*This is not a post about the protests or riots, I have another for that. Please keep that in mind. For now, this is about Turner Lane.*
Turner Lane ... that is what I keep thinking about.
In the small town of Nanticoke, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Harriet Tubman was a conductor of the legendary Underground Railroad (Indians from the Nanticoke tribe also helped slaves, at great risk).
Now, there is a short lane of about 1,000 yards with houses on small lots... I remember well: Turner Lane.
Derrick Turner was my kindergarten classmate and my best childhood friend. We were essentially the same socioeconomic status... my family lived in a red trailer a few miles away. But there were no white people on Turner lane. In the small towns of Delmarva, black and white settlements, intentionally, were separated.
At six years old, one does not know the complexities of inequality and racism. Even though I could tell things were different there, I did not understand why everyone was black in his neighborhood and white in mine. I do know that I loved when my mother drove me there, I loved Derrick, and I loved playing on Turner Lane.
I had already worked on criminal justice reform as a State Delegate. I would later pass the Ashanti Alert Act to bring more attention to missing minority female adults (and others), and would have later have language from a bill of mine incorporated into historic criminal justice reform passed in the 115th Congress and signed into law by President Trump. House Res. 285 was supported by the Congressional Black Caucus. The President of the national NAACP invited me to speak at their national convention - as the only Republican representative.
I keep thinking about Turner Lane, of Derrick Turner - and of the realities to which, at just 6 years old, I both understood and was ignorant to. My past action is just the start. More change is needed; leadership is needed.
Fixing a broken system will take people from all colors and creeds. Indeed, we are all in this country together and must love and support one another. Voting matters, but not simply for those who have given platitudes for years with no change, who weaponize race as a means to secure power, but by backing those willing to put in the necessary work to get it done.
