Half Staff Alert | Maryland | March 26, 2022
In honor of Former State Delegate Emmet C. Burns, Jr.
This is to advise that Governor Larry Hogan ordered the Maryland State Flag be lowered to half-staff from sunrise to sunset, Saturday, March 26, 2022. This is the day of interment for former State Delegate, Emmett C. Burns, Jr., who passed away on Thursday, March 17, 2022. Former State Delegate Burns represented Legislative District 10.
Both the United States Flag and Maryland Flag will continue to fly at half-staff until sunset on Sunday, March 27, 2022, per the Presidential Proclamation in honor of former Secretary of State Madeleine Korbel Albright.
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Burns joined the House of Delegates in 1995, becoming the first African American elected to statewide government office from Baltimore County, the newspaper reported.
While a legislator, Burns led a successful campaign to name the Baltimore/Washington International Airport for Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Burns “was very instrumental and strong leader in the community,” Brooks said. “He was a man of morals, values, ethics and integrity. We are going to sorely miss him.”
A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Burns got involved in civil rights work at a young age. His son, the Rev. Engel Burns, said his father grew up several blocks away from where civil rights leader Medgar Evers maintained an office.
After serving in several ministerial positions, the elder Burns in 1971 became director of the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP, where he led protests against segregation and filed lawsuits seeking equal city services for Black and white people. He relocated in Baltimore in 1979 to become an NAACP regional director for Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Read more about the Rev. Emmett C. Burns Jr. at NBC Washington
