PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. — Calvert County has secured $250,000 in funding to build a statue of trailblazing educator and civil rights pioneer Harriet E. Brown.
The $250,000 is part of the budget announced by Maryland’s governor, Wes Moore[D], on Jan. 21, with the support and advocacy of Del. Jeffrie Long Jr. The statue will be placed in front of the Calvert County Circuit Courthouse at 175 Main St., Prince Frederick.
Brown was a courageous Calvert County schoolteacher whose fight for equal pay transformed education policy in Maryland and helped advance civil rights nationwide. Brown earned degrees from Morgan State College and the University of Maryland, and began teaching in Calvert County in 1931. She later discovered that, with her eight years of experience and a first-grade certificate, she received an annual salary of $600, while her white counterparts with the same qualifications and experience received an annual salary of $1,100.
She took her case to court, and in 1937, the Calvert County Board of Education agreed to equalize salaries. This landmark case opened the door a couple of years later for the Maryland Teachers’ Pay Equalization Law, the first equalization law in the state. Her case was a turning point for equal pay, and the salary equalization fight spread across the country.
Brown continued teaching in Calvert County for more than 30 years and was known for her dignity, humility and strength. She lived to the age of 101 and passed away in 2009.
The community center in Prince Frederick, which opened in 2016, also bears Brown’s name.
“The Harriet E. Brown statue will serve as a lasting tribute to her role in advancing equal pay, civil rights and educational justice and as a reminder of Calvert County’s place in Maryland’s civil rights history,” Calvert County wrote in a press release.
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A waste of money to spend $250,000; for a statue. There are no other statues of a person in Calvert County, other than the “On Watch” Monument: at Calvert Marina which honors the WWII amphibious training base that once operated in the area that features a sailor in a watchful stance. There are far more better and worthier individuals in Calvert County’s past long history that should have a statue. Calvert County has become a village of virtue signalers.