Larry Hogan (R) on Saturday granted posthumous pardons for 34 Black victims of lynchings in the state, a sweeping action he said would be a step toward rectifying the killings of youths and men who were denied due process.

At a ceremony to memorialize Cooper on Saturday, Hogan decried how the teenager’s life was “taken so violently and so senselessly by an angry mob unwilling to give him the due process he was entitled to.” Hogan declared he would posthumously pardon Cooper as well as 33 other victims of lynching in the state between 1854 and 1933.

But Hogan, a Republican who is barred by state law from seeking a third term in 2022 and is exploring future political options, is the first to make a systematic pardon of all known lynching victims in any state.

Flanked by state leaders and racial justice advocates, Hogan said his actions were partially inspired by a petition from middle school students at nearby Loch Raven Technical Academy in Towson, calling on him to consider the posthumous pardon for Cooper.

The petition was sent to Hogan earlier this year by the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project, which has sought to document the history of extrajudicial hangings throughout the state and has identified at least 40 lynchings in Maryland.

Michael Ricci, a spokesperson for Hogan’s office, said the pardons were granted to victims who were charged with some type of offense and eligible for posthumous clemency.

Jones (D-Baltimore County), the first Black person and first woman to hold her leadership position in the state, said it was noteworthy that three White men — Hogan, Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr.

The Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a government-backed panel, is in the midst of a three-year study examining the acts in 19th- and 20th-century Maryland and the impact it had on the state.

Two months before Cooper was killed in 1885, an all-White jury deliberated for less than a minute and declared him guilty of assaulting and raping a White woman — even though the victim did not testify she had been raped, according to Will Schwarz, president of the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project.

On Saturday, leaders with the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project and the Equal Justice Initiative unveiled a blue marker erected steps away from the jail, detailing Cooper's story.