The Cannabis Reform Act of 2023 established the Community Repair and Reinvestment Fund to begin addressing the harms caused by the attack on Black communities in the name of the War on Drugs . It directs a share of the recreational Cannabis tax revenue funding to Maryland counties based on the percentage of prior cannabis-related arrests, ensuring that the communities most impacted by criminalization receive resources for repair. Each county is required to establish a locally controlled commission to decide how these funds are used - putting power in the hands of residents to invest in housing, education, health, and opportunity on their own terms.

This policy is working - and now it’s time to expand it. We support increasing funding to the Community Repair and Reinvestment Fund through additional cannabis revenue, progressive taxation, and any other revenue streams recommended by the commissions themselves. Real repair requires sustained investment. This is a concrete, community-led reparations model already in motion - and we should build on its success.

Senate Bill 587 rightly defines eligibility for reparations to include not only the descendants of those enslaved in Maryland, but also those harmed by government policies that enforced racial inequality during the post-Reconstruction eras and the Jim Crow era. This covers two significant periods of time, the founding of the state up to November of 1864 when the State Constitution ended the legal practice of enslavement (Maryland did not secede and thus was not subject to the Emancipation Proclamation) and 1877 to 1965 which marks the period of post-reconstruction through the end of Jim Crow.

However, since Maryland did not secede much of the reconstruction era was not under the authority of the United States Federal Government and was administered by the State of Maryland. As drafted SB 587 omits  the important period of “self-reconstruction”, from 1865 to 1876. During this time Democrats, slave owners, and Confederate sympathizers regained power in state and local government and moved quickly to curtail the rights, freedom, liberty and labor of Freedmen and Freedwomen.

To fully address the scope of harm, we must ensure that the commission investigates and makes recommendations about Maryland’s own brief and unfinished period of Reconstruction, as well as the period’s before and after.

Maryland needs a permanent, independent commission led by Black civil society organizations - not beholden to the Democratic Party or any political establishment. The work of repair must be guided by those most impacted, not filtered through partisan interests or short-term political agendas. A truly accountable commission must be rooted in the lived experience, historical knowledge, and organizing power of Black communities across the state.

This commission should be tasked with identifying the public and private institutions, businesses, and individuals that profited from slavery, segregation, and legal discrimination in Maryland. It must document the mechanisms of racial wealth extraction, land dispossession, and labor exploitation, and make clear, public recommendations for restitution. These findings must be delivered to the Governor and General Assembly with the moral and political weight they deserve. Reckoning with our past is not a one-time task, it’s an ongoing responsibility that demands permanent infrastructure for truth and transformation.

Generations of Black Marylanders - including Freedmen and Freedwomen whose ancestors were enslaved in this state - have been harmed by policies that caused direct material loss. These include the violence of enslavement, exclusion from government services, segregated schools and the devaluation or theft of land, homes, and businesses through redlining, urban renewal, and discriminatory taxation. These harms weren’t accidents, they were the result of deliberate public policies enacted at every level of government. Their impacts are ongoing and intergenerational, and they are a root cause of the racial wealth gap in Maryland today.

To begin repairing that damage, we need actuarial approaches that can quantify what was stolen or denied and return it in the form of direct cash payments and other forms of monetary compensation. This must include payments to the sons and daughters of Freedmen, and also to those who - while not descended from enslaved Marylanders - were still targeted by public policy simply because the state defined and treated them as Black, and enacted racist policy based on that definition . There are specific people whose economic opportunities were systematically undermined because of how Maryland’s laws, institutions, and practices enforced racial hierarchies. The Reparations Commission must have the power to determine the most effective ways to deliver compensation, whether through incremental payments, tax relief, investment accounts, debt cancellation, or some other means - all guided by those directly affected.

It is important to note that the federal government bears the greatest responsibility for funding large-scale cash reparations. The federal government sanctioned slavery, codified racism into national law, and subsidized the white wealth gap through decades of exclusionary policy. But Maryland is not off the hook. The state played a direct role in these injustices and must take responsibility now. That means using state resources to fund reparations programs and pressing for federal action that complements and strengthens this work. Justice begins at home and Maryland must lead by example.

For generations, Black Marylanders have been forced to flee their communities - driven out by legalized discrimination, campaigns of racial terror, displacement through urban renewal, and economic policies designed to push them out. From the torching of Black homes and neighborhoods to the denial of employment, education, and basic protections, state and local governments created conditions where safety, dignity, and opportunity were systematically stripped away. These acts were not isolated incidents; they were part of a broader strategy to erase Black presence and power from many parts of Maryland.

A just reparations program must include the right to return. That means creating pathways for descendants of displaced families to reclaim land, access housing, and rebuild community in the places their ancestors were driven from. It means investing in infrastructure, services, and protections that make return meaningful - not just symbolic. Whether through land grants, housing subsidies, or community land trusts, Maryland has a responsibility to ensure that those pushed out by racial injustice have the opportunity to come home with dignity and support. Repair means restoration - and that includes the right to return.

Restoring and protecting African American cemeteries and sacred spaces must be a core component of any serious reparations program in Maryland. Cemeteries like Moses Macedonia African Cemetery in Bethesda - where generations of Africans are buried - have been desecrated, paved over, and exploited for commercial development. These sacred sites are not only burial grounds; they are archives of memory, resistance, and community. Their destruction represents not just physical erasure, but an ongoing attempt to sever Black communities from their ancestral lineage and land. Reparations must include full public acknowledgment of these crimes, legal protections for African burial grounds, and community-led restoration of those sites, guided by the descendants and institutions like Macedonia Baptist Church, which have held the memory of these places through generations.

Maryland must invest in the long-term stewardship of African American cemeteries by creating publicly funded, descendant-controlled trusts to restore, protect, and interpret these sacred spaces. This includes comprehensive archaeological surveys, permanent memorials, legal title and land transfer to descendant-led organizations, and ongoing funding for preservation. These efforts should not be treated as symbolic or secondary - cemetery desecration is an act of racial violence, and repair demands more than apology. It requires material restitution and a shift in power. As seen in the ongoing struggle led by the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition, any meaningful reparations policy must include full accountability for past and present desecration and commit to honoring the dead by protecting the living memory of their communities

Reparations must begin with truth. Before we can repair the harm, we must fully recognize it-and that requires an honest reckoning with Maryland’s role in slavery, segregation, and systemic racism. This means documenting the full scope of harm, not just through statistics and policy records, but through memorials, public education, and the elevation of voices that have been excluded or silenced. We must name the families, institutions, and government bodies that benefited from racial injustice and ensure that this history is not hidden or sanitized. A reparations process rooted in truth-telling helps restore dignity to those whose lives and legacies were stolen or erased.

Symbolic recognition is not a substitute for material repair-but it is a necessary foundation for it. Monuments, renamed streets, public markers, and statewide days of remembrance all play a role in building a shared understanding of what was done, who was responsible, and what is owed. These acts of reckoning are about more than history-they are about values. They affirm that Maryland sees and acknowledges the humanity of those it once enslaved, dispossessed, and excluded. Without this foundation of recognition and accountability, the work of reparations cannot be complete.

As part of this reckoning, Maryland must commit to a full program of de-Confederateization and de-Jim Crowing-removing symbols, names, policies, and honors that glorify white supremacy. Statues of enslavers and segregationists, schools and highways named after Confederate figures, and government buildings that still bear the marks of racial exclusion all send a clear message: that Black suffering is acceptable and unworthy of redress. Dismantling these symbols is not about erasing history; it’s about refusing to celebrate oppression. This work is essential to building a public landscape that reflects justice, not dominance-and to creating a future where every Marylander is valued