are part of our way of life. Republicans have made it easier for industries to pollute our waterways, land, and air. That has to stop. We must act to protect and preserve the bay and its shores before it’s too late.

I care about students. I will fight for more education funding for schools so that all of our children receive equal and high-quality education. I care about young adults having low-cost student loans for college or vocational training to prepare them to earn a good living.

I care about everyone, no matter who they are or what they believe. I’ve been discriminated against and I know the pain. No one should face discrimination in key areas of life, including employment, housing, credit, education, public spaces and services, federally funded programs, and jury service.

I will never put political interests ahead of people I believe service to others is the highest calling. I think government should be fair and even-handed to everyone and not just to a privileged few.

I want to work for you in Congress for the same reason I have spent most of my adult life serving in our armed forces: I care.

Mia Mason is the democratic nominee running in Maryland’s first congressional district against incumbent Andy Harris.

Why are some people asking that question now? How do we consider a question like that? Well, let us put that question in an historical context. The first African slaves were sold in Jamestown Virginia to English colonist in 1619. Did black lives matter? Over the next 246 years, African Americans were slaves. Bought and sold. Often brutally treated with no recourse in the law. Did black lives matter?

While Frederick Douglass was a fugitive slave, he was considered stolen property. He was not a person in the eyes of the law. Harriet Tubman, who spent a lifetime fighting injustice, believed strongly in those hallowed words, “We hold these truths to be self – evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are, Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It was her patriotic duty to fight injustice. Even though her life did not count according to the Constitution.

The Fugitive slave Act 1850, Federal government to return slaves to owners. Dred Scott Decision, 1857. Chief Justice Taney, from Maryland, concluded Slaves cannot be citizens and are in fact, property. President James Buchanan agreed. Plessy vs Ferguson, 1896. Supreme Court decision. Segregation is legal. Jim Crow laws last 100 years. Housing, banking, education, churches, restrictions on voting. Do black lives matter?

The Tulsa race massacre, 1921. Did black lives matter? Black soldiers returning home from World War I and II, Korea and Vietnam, who fought with dignity, still faced legal segregation in housing, banking, education, voting and even water fountains. Addie Mae Collins. Cynthia Wesley. Carole Robertson. Carol Denise McNair. Killed in a Birmingham church bombing in 1963. Martin Luther King Jr. Letter from a Birmingham Jail. The Gospel of Freedom, 1963. Martin Luther King Jr. killed 1968. Congressman John Lewis spent a lifetime fighting injustice. That is what a patriot does. What he left undone. Falls to us.

Elijah McNair. George Floyd. How do we show that black lives matter to us today? Paint the Mural on High Street.

Wayne T. Gilchrest is the former Congressman for the 1st District of Maryland.

 

Sometime in 2005, during my first year as the Director of the then Prince Theater Foundation (Now Garfield Center for the Arts), I’d invited a friend to volunteer to help me with preparing the theater for an evening event. Her job was to place a program for the event on every seat. When she finished the main level, she handed the rest to me and said, “I’m not going up there.”

For two-thirds of its 90 years, the New Lyceum / Prince Theater was segregated. There was a “Blacks Only” entrance, ticket box, staircase, and what’s more is that even the balcony was separated by a wall – Whites up front in chairs, Blacks behind, on benches. When we were doing research for the student-created “A Chestertown Attic” in Playmakers summer camp 2006, a life-long White resident of Kent County with 300+ years of lineage here shared this with us about sitting in the balcony in the 1950’s – “We knew better… we climbed over that stupid wall and we sat with our friends.” There is a history here, we must acknowledge it. We can do that with Public Art.

Public Art should exist to speak, unconstrained about problems, celebrations, injustices, memories, and so much more. It should exist to erase barriers to art, it should exist “among” the people. It must exists to stir emotion, to honor good work, and to challenge our understanding of, and sometimes the insufficiency of what we were taught. Sometimes its sole purpose is to make us see uncomfortable truths. Public art should not infringe on someone else’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; it should especially asserts those rights for people who have historically and societally been hindered from achieving them.

The phrase “Black Lives Matter” is a statement of truth. It is not political. It does not challenge my life and its purpose. It does not take away from my humanity but it does assert the humanity of those whom this country once called three-fifths of a human being.

If painting the words “Black Lives Matter” on the streets of Historic Chestertown makes one Black person feel safe and valued in their own hometown, then it is worth it. If painting the words “Black Lives Matter” on the streets of this 18th Century Port town, known for its slave trade” creates a conversation that leads to the opening of one Black-owned business, then it is worth it. If painting the words “Black Lives Matter” on the streets of the home of Henry Highland Garnet, Isaac Mason, Albert Walker, Clarence Hawkins, and so many more, can affect policies and practices and values statements of local governments, nonprofits, churches and businesses, then it is worth it.

In my 30 years as an arts and nonprofit administrator and advocate, I have learned a great deal. But I know this: I don’t have all the answer, none of us do. So in my role as the director of the Kent Cultural Alliance, I will take up the mantle of my predecessor and mentor Leslie Prince Raimond, and I will show up, and listen, and I will actively support the use of the arts to engage our County in important conversations moving forward. This mural can start a new chapter.

John Schratwieser is the Director of the Kent Cultural Alliance (formerly the Kent County Arts Council). He spent seven years as the Director of Maryland Citizens for the Arts. John served as the Director of the Prince Theater Foundation (now Garfield Center for the Arts) from 2004 – 2010 and has worked for two Tony Award Winning Regional Theaters – Signature Theater in Arlington, VA and Lincoln Center Theater in New York, NY. John has a bachelor’s degree in Theology from Fairfield University and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration and Nonprofit Management from The George Washington University.

Under the present circumstances in America today, I’ve had a number of recent conversations about my college alma mater, Washington & Lee University. As the second of three generations to graduate from W&L, I have deep ties with the University as well as great appreciation for the value of my four years there.

I attended W&L in the early ‘70’s, when it began admitting students of color. My fraternity was the first to desegregate, a matter of no small controversy at the time. The next controversy, which seems almost quaint three-plus decades later, was whether or not to admit women. In the mid-’80s, despite much dismay and dissent among its alumni, Washington & Lee became co-ed. Fast forward a little more than three decades, and W&L is once again at a tipping point: the controversy over its namesakes’ connections to slavery.

Our society — including the institutions of higher learning that produce many of our political, business and civic leaders — needs to accept responsibility for the legacy of racism in order to move forward toward greater peace, justice and opportunity for all. This is the change that our times now call for, loud and clear.

This applies to W&L no less than to scores of other institutions around the country. Princeton University has set a bold example by striking Woodrow Wilson’s name from its business school. Of note, around 20% of W&L’s most recent graduates requested, and were granted, the omission of both Washington’s and Lee’s profile images from their diplomas.

Over the years, the University has established numerous student, faculty, alumni, board and administration special committees tasked with resolving challenging issues brought by changing times. Co-education, college affordability and diversity are just a few of those issues addressed by rigorous examination, debate and resolve. The challenge now is the University’s actual name, which honors the memory of men who owned slaves. In particular, Robert E. Lee not only led a Confederate army in the fight to protect slavery, his harsh conduct as a slave owner is well documented.

In my own opinion, the values and traditions upheld and advanced by the University today are no longer well served by its namesakes. I believe that responding in a positive and proactive way to the call for change would be the wisest course. W&L is highly competitive and widely respected, and continues to send well-educated young men and women into the American workforce and society every year. A change in name will not detract from its value and reputation in the national higher education community.

Whatever changes the W&L trustees and administration ultimately decide will likely be contentious. Change always is. But I believe that change and progress are conjoined, and for the continued advancement of the University, I hope for both.

Matt LaMotte graduated from Washington & Lee University in 1974. He presently teaches American history and U.S. government courses at Saints Peter & Paul High School.