Brian Witte
People gather to watch the installation of a historical marker that tells the story of the lynching of Porter Flournoy Turner in Atlanta's Druid Hills community, Thursday, May 6, 2021. Porter Turner was lynched near the area in August 1945. (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
May 08, 2021 - 3:54 PM
TOWSON, Md. - Maryland's governor on Saturday posthumously pardoned 34 victims of racial lynching in the state dating between 1854 and 1933, saying they were denied legal due process against the allegations they faced.
It was a first-of-its-kind pardon by a governor of a U.S. state.
Gov. Larry Hogan signed the order at an event honouring Howard Cooper, a 15-year-old who was dragged from a jailhouse and hanged from a tree by a mob of white men in 1885 before his attorneys could file an appeal of a rape conviction that an all-white jury reached within minutes.