WMDT Exclusive: Governor Wes Moore makes historic announcment at Juneteenth roundtable
MARYLAND- Governor Wes Moore made some historic announcements in Cambridge in honor of the Juneteenth Holiday and spoke with WMDT exclusively on why this was so monumental on the Shore.
Juneteenth Justice
Maryland’s first black Governor, and currently the only Black Governor in the nation, Wes Moore chose Juneteenth to hold a community roundtable on closing the racial wealth gap at the historic Bethel AME Church in Cambridge.
The governor is continuing to build on his polices to fix Maryland’s foundation, and creating better pathways to work, wages, and wealth.
Just Communities Initiative
Today, he announced through the Department of Housing and Community Development a procedure to reform existing programs and launch new initiatives to help reverse decades of disinvestment and exclusionary policies.
“The Just Communities Initiative, which is putting over $400 million into historically redlined communities and historically Black communities that focuses on things like increasing appraisal value. That’s doing something like creating a better measurement of homeownership, because we know homeownership is one of the greatest attractions to wealth.”
The governor’s office says various communities will receive a five-year Just Community designation and priority consideration for competitive state funding.
Executive Clemency Order
And that’s not all. Governor Moore believes it will take good policies to fix the foundation of what’s broken. He speaks on his historic clemency order, an initiative to prioritize disenfranchised communities in Maryland.
“I signed the largest mass-pardon in the history of the United States of America. 175,000 misdemeanor cannabis convictions were pardoned in the stroke of a pen, and we know the majority of these were African Americans who were caught up when we use this war on drugs as a cudgel against the Black Community.”
June 2024, Governor Moore’s historic Executive Clemency Order pardoned 175,000 cases of simple cannabis possession, and today in the spirit of Juneteenth he signed a new clemency order adding another 6,938 cases, something he says will continue to foster freedom.
Various communities will receive a five-year Just Community designation and priority consideration for competitive state funding. For more information on what the governor is doing, click here.
