Mayor Colin Byrd On Greenbelt's Reckoning With Its Racial History

Today, it’s Midday with the Mayor, and Mayor Colin Byrd joins us. He’s a progressive Democrat who was elected in 2019 -- at the age of 27 -- as the youngest mayor ever elected to lead the city of Greenbelt, Maryland, his native city. One of the mayor’s initiatives concerns reparations for African Americans and Indigenous people who, for decades after the town's creation as a planned community in 1937, were discriminated against in a racially segregated Greenbelt. In a couple of months, voters in the historic Maryland city will have a chance to weigh in on the issue. The reparations referendum that Mayor Byrd proposed last spring will appear on the November 2nd ballot. Mayor Byrd joins Tom on Zoom from Greenbelt.Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.