An effort is under way to repeal a Jim Crow-era law that makes it illegal in Maryland to receive any kind of payment, including bus fare, for participating in a protest against racial discrimination.
The law was aimed at discouraging Freedom Riders from traveling to the state to agitate against segregation and racism during the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
As part of a compromise that through the lens of history appears unseemly, lawmakers inserted the provision into an anti-discrimination law after rioting in Cambridge focused national attention on the Eastern Shore town.
Although the law has never been enforced, Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, in an opinion this month, concluded that courts would likely find that the 44-year-old statute doesn't pass constitutional muster under the First Amendment.
Legislative leaders plan to introduce legislation to repeal the law during the General Assembly session that begins in January, and Gov. Martin O'Malley's office said he would support the bill.
If not for the work of a committee assigned the yeoman's job of reviewing that particular section of the Maryland annotated code, the law might have remained in obscurity.
It takes 30 volumes, each hundreds of pages long, to house the extent of Maryland law, much of it written in antiquated language or rife with conflicts. It's the job of rotating committees, often comprising lawyers from the attorney general's office, attorneys in private practice and community members, to modernize it. The often-tedious job can take years.
"As soon as the committee saw it, almost all of us realized it was problematic," said Bonnie A. Kirkland, an assistant attorney general and chairperson of the review committee. "I was surprised. I just had never run across that provision."
The provision states: "It is unlawful for any person to receive any remuneration of any kind whatsoever for participation in any racial demonstration in the state. Violation of this section is punishable upon conviction by fine not to exceed $1,000 or by imprisonment not to exceed one year."
Veterans of the original freedom rides, who traveled on buses into the segregated South in the early 1960s to test a Supreme Court decision outlawing discrimination on interstate public transportation, focused on Route 50 in Maryland and particularly Cambridge, according to the attorney general's opinion. They were protesting segregation in public places.
