Communists Celebrating, PP141.274 (Z4.141), not dated, MdHS.

In honor of the first Monday of September also known as Labor Day, this week we bring you, our loyal worker-readers, a selection of photographs of your fellow historic laborers plying their respective trades. From ditch digger to pencil pusher, each did his or her part, though admittedly not always in equal measure. May these photos remind you why we really celebrate this federally recognized holiday.

HEN.00.A1-102 Four unidentified women working in factory, Paul S. Henderson, undated. Paul Henderson Photograph Collection, MdHS.

MC8179 Hollingsworth Building. 227 Holliday Street. Workers in front. Men posing in front of William Hollingsworth, Machinist and Manufacturer. Unknown photographer, ca. 1900, MdHS.

PP79.294.2 Launching a ship. Not dated. Robert F. Kniesche Photograph Collection. MdHS.

PP79.299.1 Launching ship. Robert F. Kniesche Photograph Collection. MdHS.

PP79.351 Unidentified worker at loom, Hooper Mills. Baltimore, Maryland Not dated. Robert F. Kniesche Photograph Collection. MdHS.

PP79.405 "Crop pickers, Fallsway and Madison. Waiting to be picked up to go to work about midnight." September 17, 1959. Robert F. Kniesche Photograph Collection. MdHS.

PP230.706 Unidentified fort wall being constructed by African Americans. Civil War Photograph Collection, 1861-1935, MdHS.

Subject Vertical File: Baltimore - Custom House, interior view, ca. 1965, MdHS.

Subject Vertical File: Baltimore - Distilleries Baltimore Distilling Company 1925, MdHS.

Subject Vertical File: Baltimore - Distilleries - Baltimore Distilling Company 1925, MdHS.

Z24-1326 Edwin H. Bennett Queensware Factory Employees, ca. 1875, MdHS.

Z24.1535 World War II 1939-1945 - Industry - War Worker, MdHS.

MdHS images:

HEN.00.A1-102 Four unidentified women working in factory. Paul S. Henderson, not dated.

MC8179 Hollingsworth Building, 227 Holliday Street. Unknown photographer, ca. 1900.

PP79.294.2 Launching a ship. Robert F. Kniesche, not dated.

PP79.299.1 Launching ship. Robert F. Kniesche, not dated.

PP79.351 Unidentified worker at loom, Hooper Mills. Baltimore, Maryland. Robert F. Kniesche, not dated.

PP79.405 Crop pickers, Fallsway and Madison.  Robert F. Kniesche, September 17, 1959.

PP230.706 Unidentified fort wall being constructed by African Americans. Civil War Photograph Collection, 1861-1935.

SVF Baltimore – Custom House, interior view, ca. 1965.

SVF Distilleries – Baltimore Distilling Company, 1925.

Z24-1326 Edwin H. Bennett Queensware Factory Employees, ca. 1875.

Z24.1535 World War II 1939-1945, Industry – War Worker.

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.

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 @CityThatReads.

*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.

Santa holding little girl, ca 1930, A. Aubrey Bodine, MdHS, MC7723-5.

Santas of Volunteers of America Christmas fund, undated, A. Aubrey Bodine, MdHS, B352a.

Group portrait: Young boys and girls posing in
front of fireplace and Christmas tree, December 1949, Paul Henderson, MdHS, HEN.02.03-034.

Hendrickson’s Christmas Tree, W. Franklin St., December 30, 1935, John Dubas, MdHS, MC 9269B.
Description on the rear of the photograph: Photographer John Dubas captured the joy of Christmas in 1935: a monstrous tree, its electric lights and tinsel aglow, is forced into the family parlor, and the family gathers round. At least the couple in the middle – the ones with the menacing ceramic dog – seem to be having a merry time.

Maryland Tuberculosis Association Christmas Seal Campaign.
Elephant with banner also advertising for the Hippodrome in front of City Hall, December 5, 1931, photograph by the Hughes Company, MdHS, MC6236.

Pratt Street, Christmas Tree, United Railway Company, interior power plant, January 1912, MdHS, MC 6907.

]]> http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2012/12/20/so-this-is-christmas/feed/ 2 http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2012/11/29/an-american-tragedy/ http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2012/11/29/an-american-tragedy/#comments Thu, 29 Nov 2012 20:27:34 +0000 mdhslibrary http://mdhslibrary.wordpress.com/?p=917

(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