ANNAPOLIS – A proposed state investigation of the deaths of some 230 Black boys at the Cheltenham reform school faced no opposition Thursday at the House of Delegates hearing.
“Naming the unnamed is not symbolic,” Del. Jeffrie E. Long, Jr., D-Calvert and Prince George’s said. “It is an act of accountability, an act of dignity, an act of restoration.”
The bill, a priority for the Black caucus, calls for an independent investigation into the abuses at House of Reformation for Colored Boys in southern Prince George’s County in order to “account for every child buried in unmarked graves, and to understand the system that allowed such a tragedy to occur,” the bill text reads.
An estimated 230 boys died and many are buried in unmarked graves in the woods near the reform school.
Long, the main House sponsor of the bill, testified alongside Betsy Fox Tolentino, the acting secretary of juvenile services at Maryland’s Department of Juvenile Services, who supports the legislation. Members of the House Government, Labor, and Elections Committee asked few questions about the bill.
“Restoration alone does not answer the questions that remain,” Long said. “How did so many children die in state custody? What were the conditions that led to their deaths? Were warning signs ignored?”
The hearing comes weeks after a $200,000 grant was announced by the Maryland Historical Trust to fund a ground-penetrating radar survey and restoration of the burial grounds.
The Department of Juvenile Services will be working with the investigating team to create a plan to use the grant in uncovering the graves, according to Fox Tolentino.
A companion bill, introduced by Sen. William C. Smith Jr., D-Montgomery County, is scheduled to be heard on Feb. 25.
A priority of the state investigation involves the restoration of the boys’ burial site.
“I don’t want to keep calling it a cemetery, because right now, it’s a mass grave site,” Long said. “I refuse to call it a cemetery until it’s treated like one.”