On Juneteenth, Wes Moore Wants To Focus On The ‘Work Of Repair’ For Black Americans

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is pushing back against critics of his decision to veto a reparations bill that would have created a commission to study the impacts of slavery and potential reparations for Black descendants of enslaved people.

“There’s been a whole collection of scholarship that’s been done on this. If you look at the legislation that was passed, and again, it was important work, but if you look [at it], it’s basically saying that they’re going to take two years to be able to present recommendations to the governor,” Moore, the nation’s sole sitting Black governor, said in a phone interview. Moore vetoed the reparations bill in May.

“My point is this — I am the governor, and I don’t need two years. I’m ready to act now.”

Moore announced Thursday that his administration is taking steps toward what he believes is tangible policy aimed at closing the racial wealth gap — pardoning over 6,000 cases of simple cannabis possession and investing in disenfranchised communities that have been disproportionately impacted by decades of racist policies like redlining, mass incarceration and highway construction in majority Black neighborhoods through the new Just Communities initiative.

Over 400 neighborhoods will receive the Just Communities designation, with the majority located in Maryland’s predominantly Black regions of Baltimore City and Prince George’s County. These communities will receive priority consideration for state funding.

The governor, who is considered to be a 2028 contender, though he’s been adamant he’s not running, made the announcement at the historic Bethel AME Church in Cambridge, a town on Maryland’s Eastern Shore — the region where famed abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass were born.

“This is one of the most aggressive actions in our state’s history — to be able to make a focused effort to help reverse decades of racist and discriminatory policies,” he explained. “We are now going to put state resources into righting a lot of historical wrongs, which I think is just a true statement of apology that this statement is making.”

Still, there are questions whether these announcements go far enough to address the impacts centuries of slavery and racist legislation had on Black Americans. Juneteenth’s designation as a federal holiday in 2021 under the Biden administration has also reenergized the reparations movement.

Moore believes these new initiatives are simply the first step in a long journey toward repair.

“By doing things like the Just Communities announcement, which again, is a historic announcement, not just in the state of Maryland, but around the country, and also signing another one of the largest mass pardons in our nation’s history,” he continued. “Those are the action items that people are looking for in this work of repair.”