SALISBURY, Md.- The city of Salisbury is one step closing to issuing an apology to those like the descendants of Mathew Williams, who was lynched in the city of Salisbury nearly 100 years ago. The city is apologizing for it’s role in the crime, as the Salisbury Fire Department supplied a rope for the lynching.
Salisbury Mayor Randy says this was an important task for the city to get done.
“People feel like it needs to be done and we react to it, that we’re not ignoring it. It’s a tragic period in our history and we recognize it as such and make amends in the sense of an apology,” said Taylor. “The essential part is recognizing the history and recognizing our growth as a society and so I think we accomplished that.”
The mayor sent the drafted apology to the city’s TRUTH Committee, which stands for Truth, Racial, Unity, Transformation and Healing Committee. The Committee approved the apology, which will now go to the city council for approval.
Amber Green, Chair of the TRUTH Committee says while members considered some changes, ultimately it agreed to the mayor’s apology.
“What we did was review some of the points that were raised by our members in regards to how they felt about it more so the language of the resolution, and who the resolution was targeting towards whether this was an apology, directly for the descendants, or if this was an apology for the entire city of Salisbury Black community,” said Green.
Green says now that the TRUTH Committee has approved this apology, it is looking forward to moving onto other business.
“What we wanted to do was vote for the apology to be submitted as is so we can get through this one task so we can move forward with several other ideas and recommendations that have been floating into the conversations of the committee,” said Green.
Green says she believes this apology will be impactful to the community.
“The biggest thing with this resolution is an apology, and that’s one step. We’re hoping that in addition to this resolution, we will move forward with talking about different other actions, steps and recommendations that is the whole purpose of this committee,” said Green.
The approval of this apology will go before the city council mid-March.