The Washington Post - USA (2020-11-22)

KLMNO

METRO

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/REGIONAL EZ RE C

New cases in region

Through 5 p.m. Saturday, 5,386

new coronavirus cases were

reported in the District, Maryland

and Virginia, bringing the total

number of cases to 415,611.

D.C. MD. VA.

+153 +2,8 85 +2,3 48

19,961 179,9 71 215,679

Coronavirus-related deaths

As of 5 p.m. Saturday:

D.C. MD.* VA.

+1 +17+ 26

6704 ,415 3,938

* Includes probable covid-19 deaths

Black man with autism received pardon, but he remains in prison

Already,

Matthew Rushin

is thinking about

the molasses-

colored pepper

pot his mom

cooks.

The 22-year-old

with autism has

told her that the national dish of

Guyana, where she grew up, is

the first meal he wants when he

comes home from prison.

“It takes about five hours to

make,” Lavern Rushin says,

planning, not complaining.

For more than a year — since

that day a judge sentenced her

son to serve 10 years of a 50-year

sentence following a life-

altering car crash — she has

been preparing, pushing and

pleading for his homecoming.

For more than a year — since

that phone call when she

realized that her son didn’t fully

grasp what he faced, because he

asked whether she could send

Thanksgiving dinner to his

cellblock — she has been calling

lawmakers, emailing supporters

and posting pictures and

prayers for tens of thousands of

strangers to see on an Instagram

page she titled “Free Matthew

Rushin.”

“Oh Lord, how I miss him,”

she wrote on there one day. “...

He’s still the child I tucked in at

nite and read stories too — He’s

still the teenager that took care

of me when I had the flu or

going through chemo.”

“Why God?” she wrote

another day. “He does not

deserve this! The system we

trusted failed him. Being black

is not a crime! Being autistic is

not a crime!”

Another post: “How did my

beautiful son become a hashtag?

I miss him. I miss him. I miss

him with all my heart!”

Nearly two years ago, on Jan.

4, 2019, Matthew Rushin walked

out of his family’s Virginia

Beach home to pick up pastries

at a nearby Panera and never

made it back.

What happened instead has

divided people in his hometown,

brought together autism

advocates and Black Lives

Matter activists, and left

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam

(D) sifting through the wreckage

of two families to determine

whether Rushin deserved the

prison sentence he was handed.

In June, when I first told you

about Rushin, who was

diagnosed with Asperger’s and

ADHD as a child and later

experienced a traumatic brain

injury, his family was hopeful

that Northam would offer him

an absolute pardon and allow

him to come home.

This month, Northam granted

Rushin a conditional and partial

SEE VARGAS ON C3

Theresa

Vargas

FAMILY PHOTO

Matthew Rushin was diagnosed with Asperger’s and ADHD when

he was a child, and he later experienced a traumatic brain injury.

BY JOE HEIM

Four years ago, as it set out on a construction

project to help shape its ambitious 21st century

future, St. Mary’s College of Maryland discovered

disquieting evidence of its 19th century past.

Work had just begun on a new stadium and

sports fields at the public liberal arts college in

southern Maryland when President Tuajuanda C.

Jordan learned that a required archaeological

survey on the proposed construction site had

unearthed a trove of slavery artifacts. On land

where college games were set to be played once

lived children, women and men who were kept as

property.

The discovery by anthropology professor Julia

King and her students came just months after

Jordan was informed by the school’s archivist

that St. Mary’s College, which was founded in

1840, had once owned enslaved people. The news

was heartbreaking, said Jordan, who is Black and

has led the college since 2014.

“The history of St. Mary’s College has always

been very forward-thinking and relatively pro-

gressive and somehow, in my heart of hearts, I

had hoped we had no hand in slavery,” Jordan

said in an interview Thursday. “When I discov-

ered that, I was sad and depressed.”

After the artifacts, including clay pipes and

broken pottery, were uncovered, Jordan said she

immediately knew she wanted to do something to

honor these individuals whose existence had long

been covered by dirt and hidden from history’s

lens.

She began working with administrators, pro-

fessors and students as well as residents and

government officials of historic St. Mary’s City

and nearby communities to agree on a suitable

memorial project to pay tribute to the people who

had lived and toiled in captivity all their lives. The

fruit of that four-year-long effort was realized

Saturday morning when the college unveiled

“From Absence to Presence: The Commemorative

to Enslaved Peoples of Southern Maryland.”

SEE MEMORIAL ON C7

BY EMILY DAVIES

AND JUSTIN JOUVENAL

The inaugural platform is go-

ing up near the Capitol, and the

District has repaved Pennsylva-

nia Avenue for the traditional

parade. But the crowds huddled

together enjoying a concert on

the Mall and the celebratory balls

that go late into the night? They

are less certain. In fact, much

remains unknown about how the

coronavirus pandemic will

change the inaugural celebration

that normally transforms the city

every four years.

Nine weeks away from the

59th presidential inauguration,

officials are under pressure to

stage an event that will begin to

heal a nation bruised by its deep

partisan divides. But they are

also operating under the con-

straints of a health crisis that has

upended traditions dependent

on massive gatherings and cross-

country travel. The result is city-

wide preparations for a cer-

emony still shrouded in uncer-

tainty as constituents clamor for

tickets and the coronavirus con-

tinues to surge around them.

Officials planning the inaugu-

ral ceremonies are forging ahead

with plans for in-person events

Jan. 20, with the understanding

that it is easier to scale down

operations than scale them up.

“The health and safety of our

guests is a top priority,” the Joint

Congressional Committee on In-

augural Ceremonies (JCCIC) said

in a statement. “This includes the

implementation of a layered ap-

proach in terms of health and

safety measures.”

The joint committee did not

lay out what measures it will take

against the coronavirus and said

it is consulting with Congress’s

Office of Attending Physician

SEE INAUGURATION ON C6

Shrouded in uncertainty, an inauguration like no other nears

Officials begin to prepare for swearing-in ceremony

and parade as coronavirus worries restrict planning

BY MICHELLE BOORSTEIN

Decades before there was a

bombshell Vatican report about

ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick,

before there was the 2020 fall

meeting of U.S. bishops discuss-

ing whether the best reaction to

the report is more prayer or more

focus on sin, there was a mother

with a stack of letters, trembling

hands and a secret.

The report, released earlier

this month, devotes 10 full pages

to the woman it calls “Mother 1.”

It describes what is apparently

the first time a person tried to

alert church authorities about a

cleric who she had come to be-

lieve, when she sent her anony-

mous letters in the 1980 s, was a

danger to multiple boys in her

family. Nothing came of the let-

ters she said she sent to every U.S.

cardinal and the Vatican’s D.C.

ambassador about McCarrick,

SEE MCCARRICK ON C7

Mother in

McCarrick

report

h as doubts

Decades later, her

expectations for Vatican

accountability are low

‘In living remembrance’

Discovery of artifacts on grounds of St. Mary’s College of Maryland leads to memorial for enslaved people

MICHAEL ROBINSON CHAVEZ/THE WASHINGTON POST

St. Mary’s College President Tuajuanda C. Jordan stands in front of “From Absence to Presence,” a commemorative cabin on the school’s campus that

memorializes enslaved people. “In my heart of hearts, I had hoped we had no hand in slavery,” Jordan said of the college’s past.

JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON

Once among D.C.’s oldest,

two homes are in Virginia

now and reveal Colonial

building techniques. C3

LOCAL OPINIONS

The Eastern Shore’s many

refuges, farms and forests

are the best option for red

wolves in Virginia. C4

OBITUARIES

Jan Morris, artful travel

writer, was one of the

world’s first well-known

50 ° 55 ° 57 ° 55 ° transgender figures. C8

8 a.m. Noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m.

High today at

approx. 3 p.m.

58

°

Precip: 15%

Wind: E

6-12 mph

BY LAURA VOZZELLA

richmond — After Democrats

led a record-breaking 8 4-day

special session this year, Virginia

Republicans are pushing in the

opposite direction — by demand-

ing the shortest regular General

Assembly session in at least a

half-century.

House and Senate GOP lead-

ers announced last week that

they won’t agree to stretch the

session, which begins Jan. 13,

past 30 days — something law-

makers have done as a matter of

bipartisan routine since 1971,

when a revamped state constitu-

tion first required them to meet

annually instead of every other

year.

Republicans say the move is

intended to preserve the part-

time nature of Virginia lawmak-

ing, which they say Democrats

have nearly turned into a year-

round enterprise since taking

over the House and Senate in

SEE SESSION ON C3

Va. GOP

demand

met with

a shrug

SHORT SESSION NOT

SEEN AS OBSTACLE

Democrats: Agenda will

survive procedural move