The Charter Committee to Celebrate President Obama held a community program in Oxon Hill, Maryland, outside of Washington, DC, on the Saturday following President’s Day. The program included community service outreaches, an oratorical contest, speeches, and short biographical films on the president’s life.  “He woke up the activist in me,” said one of the Committee’s oratorical contest winners, Rayanah Williams.

Maintaining Obama’s legacy is the focus of The Committee added organizer Janis Hagey. “We cannot let his legacy be destroyed,” she said while explaining that many of the young, such as Williams, were toddlers or not even born when Obama became the nation’s first Black president.

Keynote speaker and former State’s Attorney for Prince George’s County, Maryland Glenn Ivey echoed many of Hagey's sentiments as he riddled off monuments named for other presidents including (Reagan) National Airport, though Ronald Reagan once fired striking air traffic controllers. “So, what are we doing for Obama?” he asked.

Maryland, which is 30 percent Black and failed twice to elect a Black Democratic governor in a very Democratic state, recently removed the statue of former Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney from the Maryland State House grounds. It was Taney who wrote that Africans had “No Rights Which the White Man was Bound to Respect” in the infamous Dred Scott decision.

“What is the positive legacy we want to put in its place?” asked Ivey. His son, Maryland House Delegate Julian Ivey has the answer. He has introduced Maryland House bill 995 which would led to the erection of a statue of Obama on the Maryland State House grounds.