Upper Marlboro’s first Black mayor, Tonga Turner, announced that she would be resigning her position as mayor and that she was the target of racist attacks that began after she first took office.

In her letter, she alludes to the town’s dark history and past. “It is no secret that the Town of Upper Marlboro has been plagued with a dark history and past, but my hope is that in the past two years under my leadership, each of you has seen the great promise for our future,” Turner wrote in her letter.