Montgomery County remarks mark Black History Month, cite lynching memorials and personal family history

Unidentified Speaker, Unidentified Speaker, opened remarks for Black History Month in Montgomery County, calling for the community to remember Reconstruction-era violence and to broaden local historical narratives. "Happy Black History Month, Montgomery County," the speaker said.

The speaker said the commission was founded in 2019 "to really recapture a period of American history, this Reconstruction era," and pointed to a history of racial terror. "...racial terror lynchings occurred across the country, including right here in Montgomery County," the speaker said, and noted that the commission has "established markers for mister John Diggs Dorsey and mister Sydney Randolph, 2 of the 3 men, that we know that were lynched in Montgomery County."

Linking the work to personal history, the speaker said he is a native of Montgomery County and that "my great great grandfather was born here and was enslaved here, right here in Rockville," framing the commission's mission as part of a community obligation to document local Black history. The speaker urged residents to "try and tell a fuller and richer and truer story of how black history and black Americans and black Montgomery Countians have contributed."

The remarks closed with the line, "The African American story is quintessentially the American story," and no formal motions or votes were announced during the remarks. The comments functioned as a commemoration and a call for continued work on memorialization and public history projects in the county.