He’s walking more than a thousand miles. She’s logging tens of hours. They’re on parallel paths for the same purpose. Righting the historical wrongs against African Americans.
Although they met for the first time for our interview, Rev. Dr. Robert Turner and state Del. Aletheia McCaskill (44-B, Baltimore County) are much alike in their passion and their work to move the needle on reparations. Last week, we showed you Rev. Turner’s monthly journey from Baltimore to D.C. For two years, he’s been making the trek to urge national action.
Del. McCaskill is pushing for reparations in Maryland, a state that once held over 150,000 slaves of African descent.
“There are still today many discriminatory practices in the state of Maryland,” McCaskill says. “A lot of it goes back to slavery. From the educational system, whether it is the redlining of the housing system, redlining of businesses, we need to correct it.”
While she is as an elected official, this effort is very personal.
“Other folks have had a leg up,” she says, “and literally, we have a had the leg on, if you will. So I would like to make sure that we are healed as a community.”
Since June, she and a few members of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus have been working on a draft of a bill. It would establish a state commission to study the issue of reparations for descendants of Marylanders who were impacted by slavery and the Jim Crow era.
“By no means will this reparations bill correct it all, but it will help repair our community,” McCaskill says.
Three previous bills, including one she sponsored this year, didn’t get far in the General Assembly. With African Americans in several key position in the statehouse, including the governor, McCaskill says now is the time.
“Folks in other communities, including the Jewish communities, have come because folks want to figure out how we can atone some of the discrepancies and the discriminatory practices that have happened here,” she says.
A draft of the bill is due to the Legislative Black Caucus on Nov. 15, ahead of the 2025 legislative session, which opens January 8.
