With the signing of House Bill 307 this month, Maryland made history by becoming the first state in the Union to establish a state-wide commission dedicated to investigating racial terror lynchings in the United States. The Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission (LTRC) provides an opportunity for the state to take a significant step in making peace with its African American communities.
The idea for such a commission is rooted in the spirit of restorative justice, which emphasizes repairing the harm to people, relationships and the community caused by criminal behavior. Thus, "justice" must address those harms as well as the wrongdoing. A key principle of restorative justice is that the people most affected by the crime should be able to participate in its resolution.
Desmond Tutu, the founder of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission placed the idea for the TRC in the African concept of ubuntu, or our common, collective humanity, the idea that "I am because we are."
"If one person is dehumanized then inexorably we are all diminished and dehumanized in our turn," he said in a 2004 lecture. "A criminal offense has caused a breach in relationship and the purpose of the penal process is to heal the breach, to restore good relationships and to redress the balance. Thus it is that we set out to work for reconciliation between the victim and the perpetrator. In restorative justice both the victim and the offender play central roles."
The LTRC seeks justice for families and communities of the victims of racial terror lynching in Maryland. The forms that such justice will take will be informed by the victims' families and communities, per the restorative justice paradigm. It will also provide opportunities for the responsible parties' families and communities to apologize and make amends in order to heal the damage to African American communities across the state for the wanton murder of their men.
Martinican poet and politician Aimé Césaire asserted that the perpetrators of violence were made brutes by their acts of violence. The LTRC, therefore, offers an opportunity to restore the humanity of both victims and perpetrators. It will also provide a means to stop the silencing of African American communities that was an integral element of racial terror lynchings.
The LTRC's hearing process will allow victims' families and communities (and possibly perpetrators' families and communities) to tell the truth about their stories. The hearings will also provide an opportunity to identify and bring to light possible cases of racial terror lynching that are remembered in families and communities but for which there is little or no documentation.