A Dem 2028 Hopeful's Family Story Just Got Wrecked by Historical Records

Democrats cannot stop lying. Whether it’s about their personal history, like Joe Biden, or their military record, like Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who claimed to have served in Vietnam but never left American soil.

 In academia, there appears to be a serial plagiarism issue. For Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who could be a 2028 Democratic nominee, his family story just got torpedoed by historical record. No doubt, the story about his great-grandfather fleeing South Carolina because of the Ku Klux Klan would’ve animated his supporters and the Democratic base. The problem is that it’s likely not true, as the Washington Free Beacon reported:

Maryland governor Wes Moore, who is widely expected to seek the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, has a powerful family story of racial injustice that he repeatedly tells during public speeches: His grandfather, as a small boy, fled 1920s Charleston with his family in the dead of night after his father—a prominent black minister and Moore's great-grandfather—angered the Ku Klux Klan with sermons condemning racism. Narrowly escaping a lynching, the family took refuge in Jamaica. But Moore's grandfather, just six years old at the time, vowed to return to America, where he eventually raised a grandson who made history in 2022 by becoming Maryland's first black governor. 

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But there's a problem with Moore's story: It's flatly contradicted by historical records and is almost certainly false. 

Moore's great-grandfather on his mother's side, the Rev. Josiah Johnson Thomas, did preach in the 1920s at a church in Pineville, S.C., about 65 miles north of Charleston. But historical records housed at the archives of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina undercut the three main elements of Moore's story—that Thomas suddenly fled the country in secret, that he was targeted by the Ku Klux Klan, and that he was a prominent preacher who spoke from the pulpit against racism. 

Detailed church archival records, as well as contemporary newspaper coverage, indicate that Thomas, a Jamaica native, on Dec. 13, 1924, made an orderly and public transfer from South Carolina to the island of his birth, where he was appointed to succeed a prominent Jamaican pastor who had died unexpectedly a week earlier, on Dec. 6, 1924. Amid the copious documentation of the life and career of Moore's great-grandfather, there is no mention of trouble with the Klan, which operated openly in 1920s South Carolina but never had a chapter operating out of Pineville, according to Virginia Commonwealth University's Mapping of the Second Ku Klux Klan. 

Moore has repeated this story many times; it’s a cornerstone of his public image. Andrew Kerr, who wrote the story, has more:

Moore's great-grandfather, the Rev. Josiah Johnson Thomas, preached at an Episcopal church in Pineville, SC, from 1922 through Dec. 1924, when he made an orderly and public transfer to Jamaica, his home country, to take over for a prominent Jamaican pastor who had unexpectedly died a week earlier. 

The Pineville church where Moore's great-grandfather preached had a stellar reputation within the local white community during his time there from 1922 through 1924, according to contemporary reporting.

William Guerry, the Episcopal Bishop of SC (best known for his work to advance racial equality & who oversaw the ordination of Moore's great-grandfather) reported in 1924 the white community held the Pineville church in high regard for the work it performed for the black community.

Guerry reported in 1925 the "colored work" at the Pineville church "is in a most prosperous condition." 

Guerry made no mention or suggestion in his reporting that the Pineville church or its pastors had any sort of conflict with the Ku Klux Klan, which operated openly in the 1920s but didn't have a chapter anywhere near Pineville during this timeframe. 

Moore's office declined to comment on this reporting when I first reached out to them over two weeks ago. Instead, they strongly insinuated I'm a racist for daring to question the story of his great-grandfather's escape from the Ku Klux Klan. 

Moore's fantastical tale of his great-grandfather's escape from the Ku Klux Klan to exile to Jamaica adds yet another asterisk to his remarkably inflated résumé, which is littered with lies about his place of birth, lies about his privileged upbringing, lies about his athletic achievements, lies about his academic achievements, and lies about his military achievements.

 The archival records are linked to his story. Yikes.