BALTIMORE — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s veto of a bill related to reparations payments for the descendants of slaves has raised eyebrows among some Black leaders in Baltimore.

Moore vetoed Senate Bill 587 on May 16, which would have launched a two-year study into whether the state should provide reparations to those affected by the state’s history of slavery and inequality. In a letter explaining the veto, Maryland’s first Black governor wrote that he supports the work of the proponents but does not believe it’s the right “time for another study.”

Rev. Dr. Robert Turner, senior pastor at Baltimore’s Empowerment Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church, said his initial reaction to the veto was “great disappointment.” Members of his congregation have “been praying their whole lives” for some way to address historic injustices, Turner told The Baltimore Sun.

Turner, who led marches calling on President Joe Biden to sign an executive order establishing a federal reparations commission, views the study as a necessary step to securing “repair” for Black communities. and used food analogies to make this point. He said acting on reparations with the foresight of studies versus without them is the “difference between going to the grocery store knowing what you want to make or going to the grocery store just because.”

“By having a [study] commission, you’re really trying to see what the people you’re serving are starving from,” Turner said. “What is it that they need to eat versus what you want them to eat?”

‘Unpopular amongst white folks’

The reverend believes any reparations study must be clearly aimed at addressing “harm-based remedies,” as the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard found most affirmative action programs to be unconstitutional.

“Because of the Supreme Court case with affirmative action, you can’t have race-based remedies anymore,” Turner said. “But you can have harm-based remedies, and the commission is best designed to develop a study to present harm-based remedies.”

Dayvon Love, public policy director of Baltimore-based grassroots advocacy group Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, said that at the beginning of 2025, he would have been “surprised” by Moore vetoing a reparations study bill. But during meetings with Moore during this year’s legislative session, Love told The Baltimore Sun he became convinced that “the governor’s office was trying to kill the bill.”

“I was very candid that it is my belief that the triangulation on the issue of reparations is a political calculation based on the fact that reparations is extremely unpopular amongst white folks. The veto in some ways, confirmed some of my suspicions,” Love said.

Love pointed to a 2022 Pew Research poll that found, while 77% of Black Americans support reparations for the descendants of slaves, just 18% of white Americans said the same. He suggested strong actions on reparations would jeopardize Moore’s “political brand” as a leader who is “palatable to the white mainstream.”

“For the letter to say he wants to act now, that doesn’t square with the fact that I know my organization presented actual policy prescriptions and we were told that they weren’t inclined to move on them,” Love said. “I think, to be honest, he does not want to be associated with the radical Black nationalist movements [from] which the reparations demand emerges.”

Veto override

Anson Asaka, senior associate general counsel at the NAACP, expressed disappointment with Moore’s veto and called on the Maryland General Assembly to override it.

“I hope that the Maryland Legislature overrides his veto,” Asaka wrote on Facebook. “It is sad to see the Governor disregard his base to tap dancing for [those] who are never going to support him.”

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott did not address Moore’s veto directly or call on General Assembly Democrats to override it, but he did express a desire to see reparations discussed at the federal level.

“Anybody that doesn’t understand that African Americans in this country are owed a lot… sh ould really have a deeper thought,” Scott said during his May 21 news conference.

Green Party gubernatorial candidate Andy Ellis, who is white, has made reparations for Black citizens a key component of his platform. Ellis previously suggested Moore “hoped” he never had to take a strong position on reparations so he wouldn’t become politically burdened by the issue if he runs for president in 2028 — an ambition the governor has publicly denied.

“If he’s serious, let him step off the national TV circuit and debate real solutions right here in Maryland,” Ellis said of Moore in a statement. “The clock is ticking on reparations, climate justice, data centers and energy security, and Maryland deserves leadership, not excuses.”

‘No wiggle room’

The reparations veto also compelled a South Carolina lawmaker, state Rep. John King, to call for Moore to be disinvited from Blue Palmetto Dinner — the governor will be the event’s keynote speaker on Friday, May 30. The dinner is a frequent stop for Democratic presidential candidates given the early timing of South Carolina’s primary elections and the large Black voter base in the state.

“We must make it clear that symbolism without substance is no longer acceptable,” King wrote in an open letter to the South Carolina Democratic Party. “Representation means nothing if it does not come with a commitment to repair the harms inflicted by systemic racism and slavery.”

Dr. Alvin C. Hathaway Sr., pastor emeritus at Union Baptist Church, said that Moore “proverbially grabbed the bull by the horns” by vetoing the reparations package but still agreeing that a “debt is owed,” referencing Black Americans who contributed to “the early stages of the B&O Railroad and started the Industrial Revolution.”

Hathaway urged Moore to specify how to address the different disparities that Black Americans in Maryland face.

“All eyes are on him,” he said. “Not only here locally within the city of Baltimore, the state of Maryland, but nationally, as the only African American governor. What are the actions you’re going to take for what we know has been a historic wrong? So to me, there’s no wiggle room.”

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