A group of Anne Arundel County residents and civil rights organizations are banding together to rid their neighborhoods of racism.
The Anne Arundel County Race Relations Coordinating Council will host a town-hall meeting from 7 to 9 p.m. tonight at the South County Senior Center on Stepneys Lane in Edgewater.
Carl Snowden, aide to County Executive Janet Owens and a civil rights leader, said the meeting, the first of many to be held around the county, would give residents their first opportunity to strike back against a series of racial incidents.
“There are some unintended consequences that have occurred, namely that they are creating an image of that part of the county that race is a problem,” Snowden said.
Earlier this spring, an effigy of a black man was found hanging from a bridge in Edgewater. Last fall, neighborhoods in southern sections of the county and Annapolis were hit with fliers containing racially offensive messages. Victoria Bruce, a resident of the Riva neighborhood south of Davidsonville, was working on a public broadcast film about the friendship between two children of different races during the segregation era when hate literature was strewn across her front lawn last fall.
“You feel very violated,” she said. “How can someone with so much hate be so close to your house?”
Bruce, who is white, said that experience motivated her to get involved with the town-hall meetings and propose ways the community can fight back. She has suggested posting signs throughout the neighborhood with messages such as “Compassionate Community” or “Hate-Free Zone.”
Kristin Riggin, spokeswoman for State?s Attorney Frank Weathersbee, said prosecuting perpetrators of racial incidents could be difficult, and also said engaging community members is an important part of stopping the behavior.
She said the community must also get involved to teach the younger generation “that this is hate ? that this is not truth.”
