By Dayvon Love
Larry Gibson, a lawyer, longtime law professor at the Francis King Carey School of Law in the University of Maryland, Baltimore, political strategist and historian, is an elder that has made substantial contributions to Black life in Baltimore and across the state of Maryland.
He represents a tendency within the civil rights establishment that has preferred an approach to politics that prioritizes entrance into the White mainstream. According to many studies, including the Kerner Commission that was established after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by the Johnson administration to study the progress of Black people after the Civil Rights Movement, have shown that while there has been an expansion of the Black middle class by 25 percent, the masses of Black people are poorer now than we were before the Civil Rights Movement.
People who represent the mainstream civil rights perspective are most represented in mainstream halls of power and often create political and social distance from aspects of the Black radical tradition that make White people feel threatened. It is this Black radical tradition that is best represented by folks like Malcolm X, Queen Mother Moore, the Black Panther Party, Republic of New Afrika and many others who have been the most ardent advocates of the masses of working class Black people that the civil rights establishment has often neglected.
Larry Gibson’s op-ed in the Baltimore Banner, urging the governor to veto a bill that would establish a statewide commission to study the viability and implementation of reparations in Maryland, represents an attempt to give Wes Moore cover to engage in the practice of distancing himself from a demand from the Black radical tradition that would garner disapproval from mainstream White society.
Other commissions that have been tasked with looking at inequality have existed in Maryland. I actually participated on a commission like that a few years ago. But none of the commissions that have been established have been given a stated legislative directive to study the viability and method of implementing a reparations policy in Maryland. This is substantively different from commissions who have been tasked with broadly addressing inequality. A state sanctioned study on how Maryland should implement a reparations policy provides a policy advocate like myself ammunition to push for policies that might otherwise be extremely difficult to pass. An explicit focus on assessing the harm done by White people and their institutions to Black people is a charge that has a potential to produce policies that would be a formidable challenge to the White supremacist structure of this society.
In Mr. Gibson’s op-ed he balked at the notion of doing a study on reparations because he says “we have already repeatedly studied the problem.” I actually sympathize with that perspective and, in fact, I have had conversations with members of the leadership of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland in which I conveyed that I thought a study bill does not go far enough. I actually presented a proposal during the summer of 2024 to the speaker, Senate president and the Moore administration that includes a study and implementing a viable reparations policy simultaneously. The feedback I got from the Moore administration was that the budget deficit would impede the ability for them to get behind our proposal, which was a reasonable response. So LBS (my organization) decided that we would get behind a reparations study commission that the Black Caucus was working on in order to set the table for future reparations advocacy on the state level.
While I respect the work of Mr. Gibson, his perspective on this legislation is not informed by any substantive knowledge on the work that has gone into crafting it. Additionally, his position on this bill will provide allies of the governor a way to hide behind the legacy of Mr. Gibson to justify their commitment to the political status quo if Wes Moore vetoes the bill.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the AFRO.
Read more from Dayvon Love here.