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Baltimore Ponders Removing Confederate Statues

government photograph

BALTIMORE (AP) - A commission appointed by Baltimore's mayor is recommending that the city remove two of four Confederate monuments on public property.

The seven-member panel voted on Thursday to urge removal of Roger B. Taney Monument on Mount Vernon Place and the Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson Monument in the Wyman Park Dell, The Baltimore Sun reported.

Taney was the Supreme Court chief justice whose Dred Scott decision denied citizenship and constitutional protections to blacks before the Civil War. Commission member Larry S. Gibson said Taney "deserves a place in infamy."

The panel recommended that the statue of Lee and Jackson be placed in Chancellorsville, Virginia, where they last met in person.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake will make the final decision on the monuments.

Don Rush is the News Director at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.