Did you know that our State Song - "Maryland, My Maryland" - glorifies the Confederacy and honors our State's slave-holding and segregationist past? Did you know that the Southern Poverty Law Center includes Maryland's State Song on its list of shame as a public symbol of the Confederacy that distorts history by honoring a secessionist government that waged war to preserve white supremacy and the enslavement of millions of people, including the ancestors of our fellow citizens?
Marylanders deserve a State song that makes us all proud and reflects who we are in 2020! Our WDC Advocacy Committee has been working hard to convince our legislators that, after nine failed attempts since 1974, it is long past time to retire "Maryland, My Maryland" - and you can help.
MoCo Delegate Kirill Reznik sponsored a bill (HB0181) to establish an Advisory Panel to find a new State song. On the last day the legislature was open to the public, WDC members Ginger Macomber* and Fran Rothstein** testified before the Maryland House Health and Government Operations Committee that will vote on this Bill, and urged its members to not only pass this Bill, but go one step further and act to remove "Maryland, My Maryland" as our State Song NOW! Sadly, this Committee failed to act on last year's bill to decommission this song.
Segregationist James Ryder Randall penned the words to “Maryland My Maryland” in 1861." Confederate soldiers used it as a battle hymn. It was even considered as a national anthem for the Confederacy! Our song calls President Abraham Lincoln a “despot,” refers to the Union Army as “Northern scum,” implores Maryland to secede and join Virginia as a Confederate State, and honors a former governor, Enoch Lewis, who gave moral and material support to the Confederacy. Maryland adopted these words as our State Song in 1939, long after the Civil War had ended and slavery had been outlawed but when Maryland was still a segregated Jim Crow state. That status was shameful then, and our State Song perpetuates that shame today.
WDC asks all its members to act now. Call or email the House Health and Government Operations Committee members and your State legislators to vote this song out. The Committee will be voting any day. See WDC's Advocacy Alert for more information.
While at the State House, Fran and Ginger visited the new statues of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas. Fran's letter to the Editor in the Washington Post noted the irony of honoring these heroes with statutes in the State House while maintaining "Maryland, My Maryland" as our State Song.
*Ginger Macomber testimony
**Fran Rothstein testimony