John,

Normally, this would be the time of the month where I email to let you know we've got a big end-of-month fundraising goal we need to hit (and we still do). But honestly, I truly want to take this time to share some of the words I delivered to the Morehouse Class of 2023 on Sunday.

I was honored, as the first Black governor of Maryland and one of only three Black governors in our country's entire history, to speak at one of the most prestigious historically Black colleges in America to a class full of hundreds of young men who look like me.

While graduations are a moment to look to the future, I was remiss not to speak to those young men – and you, John – about history.

I look around our country, and I see book banning, teachers being censored, curriculum of truth being taken out. This is not just a threat to our history but a threat to our strength.

Not just because those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But because those who do not learn their past will never learn their own power.

When I was polling at a mere 1% during my campaign, it was Maryland's history that showed me the path.

For ours is a state that:

• Was home to one of the largest slave ports in North America
• Birthed redlining and other discriminatory housing policies that have served as one of the greatest wealth thefts in our history
• Lynched Black men in their streets and neighborhoods not even a century ago

But Maryland also has a history of courage, of leaders and thinkers and writers and scholars. And their contributions paved the way not just for me to run for office, but their stories helped me to see the path. People like:

• Reginald Lewis who was the first Black man to build a multibillion dollar company in America
• Cab Calloway who was one of the first Black men to break the color barrier in the entertainment industry
• Lillie May Carroll Jackson who founded the Baltimore City NAACP and was known as the mother of the civil rights movement

It was those stories that I looked to on the hard days of our campaign. And they are the same ones I look to as we fight for the future of our state – and agonize over the future of our country.

Our history is our strength. And we must never forget that those who seek to minimize it are simply seeking to steal our power.

Thank you – for choosing to confront the ugliness of our past without fear, the hardship of our present without hesitation, and to move the earth by the power of your own will.

Elevate,

Wes