Documenting Hate
Lutherville church’s Black Lives Matter sign vandalized again
For the fourth time, someone has damaged a sign outside the building
Above: Sign at Towson Unitarian Universalist Church vandalized on Election Day. Today it happened again. (Stephen F. Brown-Pearn)
It didn’t last three days this time.
The newest Black Lives Matter sign at Towson Unitarian Universalist Church on Dulaney Valley Road, placed there Tuesday, was damaged this morning.
“It happened some time after 10 a.m. today,” according to Stephen F. Brown-Pearn, the church’s Social Action Committee Chair. “A police report was filed.”
Someone has been destroying Black Lives Matter signs at this small suburban church since October 14, when a banner set up near near the road on church property was torn down.
Brown-Pearn wrote a commentary published Monday in The Brew describing the small congregation’s decision to embrace the message with a banner hung with great ceremony.
He wrote also about the subsequent acts of vandalism, as the congregation replaced the banner with signs and vandals repeatedly stole or defaced them. (One of the incidents took place on Election Day, Nov. 8.)
Now, what can only be described as a racist hate crime has happened once again.
Dialogue? Security Cameras?
Not all the news in the wake of the Towson “UU” church’s vandalism experience has been negative. Since it was made public, the church has received several messages of support.
“A neighbor left a voicemail thanking us for putting the sign up, saying she was white and that she appreciated the message,” Brown-Pearn said.
Someone affiliated with the Annapolis Unitarian Universalist church sent them a back-up Black Lives Matter sign, he said.
Following the latest incident, the congregation plans to meet tomorrow evening to weigh its next move. As before, members have expressed differing points-of-view, with some raising the idea of installing security cameras.
And Brown-Pearn, as in his earlier open letter to the vandal or vandals, is advocating dialogue instead.
“I would like to tell them they are welcome to have their own point of view but ask them, nicely, to allow us to have ours,” he said. “My thought is, invite them in to our meeting. ”
Other members, he said, are not keen on that idea. “They are still grieving,” he said. “Where I see it as a minor piece of history, they are taking it kind of personally.”