A History Lover's Guide to Baltimore by Brennen Jensen Tom Chalkley

Author:Brennen Jensen, Tom Chalkley [Brennen Jensen, Tom Chalkley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, Pictorials, Photography, Subjects & Themes, Historical, United States, South, South Atlantic (DC; DE; FL; GA; MD; NC; SC; VA; WV), History, State & Local, Middle Atlantic (DC; DE; MD; NJ; NY; PA)
ISBN: 9781439672686
Google: AyguEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2021-05-31T03:09:35+00:00

Douglass Place

500 block of South Dallas Street • Fell’s Point • Exterior Only

In 1864, sixteen days after the abolition of slavery in Maryland, Douglass came to Fell’s Point to celebrate emancipation at the Methodist Episcopal church on Strawberry Alley (now Dallas Street), where he had worshiped in his youth. Later, while living in Washington, D.C., Douglass returned to Baltimore to speak on many occasions. In 1892, he found that the old Strawberry Alley church had been vacated. Douglass bought the old church, paid to have it demolished and, in its place, built five simple row houses. He intended the project to provide rental housing for Black families. For many decades, the marble plaque on the façade of 520 Dallas Street reading “Douglass Place” was hidden under Formstone siding. When the plaque was re-exposed in the 1980s, it was Fell’s Point’s sole memorial to its greatest resident. A more recent plaque provides more detail on the history of the site. None of the Douglass Place homes is open to the general public, although the owner of 524 South Dallas Street has filled the much-renovated house with African American art and memorabilia and rents the house to visitors through online rental services.

St. Frances Academy

501 East Chase Street • East

www.sfacademy.org

This building dates to 1871, but its story goes back to 1828, when Mary Elizabeth Lange, a Cuban-born schoolteacher, was commissioned by Baltimore’s Catholic archbishop to begin a school for African American children. Lange, who had previously taught Black students in Fell’s Point, became a Catholic nun and recruited other educated Black Catholic women to join her in founding the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first order of African American nuns. Despite their own poverty and the constant oppression of racism both within and outside the church, the Sisters carried on with their mission. St. Frances now stands as the oldest school in America dedicated to teaching Black children; today, the school has about three hundred students. The Oblate Sisters have mounted an ongoing campaign to honor “Mother Lange” as a Catholic saint. The tiny room where she died in 1882 is preserved at the school. A simple bed, a washstand and a crucifix are the only furnishings. Visitors should contact the school through its website.

Lillie Carroll Jackson Civil Rights Museum

1320 Eutaw Street • West

(443) 885-5300 • www.lilliecarrolljacksonmuseum.org • Admission Fee

“Ma” Jackson, as she was called, was literally the mother of the modern civil rights movement in Maryland. Along with her daughter, Juanita Jackson Mitchell, and son-in-law, Clarence Mitchell Jr., she was a nationally influential figure in the legal and legislative battle for racial equality; several of her Mitchell grandchildren and great-grandchildren have been elected to city and state government. She served thirty-five years as president of Baltimore’s influential chapter of the NAACP, playing a very personal role as a lobbyist. Republican governor Theodore McKeldin is quoted as saying, “I’d rather have the devil after me than Mrs. Jackson. Give her what she wants.” She didn’t get everything she wanted, but Maryland desegregated its schools and public facilities years ahead of other Jim Crow states.

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