WaPo:Seeking A Share Of Power In Charles:Blacks Growing In Numbers as County Changes

Interesting article about Charles County in Southern Maryland and the African American presence. I live in Charles County and as a recent 5 year transplant, it is of interest to me. One thing I have always maintained about Southern Maryland is that it is the Southern part of Maryland, geographically and culturally. It really isn't a suburb of DC, it is its own region.

The article points out a few things:

Charles's black population grew 25 percent from 2000 to 2003 -- the largest such gain for any county in Maryland -- and now accounts for 30 percent of county residents. It is a major part of Charles's transformation from rural crossroads to fast-growing outer-rim suburb... Recent census figures confirm that the demographic trend that started in the 1990s continues to change the face of Charles County. African Americans, many from Prince George's County and the District, accounted for 65 percent of the county's 12,000 new residents from 2000 through 2003.

Many of the newcomers are professional families, demographers said. More than half of Charles County's black households have incomes above $50,000, and nearly 70 percent are married couples with children, according to the 2000 Census.

"I think many upwardly mobile African Americans are moving to Charles to avoid poverty issues and problems with schools," said George Grier, an independent demographer in Bethesda. "They want bigger houses, they want better neighborhoods, they want good schools, like any population of middle-class people."

Image: Afro-American Heritage Society & Cultural Center in LaPlata, MD (County seat for Charles County)



Now here's the chilling part:

Some attribute the lack of black participation to lingering racial tensions. As recently as 1994, the Ku Klux Klan rallied on the courthouse steps in La Plata. On Thanksgiving 1999, an anonymous flier calling on "White Brothers & Sisters of Charles County" to kill blacks was distributed across Waldorf, the northern section of the county that is the center of the African American population. "No more [racial epithet] in Charles County!!!!!!" it read.

For older African Americans, segregation in Charles is a vivid memory . Margie Posey, 69, remembers being blocked from the front door of restaurants and "white-only" restrooms as a little girl. The school bus rumbled past her family's home in Malcolm but didn't pick up black children, so she walked four miles to sit on a soda crate in her one-room segregated school.

"Things haven't changed that much here. I see them kind of going backwards," said Posey, the first African American to be elected to the Indian Head Town Council.

The problem with racism issues in a community is that you just never know to whom you are speaking. You could be joking with someone in the grocery store and not realize that they are Klan. My experience in the area, however, has been great. I do realize that it is part of the south and we definitely see our share of Confederate items here and on many young people! A white girl once came up to me and said, "Sir do you have a dollar for us poor White kids?" One of her three friends with her, all boys, had a confederate visor.

It's weird, but I prefer the overt racism to the subtle kind, the we're-not-racist-we're-enlightened-North East-liberals kind. When it's out in the open, at least the problem is identified, when it is under the radar, it is like boils that keep poping up and all you can do is slap a bandaid on it because it is down right impossible to pin down the "cause."

All that said, I enjoy Southern Maryland, and people are good folks around here. There's always the ugly underbelly, but then again, is any place free of undesireable droppings?