Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan posthumously pardoned victims of racial lynching in the state between 1854 and 1933 on Saturday, according to the Associated Press. Hogan said that 34 victims were denied due process.   

“My hope is that this action will at least in some way help to right these horrific wrongs and perhaps bring a measure of peace to the memories of these individuals, and to their descendants and their loved ones,” Hogan said.  

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The governor signed the order at an event that honored 15-year-old Howard Cooper, who was dragged from a jailhouse and hanged from a tree by a group of white men in 1855. Cooper’s attorneys did not get a chance to file an appeal of a rape conviction before he was lynched. 

A ceremony was held next to the former jailhouse where Cooper was held, AP reported.   

“Memorializing the site where Howard Cooper was lynched gives us the opportunity to courageously confront the injustices of our past,” Maryland’s first Black and first female House speaker, Arienne Jones, said.