On Sunday April 7, 2013, more than 120 long-time Baltimore residents, many dressed in their Sunday best, filled the auditorium of the Maryland Historical Society to help rediscover Baltimore’s African-American history. The event, Revisiting Our Past: Identifying Paul Henderson’s Photographs of the African-American Community in Maryland, ca. 1935-1965, was co-hosted by MdHS and the Pierians Baltimore Chapter. The two groups collaborated to identify the scores of unnamed people and events in photographs taken by Paul Henderson who worked for the Baltimore Afro-American. I was lucky enough to be there as a volunteer.

Attendee Anne C. Taylor identified A. Jack Thomas who was the director of the music department at Morgan College. He was reportedly one of the first African-American bandleaders in the Army and the first to conduct the BSO. HEN.08.06-034, Paul Henderson, MdHS.

Members of the Pierians, an organization “dedicated to the purpose of promoting and encouraging the study and enjoyment of the fine arts,” took the lead in the preservation of their community’s history. Last summer, they approached Jennifer Ferretti, former curator of photographs at MdHS, who had curated an exhibition of Henderson’s Civil Rights Era photographs and in doing so, drew much deserved attention to the collection. The Pierians told Ferretti they were sure they could identify people and places in the photos. The photographs had long languished at MdHS and their previous home in the Baltimore City Life Museum. But even before the Pierians’ offer, Ferretti had invested significant time into organizing, printing, and compiling the 6,000 negatives and prints so they could be presented to the community in an accessible manner. The project was well worth it. Scores of volunteers, staff members, and community members turned out to put names to faces and stories to still images, investing the photographs with deeper meaning.

Though the exact number of identifications has not been calculated, the number of people, places, and events that were recognized is upwards of a few dozen. Participants found and identified a host of lesser known faces alongside the more famous entertainers, politicians, and civil rights activists that Henderson captured with his camera. Concise descriptions abound: “Graduation class from Apex Beauty School,”  “Thurgood Marshall,” “A. Jack Thomas, First African Amer. Conductor of Baltimore Symphony Orch.,” “Dr. Frederick Dedmond, Language Professor at Morgan State,” “Mrs. Ada K. Jenkins—My former Piano teacher.” The experience was exhilarating for participants as they found photographs of themselves, their loved ones, and role models from decades ago. Most were seeing the photographs for the first time in a long while; many for the first time ever. Yvonne Lansey let out a joyous cry when she found herself and her sister in a photograph of their class at the Garnett School #103. In the photo, taken on Halloween, the two girls were dressed in costumes made by their mother.

A Halloween costume party at the Garnett School #103 as identified by Yvonne Lansey. HEN.00.A2.221, Paul Henderson, MdHS.

Participants also identified (and described) places that held memories and meaning for the community as a whole, including The Little School, “a private school for African-American children in West Baltimore,” and many now closed businesses on Pennsylvania Avenue. They also named sites we might prefer to forget, like the Druid Hill Park Black Tennis Courts and the Black Swimming Pool.

The value of this research is profound, for historians as well as for community members. Participants shared personal anecdotes about the photos that will provide researchers with otherwise hard-to-get historical insight. For example, some informants could list the present-day names of institutions alongside their historical names. Further, personal anecdotes are rare in official historical archives, but they provide a sense of community attachment that cannot easily be identified in images or formal documents. On one identification form, Betty Williams identified the members of a wedding party and noted,  “I was her only bridesmaid.” Finally, and perhaps more importantly, community participation empowers historical communities to participate in the process interpreting their own past.

Professor Frederick Dedmond was identified by attendees of the April 7 event as well as his former students who saw this photo at City Hall. HEN.03.02-053, Paul Henderson, MdHS.

The visual record is important, but often overlooked by historians of the twentieth-century. Having photographs to accompany written documents can bring readers closer to the topic at hand. But even more importantly, as some scholars have noted, the visual record also carries the potential to revise established histories in significant ways. Activist and scholar Kathleen Neal Cleaver wrote about the Civil Rights Movement:

“The visual record always documents the presence of women, but in the printed record, texts of academic accounts women’s participation tends to fade.”

Henderson’s photographic documentation of the world-famous as well as the unknown suggests that he was attuned to the importance of the visual record for capturing multiple stories. For social movement histories as well as for cultural, community, and political histories, visual records tell an important story that can corroborate written histories, but also tell new stories. Thanks to the dedication of MdHS employees and volunteers, and the experiences, memories, and interest of those who have taken part (and will continue to take part) in the identification of Henderson’s photos, we can look forward to a future filled with new stories about Baltimore’s past. (Amy Zanoni)

Amy Zanoni completed an MA in History from UMBC in May 2013. Her MA thesis, a place-based history of Baltimore’s second-wave feminist movement, investigated the ideas and political activism of feminists and other social movement actors in Baltimore in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Amy will continue her historical research as she pursues a PhD at Rutgers University starting in the fall of 2013. 

Sources:

Kathleen Neal Cleaver, “Racism, Civil Rights, and Feminism,” in Adrien Katherine Wing, ed., Critical Race Feminism: A Reader (New York: New York University Press, 1997), 36, in Williams, “Black Women and Black Power,” OAH Magazine of History (July 2008): 22.

For more information and to see more work by Paul Henderson please visit the Paul Henderson Photograph blog. To browse MdHS’s inventory lists of Henderson’s photographs please click here.

An image of the remaining batches of Soper Papers from the sub-basement, and the caption reading “Don’t catalog until 3/88.” The 48E number was added during my preliminary survey.

After conducting a quick search of our website I figured out where I had seen the name before. Judge Morris Soper was identified by Baltimore lawyer, author, and professor Larry Gibson when he was helping us identify individuals from photographs of Morgan State University found in the Paul Henderson Collection in 2011. Soper had served as Chairman of Morgan’s Board of Directors for many years, so it was not surprising to find him captured in the photo below.(1) This got me even more curious. Who exactly was Soper? Why was this collection here? Why had it been gathering dust for so many years?

Morgan State’s Board of Trustees meeting with Governor McKeldin ca. 1950. Morris Soper is standing to the right of McKeldin next to Carl Murphy, the owner/editor of The Afro newspaper. Paul Henderson Photo Collection, MdHS, HEN.00.B1-073.

Who Was Morris A. Soper?

Morris Ames Soper’s (1873-1963) judicial service spanned more than a half-century. After being educated in the city schools of Baltimore in the late 19th century, he attended Johns Hopkins University and then went on to law school at the University of Maryland. He was admitted to the Maryland State Bar in 1895 and began practicing law in Baltimore. In 1898 Soper was appointed Assistant State’s Attorney for Baltimore City and was promoted to Assistant United States Attorney for the State of Maryland in 1900.

In 1912 Soper briefly served as president of the Baltimore City Police Board before leaving in an unsuccessful  election bid as a GOP candidate for Attorney General of Maryland. He quickly rebounded from his defeat and was appointed Chief Judge of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City. In 1923 President Harding appointed Soper to the Federal bench where he served as a District Judge, and by 1931 President Hoover had elevated him to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals representing Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Maryland in the Fourth Circuit. Though he was based in Richmond, Soper kept an office  in Baltimore. Judge Soper held this position for 24 years until he entered pseudo-retirement in 1955.(2)

In his many years as a judge, Soper dealt with an enormous number of cases involving the Eighteenth Amendment, which established prohibition. During the Prohibition Era he padlocked over 165 Maryland buildings for violations of the Volstead Act. This came as little surprise as Soper had previously served as attorney for the Baltimore Reform League and was counsel for the Society for the Suppression of Vice earlier in the decade.(3) While serving on the Fourth Circuit, Soper made many rulings on tax cases, labor relations disputes, interstate commerce cases, and cases originating from the Federal Trade Commission and the Security Exchange Commission.

A pencil sketch of Morris A. Soper (1873-1963) by Stirling Hill. Morris A. Soper Papers (MS3121),Box 93E, Maryland Historical Society.

Most notably, Soper worked towards full equality for African-Americans. He viewed equality as “not only a matter of law, but a matter of conscience.” As early as 1937, Soper—from his position as Chairman of the State Commission on Higher Education for Negroes—was urging the Maryland legislature to admit African-Americans to the University of Maryland graduate departments. National attention was focused on Soper when he decided many of the early school desegregation cases that reached the Federal Courts in the wake of Brown vs the Board of Education in 1954. In 1955 Soper handed down the decision that required the University of North Carolina to admit three African-American students into its undergraduate college. The following year he wrote majority opinions on racial integration in Virginia public schools. Judge Soper served for over 30 years on the Board of Trustees at Morgan State College, and was chairman for much of the latter half of his tenure. He is credited as being instrumental in transforming the institution from a private college to a state supported institution.

His last act from the bench was striking down the barriers preventing a young African-American named Henry Gantt from attending the school of architecture at Clemson University. Less than two months later, two days after his 90th birthday, Judge Soper passed away after undergoing minor surgery at Union Memorial Hospital. Among the group of distinguished honorary pallbearers were Governor McKeldin and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

Where did this Collection Come From?

As Judge Soper’s prominence became apparent to me, I quickly made the decision to put this collection at the top of the processing queue. I found some answers about the collections provenance in A Guide to the Preservation of Federal Judges’ Papers published by the Federal Judicial History Office at the Federal Judicial Center in 2009. I was surprised to read that:

“Neither federal statute nor the policies of the Judicial Conference of the United States make any provision for the preservation of federal judges’ papers. Judges’ staffs or the clerks of court cannot determine where the papers go, and the National Archives cannot accept the collections as part of the records of the courts. Nor are court funds available for the preservation of judges’ papers, and the federal records centers do not provide temporary storage of judges’ chambers papers…”

Basically, as is the case with the Soper Papers, the judge’s heirs often end up with the collection of papers, and if the collection isn’t thrown out (yes, this often happens), they often come to local libraries or historical societies.

When the Soper Papers were deeded to MdHS, they came with a 25-year restriction (from the date of his passing), hence the “do not catalog until 1988.” A quarter of a century is a long time for a collection to be forgotten about in a basement. Once it had already sat around for 25 years (1963-1988), it made it easy for it to sit another 25 years on top of that.  A combination of the restriction, the location where it was stored, the enormous physical size of the collection, and staff turnover, most likely dissuaded previous archivists from placing the task of processing the papers high on their queues. Being attracted to the bigger, dirtier jobs, and seeing the obvious importance of the subject matter, I was thrilled.

The Pre-processing Survey

The first step was literally schlepping the collection up a treacherous flight of stairs from the basement, and then to the library workroom on the second floor. Because sweaty librarians tend to gross patrons out, I was lucky to have volunteer Tom Pineo to help with the task.

MdHS volunteer Tom Pineo taking a breather in front of the Soper Papers. Photo by Damon Talbot

Due to the enormity of the collection and limited workroom space, we’re forced to work in batches, bringing up a few dozen boxes at a time. The next step in getting a handle on a collection of this magnitude is to conduct a pre-processing survey. This is an essential step in establishing the physical and intellectual scope of the collection before you can begin the processing, or arrangement of the papers. The more thorough and complete this survey is, the easier the collection is to process.

Because staff hours are precious (we have 6,000 patron requests a year!), and we have competing responsibilities, I needed to come up with the most efficient way to make this collection available to the public. In archival lingo, the method I have applied is “More Product, Less Process,” or MPLP for short. Though I would love to disappear with this collection into the library’s underbelly for ten years, and emerge triumphantly with an item-level description of 300 perfectly preserved boxes, it isn’t reality. I needed a common sense approach and a little bit of help. So my plan is to go through the collection somewhat quickly, box by box, resisting temptation to process, while I inventory. This inventory consists of detailed notes about subjects, date ranges, notable individuals, and court case files in each box. At the same time it includes  preservation notes for the processors, supply estimates, and the intellectual arrangement as  each box gets grouped into its appropriate  series.(4)

Once I get the approximately 300 boxes described, the processing plan can be implemented. At that point, the help of three graduate interns (pursuing library, archive, or history careers) will be enlisted. These interns will then use the survey and some guidance to give the collection some TLC. They will rehouse the papers in acid free folders, consistently label all the folders and boxes, and comb through the collection in finer detail than my initial survey. In the meantime, I will use my survey as a box level inventory which will  be placed in our catalog and made accessible to researchers. Though they may not be able to easily request the exact document they want, they can probably narrow it down to three or four boxes. This way the collection will be quickly accessible, while being processed to the folder level in the meantime. The main logistical problem with this method is that overstuffed boxes may expand into several boxes. Though physical rearrangement of the papers will be kept to a minimum, there are already several instances where material from one box needs to be separated.(5)

At this point I have surveyed the first 120 boxes and many interesting threads and subjects have already emerged. Below I have listed some of the people and subjects that have already made appearances in the collection. (Quick teaser- notable correspondence with Thurgood Marshall, H.L. Mencken, and my favorite Charles Ponzi!) In the coming months stay tuned for more intriguing stories brought to life by this collection. A box level inventory  to the Morris Ames Soper Papers (MS 3121), should be available to the public by late summer. (Eben Dennis)

Subjects

People -W. Calvin Chestnutt, August Chissell, Harry S. Cummings, Samuel K. Dennis, Der Doo, Armistead M. Dobie, Leroy Benjamin Frasier Jr, Phillips Lee Goldsborough, Clement Haynesworth, Louise Kerr Hines, Dwight Oliver Wendell Holmes, Howard Jackson, Robert F. Kennedy, Linwood Koger, William Preston Lane, Theodore McKeldin, Thurgood Marshall, H.L. Mencken, Clarence W. Miles, Carl Murphy, Donald Gaines Murray, Harry W. Nice, Emory Niles, Elliott Northcott, Sidney Nyburg, Herbert R. O’Conor, John J. Parker, Orie L. Phillips, Charles Ponzi, James H. Preston, George L. Radcliffe, Albert Ritchie, Simon E. Sobeloff, John O. Spencer, Roszel Thomsen, Millard E. Tydings, Arthur T. Vanderbilt.

Corporate names- American Bar Association, American Sugar Refining Corporation, Baltimore Bar Association, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Baltimore Police Department, Baltimore Trust Company, Commission on Higher Education of Negroes in the State of Maryland, Druid Ridge Cemetery Company, Goucher College, Loudon Park Cemetary, Maryland State Bar Association, Morgan State University, Pennsylvania Railroad, Provident Hospital, State Commission on Higher Education for Negroes, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Wheeling Steel Corporation.

Topics- Civil Rights, Criminal Law, Criminal justice, Interstate Commerce, NAACP vs Harrison, Prohibition, School Desegregation, Steamship accidents, Volstead Act.

Footnotes:

(1) Morgan State even named their library in his honor in 1939.

(2) President Eisenhower allowed Soper to remain serving the courts “from time to time,” which he did until two months from his death at the age of 90 in 1963.

(3) Stay tuned for a future post about this very subject centering around some fascinating correspondence between Soper and H.L. Mencken

(4) A series basically divides the collection into large chunks or groups, similar to the chapters in a book. In the case of the Soper collection there will probably be 3 or 4 series including correspondence (chronological), chamber papers or case files, and subject files (A-Z).

(5) An important principle of archival theory is original order. The collection should reflect the order it was kept in before it came to an archive. In the case of the Soper papers, the material within boxes will be kept in order, but boxes next to each other on the shelf had no rhyme or reason. Occassionally boxes appear to have been arbitrarily combined, in which case effort will be made to place them back in their original context.

]]> http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/06/06/morris-a-soper-papers-coming-soon-or-25-years-late/feed/ 1 http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/05/23/everyday-people-paul-henderson-collection-goes-to-city-hall/ http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/05/23/everyday-people-paul-henderson-collection-goes-to-city-hall/#comments Thu, 23 May 2013 14:26:07 +0000 mdhslibrarydept http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/?p=2621

Can you identify these sharply dressed young men? “Two Unknown Young Men,” MdHS, HEN.08.01-004.

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks here in the Imaging Services Department at MdHS. Through some wild confluence of ambition and scheduling, I agreed to curate and deliver a 48-piece photography exhibition the very week of the debut of my new documentary, HIT & STAY, at the Maryland Film Festival. I can’t really tell you what I was thinking, but I can say that after a week’s extension from the nice folks at City Hall, I live to say all’s well that ends well.

Honor bright. This negative is dated 1959, but the cars in the background seem to tell a different story. “Boyscout,” ca. 1959, MdHS, HEN.00.B2-221.

This week I couldn’t think of anything more important to write about than our new exhibit opening at Baltimore City Hall next week on June 5. Paul Henderson: Maryland’s Civil Rights Era in Photographs, ca. 1940-1960 is actually part two of work begun by my predecessor, former Digital Projects Coordinator & Curator of Photographs Jennifer Ferretti. Jenny opened the first Henderson exhibit at MdHS to much fanfare and acclaim in February 2012.

Since then the library has been working hard identifying the Paul Henderson Photograph Collection. Our event on April 7 earlier this year was a great success in bringing out the community, raising awareness about the collection, and identifying people and places in Henderson’s photos. To that end, our new exhibit at City Hall, which is also the first stop on the traveling Paul Henderson Photo Collection exhibit, seeks to carry on the task of identification. Most of the prints containing unknown people and places have QR codes printed on the labels that will take smartphone users to an online survey where they can type in names and other information. Identification forms will also be available in the rotunda at City Hall near the prints.

There are many more photos like this in the Paul Henderson Collection. MdHS hopes to one day identify all subjects in the collection. “Two Unknown Young Women,” MdHS, HEN.01.12-020.

Please enjoy this sneak peak of the exhibit and remember to check it out the next time you visit City Hall. If you can identify any of the people in the three photos above, please fill out an online survey by clicking here. (Joe Tropea)

This exhibit is scheduled to run throughout the month of June. For a look at more images from the exhibition please visit our Paul Henderson Photo blog.

The Regent Theater, circa 1948, MdHS, SVF.

The theaters, night clubs, and restaurants that once made Pennsylvania Avenue Baltimore’s center for African-American entertainment  are today a receding memory. In the segregated Baltimore of the early to mid twentieth century, the Avenue was where African-Americans went to see the latest films, have a drink at one of the many nightclubs and bars, and hear the jazz of Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday, and Cab Calloway, the comedy of Redd Fox and Slappy White, and the funk of James Brown. Most of the establishments were gone by the end of the 1970s, either occupied by new businesses, laying vacant, or demolished. A few soldiered on—the Sphinx Club, one of the last to go, closed its doors in 1992. The most famous venue on the Avenue, the Royal Theater, was one of the premier stops on the “chitlin’ circuit,” the chain of clubs and theaters running through the eastern and southern states featuring African-American entertainers. While the Royal may have been the best known theater on the Avenue, it wasn’t the largest—that designation would have to go to the Regent Theater.

The Regent Theater was from the start a family operation. On Jun 9, 1916, Louis Hornstein and his two sons, Simon and Isaac, opened the theater on the former site of a coal yard at 1629 Pennsylvania Avenue. Advertised as the “largest, coolest, best ventilated house in the city,” the theater was located in a one-story brick building designed by Baltimore architectural firm Sparklin & Childs. (1) For the next 50 years the Hornstein family owned and operated the Regent. The family later acquired the Lenox and the Diane theaters, also on Pennsylvania Avenue.

At the time of its opening, the Regent was the largest movie house in Baltimore, with a seating capacity of 500 and its own orchestra. The theater specialized in “high class-photo plays and Vaudeville.”(2) John W. Cooper, the first African-American ventriloquist on the largely white vaudeville circuit, was a bonus attraction on opening night. Billed as “the only colored ventriloquist in the world,” the “Black Napoleon of Ventriloquists,” and the “Polite Ventriloquist,” Cooper’s most famous routine, a barbershop skit, incorporated multiple dummies operated with the use of foot pedals and fishing line.

Auditorium, The Regent Theater, September 1948, Paul Henderson, MdHS, HEN.00.B1-033.

In 1920, the Hornsteins expanded the Regent’s auditorium with the purchase of lots south, extending the theater to 1619 Pennsylvania Avenue. The original building at 1629 was retained as the entrance. The theater now had a seating capacity of 2,250, with additional balcony seating.

Although the patrons of the establishments that lined Pennsylvania Avenue were predominantly African-American, the ownership of these businesses was almost entirely white. Within Baltimore’s African-American community, the Hornsteins were particularly well respected and the Regent was renowned for its “high class attractions and low prices.” Following the 1920 renovations, a reviewer for the Afro-American newspaper called the newly expanded theater a “legitimate playhouse where colored patrons would not be humiliated by the odious presence of … ’Mister James Crow.’”(3)

In 1925, Isaac Hornstein cancelled the planned exhibition of a series of films featuring heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey, after the champ made disparaging remarks about African-American contenders for his title and “proposed to prevent any colored contender from having a ‘look see’ at the heavyweight diadem.” Hornstein told a reporter from the Afro that the Regent played “to colored patrons, and I would certainly be insulting them should I play a picture featuring a man having the sentiment as expressed by Dempsey in the press. I stand unalterably by my original refusal, and you may say for me that this picture or no other that in any way offends our patrons will ever be flashed from this screen.” Other theaters in the city soon followed the Regent’s example.(4)

The Hornsteins set high standards for their theater, and expected their patrons do the same. Louis Hornstein was known to send movie goers home to change their clothes if they were not suitably attired. They also kept up with the latest advancements in film technology. In 1928 the Regent made the transition from silent to sound film when it became the second movie house in Baltimore, and the only African-American theater, to be equipped with the new Vitaphone sound system. An article in the Afro-American enthused that the Regent was “the only local house open to race trade that has contracted for this last word in motion picture entertainment.”(5) In 1953 the theater was equipped with both 3-D and the recently invented Cinemascope.

While the more celebrated Royal Theater was often the first and only stop in Baltimore for many of the top African-American entertainers of the era, the Regent—although primarily a movie theater—attracted its share of live performers, including Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, and Sidney Poitier. Baltimore’s own Cab Calloway and Eubie Blake (along with his songwriting partner Noble Sissle) performed at the Regent. Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world, gave a boxing exhibition at the theater.

Lobby, The Regent Theater, 1948, Paul Henderson, MdHS, HEN.00.B1-030.

In 1964, Henry Hornstein, the grandson of the original owner, leased the Regent and the family’s other theatrical properties to Jack Fruchtman, a Washington D.C. film exhibitor. Fruchtman’s company, JF Theatres, would eventually control some 50 movie theaters in Baltimore and the surrounding suburbs. If you name a theater in Baltimore, chances are that at one time or another, it was operated by Fruchtman. From now-departed theaters the Royal, the Avalon, the Mayfair, and the Rex to still operating movie houses like the Charles (formerly The Times) and the Rotunda Theater (which Fruchtman opened in 1967), Fruchtman left a large fingerprint on the city’s theatrical history.

Through the remainder of the 1960s and the early 1970s Fruchtman continued the operation of the Regent to apparent success. Film historian Robert Headley, in his 1974 book, Exit: A History of Movies in Baltimore, wrote that the Regent “was still going strong, and hopefully will be with us for many years to come.” But with the end of segregation in the 1960s, the era of Pennsylvania Avenue as Baltimore’s African-American entertainment mecca was coming to a close. Citywide, the neighborhood theater industry that had been entertaining film goers for over 60 years was dying a slow death, the result of white flight, escalating overhead costs, and the proliferation of suburban theaters. The unrest that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April of 1968 also kept many theater going patrons from the downtown area. According to Robert Headley, although actual physical damage to city theaters was minimal, the “psychic damage to the theater going public was terrible.” By the end of the 1970s, 114 Baltimore theaters had been closed down.(6)

Fruchtman began closing some of the least viable of his large fold of theaters earlier in the decade. In December of 1974 the Regent turned its lights on for the last time. At the time of its closing, the Regent was still the second largest movie theater in the city. For the remainder of the decade the property remained unoccupied, and in 1980 the theater was razed, joining the Royal, which had met the same fate three years earlier.

But the site at which one of Baltimore’s premier African-American theaters once stood remained tied to its entertainment past. In 1982, former Baltimore Colts wide receiver Glenn Doughty opened the Shake and Bake Family Fun Center on the former site of the Regent. Doughty—known in his playing days as “Shake and Bake,” based on his pregame mantra that the Colts were going to “shake up and cook” their opponents—purchased the vacant lot from the City for $1.00. With the backing of Mayor William Donald Shaefer, Doughty and his partners secured a nearly 5 million dollar loan from the city to build what the former Colt—who never reached the NFL championship game—called his “Super Bowl.”(7)

Shake & Bake Family Fun Center, 1601 Pennsylvania Avenue, former site of the Regent Theater, 2013. Photograph by Google.

When the center first opened in 1982, it was an immediate success. In the first year over 10,000 people a week were enjoying themselves at the 70,000 square foot complex which housed a 40 lane bowling alley, a 22,000 square foot roller rink, a video game room, and a sporting goods store. One patron said that the center “was a really big change for the community… it keeps people from hanging on the street corners.” The complex also housed an automated bank teller, an advertising firm, and two fast food restaurants. Almost entirely under African-American ownership—the Afro called it “the first major black owned and operated facility of its kind in the country”—the complex proved to be a model for other cities, with mayors visiting it for inspiration on inner city revitalization projects.(8)

Within two years though, the center was struggling financially, unable to attract people from outside the neighborhood.  In 1985, Doughty and his partners defaulted on their loan and the City took over the management of the center. Although the center has gone through tough times since then—in 1987, a former manager plead guilty to a charge that he stole nearly $80,000 while employed at the center—it is still in operation 30 years after first opening. The center continues to offer bowling, roller skating, and family fun. It also hosts practice sessions for the Harm City Homicides, Maryland’s first men’s Roller Derby team. The Shake and Bake Center was one of the earlier revitalization projects on Pennsylvania Avenue—more than three decades later, efforts to return the former cultural hub to at least a semblance of what it once was are still under way. (Damon Talbot)

Footnotes:

1. Advertisement, The Baltimore Afro-American, June 24, 1916. Sparklin & Childs were also responsible for other theaters in the city, including the Rialto Theater on North Avenue.

2. Headley Jr, Robert Kirk, Exit: A History of Movies in Baltimore, (University Park, Md, Robert Kirk Headley, Jr., 1974), p. 116.

3. “Regent’s Gradual Rise to Fame,” The Baltimore Afro-American, October 27, 1928; Headley, Jr, Robert Kirk, Motion Picture Exhibition in Baltimore: An Illustrated History and Directory of Theaters, 1895-2004 (London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2006), p. 380.

4.  “Regent Theater Owner Cancels Jack Dempsey Film,” The Baltimore Afro-American, February 7, 1925.

5.  “Regent Theater gets Vitaphone: Local Playhouse on of Few in the Country,” The Baltimore Afro-American, April 7, 1928.

6. Headley Jr, Robert Kirk, Exit: A History of Movies in Baltimore, (University Park, Md, Robert Kirk Headley, Jr., 1974), p. 116; Headley, Jr, Robert Kirk, Motion Picture Exhibition in Baltimore: An Illustrated History and Directory of Theaters, 1895-2004 (London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2006), p. 167.

7. Siegel, Eric, “Shake & Bake: Wide Receiver to entrepeneur, Doughty still meets challenges,” The Baltimore Sun, April 25, 1982.

8. Siegel, Eric, “Shake & Bake: Saturday Night street-corner rival,” The Baltimore Sun, November 4, 1982; Brown, Johanne, “Shake and Bake Grand Opening: The Realization of a Dream,” The Baltimore Afro-American, October 19, 1982; Gite, Lloyd, “Shaking and Baking in Baltimore,” Black Enterprise, February 1984.

Sources and Further Reading:

Advertisement, The Baltimore Afro-American, June 24, 1916

Cinematreasures.org

Headley Jr, Robert Kirk, Exit: A History of Movies in Baltimore, (University Park, Md, Robert Kirk Headley, Jr., 1974)

Headley, Jr, Robert Kirk, Motion Picture Exhibition in Baltimore: An Illustrated History and Directory of Theaters, 1895-2004 (London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2006).

Gite, Lloyd, “Shaking and Baking in Baltimore,” Black Enterprise, February 1984.

Kilduffs.com

“Other Houses Cancel Dempsey Films: Movie Theatres Follow Regent’s Lead,” The Baltimore Afro-American, February 21, 1925.

The Passano – O’Neill Files, Pennsylvania Avenue (1619-1629)

Peterson, Bernard L., Profiles of African American Stage Performers and Theatre People, 1816-1960 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.)

Rasmussen, Frederick, “Jack Fruchtman, Sr., 86, Theater Owner, The Baltimore Sun, July 3, 2001.

“Regent’s Gradual Rise to Fame,” The Baltimore Afro-American, October 27, 1928.

“Regent Theater gets Vitaphone: Local Playhouse on of Few in the Country,” The Baltimore Afro-American, April 7, 1928.

“Regent Theater Owner Cancels Jack Dempsey Film,” The Baltimore Afro-American, February 7, 1925.

Siegel, Eric, “Shake & Bake: Saturday Night street-corner rival,” The Baltimore Sun, November 4, 1982.

Siegel, Eric, “Shake & Bake: Wide Receiver to entrepeneur, Doughty still meets challenges,” The Baltimore Sun, April 25, 1982.

“3-D Cinemascope to Bring Crowds to Movies,” The Baltimore Afro-American, April 18, 1953.

Ventriloquistcentralblog.com

 Most of the more famous individuals Henderson photographed (Lillie May Carroll Jackson, Paul Robeson, Governor Theodore McKeldin, Bayard Rustin, Senator Verda Welcome, to list but a few) have already been identified. Now MdHS is focused on putting names to the faces and places that aren’t so familiar.

To start the process of collecting names of people and places, underbelly will feature some of Henderson’s photos and we invite you to look, share, and comment. For this edition of the Henderson Who or Where? series, we present two curious photographs that were shot in September and October of 1948.* They were labeled “Group of ladies” and “Taking a picture.” Looking closely at the two photographs, you can see a wide range of ethnic backgrounds and almost everyone who is pictured is female. Click to enlarge the photographs.

If you think you know who is featured in the photographs or where the photographs were taken, please respond via the Henderson Collection Survey. If you have questions, please feel free to email jferretti@mdhs.org. To view more of Henderson’s work (including many more unidentified photos), learn about the exhibition, and to view Henderson videos, please visit the Paul Henderson Photographs Blog. All 6,000+ of Henderson’s negatives as available as public reference photographs through the MdHS Library. Please email specialcollections@mdhs.org for more information. (Jennifer A. Ferretti)

Jennifer A. Ferretti is a MLIS candidate at Pratt Institute in New York City. She is the former Curator of Photographs & Digitization Coordinator at MdHS and curated the Paul Henderson exhibition which is ongoing. She continues to volunteer for MdHS and maintains the Paul Henderson Photographs Blog. Follow her on Twitter @jennydigiSILS.

*There have been discrepancies with the dates provided by the original repository of the collection (Baltimore City Life Museum). Read more about how MdHS came to house the collection on the Henderson Photographs blog.

A view looking north along Evans Chapel Road and east to Roland Park. Hoes Heights. Ornamental wall. Back of Roland stand pipe, City Buildings Collection, 1926, MdHS, PP236.1771A

Ever wonder about Hoes Heights? The hidden and oft-overlooked north Baltimore neighborhood of Hoes Heights bears the name of Grandison Hoe, a freed slave in Antebellum Baltimore who once owned and operated a farm on the location. Nestled between its more renowned neighbors—Hampden to the south and Roland Park to the north— this neighborhood remained entirely African-American until the last few decades. Hoes Heights, bound by Cold Spring Lane to the north, 41st Street to the south, Falls Road to the west and Evans Chapel Road to the east, became part of Baltimore City under the 1918 Annexation Act. It is an architecturally diverse community consisting of 19th century stick style houses, turn of the century single-family homes, and brick rowhouses. Many are probably familiar with this neighborhood’s most prominent feature—the 148 foot tall water tower located on Roland Avenue near the intersection of University Parkway.

Grandison Hoe’s plot of land from J. Morris Wampler’s map of Hampden in 1857. Hampden Improvement Association map, J. Morris Wampler, 1857, MdHS, M271

The earliest reference to the Hoe property is found in an 1857 map of Hampden and its surrounding regions by J. Morris Wampler (seen to the left). The property’s boundaries terminated to the north at what is now Roland Heights Avenue and to the west along the crest of the hill that descends to Falls Road. In the 1860 census of Baltimore County, Grandison is listed as being 40 years of age with property worth $3,600 and an estate worth $200—a modest house on valuable land. Also listed as residents of the farm are his 38-year-old wife Lucy, their five children, and a man named Augustus Green. All are identified as farmers.

The history of Hoes Heights prior to 1857 is somewhat murky. Who deeded Grandison Hoe, a freed slave, this coveted piece of land? Eliza Hoe, who may have been a sister or close relative of Grandison, shows up in the 1870 census as a housekeeper for a branch of the Fendall family in Bolton Hill. This same family also owned property adjacent to Hoes Heights, which was once part of Charles Ridgley’s massive North Baltimore estate. This Hoe-Fendall connection could possibly explain how Grandison ended up with the land.

Hiram Woods (1826-1901), a local sugar refining magnate who owned land north of Cold Spring Lane, so desired Hoe’s Hill (as it was then known) that he offered several times to buy the land and resettle the Hoes in Cross Keys, a small African-American village just to the north. Woods even offered to relocate the family burial ground. The Hoes rejected the offer. (Woods’s parcel later became part of Roland Park.)

Lucy Hoe’s plot of land. Taken from the Atlas of Baltimore and its Environs, 1877, MdHS.

As the Hoe family grew older the need for more living quarters arose. Grandison’s two sons, William and Richard, built their own houses adjacent to their father’s. Relatives, possibly from Charles County, moved to the Hoe farm and built homes. As the 20th century approached, the occupants of Hoes Heights began shifting from farm to domestic work, earning their livings in Roland Park and other exclusive neighborhoods. The harsh circumstances of the Great Depression forced the Hoes to sell portions of their land in order to pay delinquent tax bills. As a result, several blocks of small brick rowhouses were built on 43^rd Street, 42^nd  Street, Evans Chapel and Providence Road during the 1930s and 1940s. Around 70 houses were built with most sold to African-American veterans returning from World War II.

By 1876, Grandison Hoe was most likely deceased—the 1877 Atlas of Baltimore and its Environs, Vol. 1 by G. M. Hopkins shows the name Lucy Hoe on the parcel. The map also depicts a P. Solvine as the property owner of a small piece of land above Roland Heights Avenue terminating at Cold Spring Lane. The Solvine parcel (now part of Hoes Heights) eventually came to be known as Heathbrook. A mid-1970s census report states that Heathbrook was 100 percent white, while Hoes Heights was 100 percent African-American. Historically the two communities have maintained close ties—the Heathbrook Community Organization has worked closely with the Hoes Heights Improvement Association, but the two have remained separate entities.*

Today, Hoes Heights continues to feel more like a rural village than a city neighborhood. The amicable neighbors and tranquil setting gives the impression of simpler times and a real connection between past and present is evident. (Bryson Dudley)

Public School # 57 once stood where Evans Chapel Road intersects 41st Street. The wood-framed structure was torn down shortly after 1927 when 41st Street was reconfigured. School #57. Church Street and Merryman’s Avenue. City Buildings Collection, 1926, MdHS, PP236.0946A

The Roland tower which was built in 1904-1905 still stands today. Designed by William J. Fizone. Roland stand pipe (water tower), City Buildings Collection, 1926, MdHS, PP236.1773A

Herbert Frisby and the crew of the B-29 just before the flight that took Frisby directly over the North Pole, August 12, 1956, MdHS, PAM 11,409. Frisby dropped a steel box over the exact location of the geographic North Pole, which contained a U.S. flag and a bronze memorial plaque to Matthew Henson, the first African-American to reach the North Pole.

When one thinks of arctic exploration, the state of Maryland does not immediately come to mind. But Maryland’s connection to the history of polar exploration is more than tenuous, as two of its native sons occupy prominent places on the list of travelers to the northernmost point of the earth. When Baltimorean Herbert Frisby flew over the geographic North Pole aboard a U.S. Air Force B-29 on August 12, 1956, he became the second African-American to reach the point where all longitude lines converge and every direction is south.** Frisby was following in the trail blazed by another Marylander, Matthew Henson, who forty seven years earlier, became recognized as the first African-American to set foot on the North Pole as a member of Admiral Robert Peary’s expedition, credited with reaching the pole on April 6, 1909. An arctic explorer in his own right, Frisby gained greater fame in his quest to see his fellow Marylander recognized as co-discoverer of the North Pole alongside Robert Peary.

Herbert Frisby was born on Lee Street in southwest Baltimore, near what is today Camden Yards. Details of his early life are murky—Frisby was somewhat cagey about certain details of his life, particularly his age. According to census records he was born in 1888, but in published interviews Frisby would often avoid answering direct questions about how old he was. In a 1977 Baltimore Evening Sun article he would say only that he was in his 80s. It is also unclear when Frisby first became aware of Matthew Henson. In what is most surely an apocryphal story, Frisby claimed to have first heard of the story of Henson’s voyage to the North Pole when he was in the sixth grade. In the audio excerpt below taken from an interview conducted in 1971, Frisby discusses his recollections of the event that altered the course of his life.

By all indications, Frisby was a student at Howard University at the time of the Peary expedition in 1909, having graduated from Baltimore’s Colored High and Training School (renamed Douglass high school in 1923) in 1908. He worked his way through college playing the piano and taking various odd jobs. Upon graduating in 1912, he took a teaching post at an elementary school in Baltimore, and for the next 46 years was employed in various positions in Baltimore’s public school system. By the time he retired in 1958 as head of the science department at Douglass, a position he had held for over thirty years, he was a highly regarded educator whose commentary on various subjects could often be found in the pages of Baltimore’s Afro-American newspaper.

It was perhaps in his role as a science teacher that Frisby first became fascinated with the story of Matthew Henson and decided to follow in his footsteps. During World War II he received his first opportunity when he became a war correspondent in Alaska for the Afro-American. Frisby provided readers of the newspaper with accounts of his encounters with Eskimos and his travels through Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.

Just prior to his service as a correspondent, Frisby got a chance to meet his idol. According to Frisby he spent five years traveling from his home in Baltimore in search of Henson’s birthplace, a small cabin in the tiny village of Nanemejoy on the southwestern tip of Charles County. He eventually located it, and taking a piece of wood from the cabin, he travelled to New York in search of Henson, beginning a friendship that would last until Henson’s death in 1955.

Following his hero’s death, Frisby began a one man crusade to see Henson recognized as co-discoverer of the North Pole alongside Robert Peary. There had been many supporters to Henson’s claim, including the Afro-American, that he arrived at the Pole before the exhausted Peary. But Peary, as leader of the expedition, received credit for arriving first. Henson’s lack of recognition was also due in no small part to the color of his skin, and for much of the first half of the twentieth century he was largely ignored. Frisby took it upon himself to change this.

Image of the Matthew Henson Memorial Plaque located in the Maryland State House, Annapolis, MdHS, PAM 11,409.

In 1955, Frisby established the Matthew Henson Memorial Project dedicated to commemorating Henson’s life and accomplishments. Four years later, Governor J. Millard Tawes established April 6 as Matthew Henson Day in Maryland. In 1962, largely through Frisby’s advocacy, Baltimore City Public School #29, located on North Payson Street, was renamed the Matthew Henson Elementary School. Frisby’s ultimate dream was realized on August 8, 1966, when a memorial plaque commemorating Matthew Henson’s arrival at the North Pole was unveiled at the Maryland State House. Bearing the inscription, “Matthew Alexander Henson, Co-Discover of the North Pole with Admiral Robert Edwin Peary, April 6, 1909,” the plaque was the first official endorsement of Matthew Henson and Robert Peary as equal partners in their expedition to the North Pole.

Another goal not realized in Frisby’s lifetime, was the fulfillment of Henson’s request to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery near the grave of Admiral Peary. In 1988, Henson’s remains were exhumed from Woodlawn cemetery in New York City and re-interred near Peary’s grave.

Frisby achieved a good deal of renown in his lifetime for his efforts on behalf of Matthew Henson, but he also received significant attention for his own arctic travels.  By the time Frisby died in 1983, he had made over 26 trips to the polar regions—on one expedition he spent two months sharing an igloo with an Eskimo family. Reports of these excursions were often printed in the pages of the Afro-American. In 1965, a group of women inspired by Frisby’s accomplishments as an educator and explorer, established the Herbert M. Frisby Historical Society. The organization worked to promote the study of African-American history as well as continuing Frisby’s mission of promoting the legacy of Matthew Henson. In 1977 Mayor William Donald Schaeffer designated March 6 as Herbert M. Frisby Day in Baltimore in honor of the explorer’s life and accomplishments.

Herbert M. Frisby, undated, MdHS, PAM 11,409. Frisby is holding a pair of traditional Inuit snow goggles used to prevent snow blindness.

The story of Frisby’s quest to gain Matthew Henson recognition as “co-discoverer of the North Pole” is not without irony. Doubts over whether Henson and Robert Peary reached the pole have been widespread since their story was first announced to the world in the pages of the New York Times. Peary and another American explorer, Frederick Cook, emerged from the arctic wilderness in September of 1909 within a week of one another, with Cook claiming to have discovered the North Pole on April 21, 1908, a full year ahead of Peary. Both have had their share of detractors, but for most of the twentieth century Peary’s claim has been generally viewed as the more credible. In 1911, Peary’s claim was even formally endorsed by the U.S. Congress, although they too had strong reservations over the veracity of Peary’s claims.

In recent decades, the doubts have only increased. Another aspirant to the title of “discover of the North Pole,” American aviator Richard Byrd, who claimed to have flown over the pole by plane on May 9, 1926, has largely been discredited as well. Although the debate will probably never be conclusively resolved, today, credit is generally given to Norwegian Roald Amundsen as the being the first to arrive at the North Pole. Amundsen, who was also the first to reach the geographic South Pole in 1911, flew over the pole in a dirigible with his 15 man expedition on May 12, 1926, just a few days after Byrd claimed to.

So in all likelihood, Herbert Frisby, who is probably more remembered for his role as champion of Matthew Henson, rather than for his own arctic exploits, was the first African-American to reach the top of the world. (Damon Talbot)

**The geographic North Pole is the northernmost point of the earth, and is the direction of true north. It is the point where the earth’s axis of rotation meets its surface. The North magnetic pole is the point where the earth’s magnetic field points vertically downward and where traditional magnetic compasses point towards. The magnetic pole is in constant motion and located some 200 miles south of the geographic North Pole.

Sources and further reading:

Herbert Frisby, interview, 1971, MdHS, OH 8015.

“North Pole became this family’s guiding light,” Clarice Scriber, The Baltimore Sun, January 31, 1991.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Cook-vs-Peary.html

http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/who-was-first-at-the-north-pole/

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/17/us/who-reached-the-north-pole-first-a-researcher-lays-claim-to-solving-the-mystery.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/419365/North-Pole

http://www.dioi.org/vols/wa0.pdf

http://library.osu.edu/projects/byrd-north-pole/controversy.php

http://geography.about.com/od/learnabouttheearth/a/northpole_2.htm

(left) Clarence Mitchell Jr. staging a one man picket line supporting school desegregation in Baltimore, 1954, MdHS, Political Ephemera Collection.
(right) Parren Mitchell protesting segregation of teacher’s training programs at Douglas High School, Paul Henderson, July 1948, MdHS, HEN.00.A2-161 (detail)

Many who devote their lives to bringing about social change can recall a single incident or episode that altered their perceptions and determined their path in life. Civil rights activist Rosa Parks recalls that one of the first ways she realized the difference between “a black world and a white world” was when, as a child, she saw white children riding buses to school while she had to walk. For historian Howard Zinn, featured in a previous post, it was his experiences as a bombardier during World War II that had a profound effect on his later career as a civil rights and anti-war activist, and outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy. For brothers Clarence Mitchell Jr. (1911-1984) and Parren Mitchell (1922-2007), it was the 1933 lynching of George Armwood in the small town of Princess Anne on Maryland’s Eastern Shore that set the course for their future careers as two of Maryland’s foremost civil rights leaders.

The Eastern Shore was a place apart in the 1930s. Socially and economically it was closer to the south than to the rest of Maryland, particularly in terms of race relations. The roots of a longstanding hostility between blacks and whites in the region were established early in the nation’s history. In 1783 Maryland ended the slave trade across the state, except on the Eastern Shore. Somerset County, where Princess Anne was the county seat, was one of six main centers of slave trading in the state. Isolated both geographically and economically from much of the rest of the state, the economic frustrations of poor whites in the area were often taken out on their African American neighbors. By the 1930s, the increased economic hardships of the Great Depression caused simmering hostilities to boil over, with violent result.

Map of Maryland Showing Somerset County, from Maryland’s Historic Somerset, Board of Education, Somerset County, Princess Anne, MD, 1955.

On December 4, 1931, Matthew Williams, an African American man, shot and killed his white employer in Salisbury and then turned the gun on himself in an unsuccessful suicide attempt. That evening, a mob of more than a thousand dragged Williams from his hospital bed where he lay critically wounded, and hung him up on the courthouse lawn. His body was then dragged to the town’s African American business district, and set on fire.  The Williams murder was the 32nd lynching in Maryland since 1882, and the first since 1911. Less than two years later, another lynching took place that would mirror the Williams murder with frightening similarity in nearby Princess Anne.

Mary Denston, the elderly wife of a Somerset County farmer, was returning to her home in Princess Anne on the morning of October 17, 1933 when she was attacked by an assailant. A manhunt quickly began for the alleged perpetrator, 22-year-old African-American George Armwood. He was soon arrested and charged with felonious assault. By 5:00 pm, an angry mob of local white residents had gathered outside the Salisbury jail where the suspect had been taken. In order to protect Armwood from the increasingly hostile crowd, state police transferred him to Baltimore. But just as quickly he was returned to Somerset county. After assuring Maryland Governor Albert Ritchie that Armwood’s safety would be guaranteed, Somerset county officials transferred Armwood to the jail house in Princess Anne, with tragic consequences.

Sources are conflicting regarding many of the details of the assault on Denston and the subsequent murder of George Armwood, but what is certain is that on the evening of October 18 a mob of a thousand or more people stormed into the Princess Anne jail house and hauled Armwood from his cell down to the street below. Before he was hung from a tree some distance away, Armwood was dragged through the streets, beaten, stabbed, and had one ear hacked off.  Armwood’s lifeless body was then paraded through the town, finally ending up near the town’s courthouse, where the mob doused the corpse with gasoline and set it on fire.

Clarence Mitchell Jr. was a cub reporter for Baltimore’s Afro-American newspaper when he was sent across the bay to report on the lynching. It was his first assignment with the paper. Mitchell, accompanied by photographer Paul Henderson and two other reporters from the newspaper, arrived in Princess Anne mid morning on October 19 after an all night journey from Baltimore. By the time the four newspapermen arrived at the crime scene, Armwood had been dead for some time. Mitchell described the horrific sight in vivid detail for the readers of the October 28 issue of the Afro-American:

“The skin of George Armwood was scorched and blackened while his face had suffered many blows from  sharp and heavy instruments. A cursory glance revealed that one ear was missing and his tongue clenched between his teeth, gave evidence of his great agony before death. There is no adequate description of the mute evidence of gloating on the part of whites who gathered to watch the effect upon our people.”

In a 1977 interview conducted for the McKeldin-Jackson Oral History Project, Mitchell goes into further detail about the lynching:

Interviewer Charles Wagandt can be heard expressing utter disbelief at the idea that the lynching was advertised, but in fact this was the case. Denton Watson, Mitchell’s official biographer, writes that,

“…the advent of the lynching had been well advertised throughout Maryland, neighboring Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia. In Princess Anne members of the fire department sounded the alarm and brought out the fire truck as a signal for the mob to gather. Everyone, including newspaper reporters, had ample time to attend the event. No one was surprised by the news….”

The lynching was celebrated throughout the town. The Afro-American reported that the mob danced around Armwood’s burnt remains singing “John Brown’s Body” and “Give me something to remember you by.” Small crowds gathered throughout the night discussing the murder. One man was quoted as stating,  “It would have cost the state $1,000 to hang the man. It cost us 75 cents.” Pieces from the rope used to hang Armwood were taken as souvenirs.

Mitchell returned to his home on Bloom street in northwest Baltimore a changed man. He had been involved in civil rights activities prior to the lynching—in 1932 he joined the Baltimore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and was the vice president of the City Wide Young Peoples Forum (established by future wife Juanita Jackson). But being witness to the violence of the lynching, which was outside the scope of his experiences living in Baltimore, galvanized his thinking. This, and his coverage of the trial of the Scottsboro Boys, nine African American boys charged with the rape of two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama, “awakened his interest in the…need for extensive social and judicial reforms in the country.” That evening, as he related the events of the day to his family over dinner he was so upset he couldn’t eat. For Clarence’s younger brother Parren, 11 years old at the time, seeing his brother’s reaction had a profound effect on the boy. In the clip below taken from a 1976 McKeldin-Jackson Project interview, Parren Mitchell discusses his reaction to his brother’s experience and the impact it had on him.

The murder of George Armwood was the last recorded lynching in Maryland. Clarence returned to Princess Anne to cover the trial of four men arrested for their participation in the lynching. Violence was again in the air as another mob formed, and National Guard troops were sent in. The case was eventually dismissed due to insufficient evidence. Out of the more than 5,000 documented lynchings that occurred in the United States between 1890 and 1960, less than one percent resulted in a conviction.

Clarence Mitchell, Jr. and Parren Mitchell, not dated, Clarence Mitchell Jr. Funeral Program, March 23, 1984, MdHS, MS 3092.

Both Clarence and Parren went on to dedicate their lives to furthering the cause of civil rights. Following World War II, Clarence became the labor secretary for the NAACP, and in 1950 he became the director of the organization’s Washington bureau, quickly emerging as the leading civil rights lobbyist in Washington. Known as the “101^st Senator,” he was instrumental in helping to usher major civil rights legislation through Congress: The Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. One journalist called him “the prime source of moral pressure for the cause of racial justice.” In 1985 the city courthouse in downtown Baltimore was named in his honor.

Parren’s career was no less distinguished than that of his elder brother’s. Within a year of the Armwood lynching, Parren joined his brother in a picket against local merchants over discriminatory hiring practices near their home in northwest Baltimore. Over the course of a more than 50 year career in the civil rights movement and politics at the state and national level, Mitchell established a number of firsts for African-Americans. In 1950 he became the first to attend the University of Maryland’s College Park campus when he was accepted into the school’s graduate school of sociology after suing to gain entrance.

When Mitchell was elected to Congress in 1970 as a representative of Maryland’s 7^th district, he not only became the first African-American congressman from Maryland, but the first since 1898 to hold a congressional seat from a state south of the Mason-Dixon line. He also was one of the founding members of the congressional black caucus. Over the course of his eight terms as a congressman, Mitchell remained a tireless advocate for increasing economic opportunities for minorities and minority owned businesses. (Damon Talbot)

Sources and further reading:

African American Leaders of Maryland: a Portrait Gallery, Suzanne E. Chapelle & Glenn O. Phillips (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 2004)

“Clarence Mitchell: Man who was always there,” Peter Kumpa, Baltimore Evening Sun, March 20, 1984.

Here Lies Jim Crow: Civil Rights in Maryland, C. Fraser Smith (Baltimore: The JohnsHopkinsUniversity Press, 2008)

Lion in the Lobby: Clarence Mitchell, Jr.’s Struggle for the Passage of Civil Rights Laws, Denton L. Watson (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1990)

“Parren J. Mitchell: 1922-2007, Crusader for justice dies at 85,” Sun staff, Baltimore Sun, May 29, 2007

“Parren Mitchell, 85, Congressman and Rights Leader, Dies,” Douglas Martin, The New York Times, May 30, 2007.

“Shore starting to face up to past, some say,” Tom Dunkel, Baltimore Sun, February 25, 2007.

http://www.msa.md.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/013700/013750/html/13750bio.html

http://www.visionaryproject.org/mitchellparren/

http://baic.house.gov/member-profiles/profile.html?intID=60

http://suite101.com/article/rosa-parks-challenges-segregation-law-a175677