TOWSON, Md. (AP) - Maryland officials will memorialize a 15-year-old Black boy who was lynched outside a jailhouse in a Baltimore suburb nearly 136 years ago.
The Baltimore Sun reports that Howard Cooper will be memorialized with a marker and ceremony on Saturday in Towson, Maryland.
The ceremony is part of an ongoing effort by The Maryland Lynching Memorial Project, a group of 13 county chapters that are working to document the history of lynching in Maryland. The group also is working to advance the cause of reconciliation and advocate for public acknowledgment of lynchings.
Cooper was convicted by an all-white jury that concluded within minutes that he was guilty of rape.
He was sentenced to death by hanging. He was lynched in the early hours of July 13, 1885, before his attorneys could appeal his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that Cooper’s 14th Amendment rights had been violated because Maryland effectively prohibited Black people from serving on juries.
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