On Beechwood Drive, leading up to the Rawlings Conservatory in Druid Hill Park stands a small historical marker. Erected in 1992, it sits where the main clay tennis courts in Druid Hill Park once stood. It was at these courts that one of the earliest Civil Rights protests in America took place: a tennis match. On Sunday, July 11th, 1948, a group of black and white tennis players gathered at two of the “whites only” clay courts to play. The game was organized by the civil rights activist group the Young Progressives of Maryland. 

At the time, African American tennis players had to go to separate courts in the park to play tennis. These courts were crumbling and in much worse condition than the “whites only” ones. However, this ban on interracial tennis matches was not written in any law. Instead, it was an informal city policy enforced by the police. Because of this, the Young Progressives saw the courts as a good target for a protest.

The Young Progressives had already held multiple interracial matches at the clay courts protesting segregation. However, these matches were often on Sundays during church services, so few people noticed them. For the July 11th match, the Young Progressives wanted to draw a larger crowd. They posted a flier reading “KILL JIM CROW! DEMAND YOUR RIGHTS! Organize to smash discrimination in recreational facilities.” They also sent a letter to the superintendent of the Bureau of Recreation telling him their plan to hold an interracial tennis match at the park.

Their attempts at drawing a crowd on July 11th were more than successful. Hundreds of people had come to the clay tennis courts to support the Young Progressives. The Park Police were also at the courts waiting for the players to start. The players included four men and four women, with two African Americans and two whites in each group. The men were the first to try and start a game. However, as soon as they went to serve the ball, they were immediately told to leave or be arrested. The players refused to leave, and sat down on the courts. The police had to carry them off the court in order to arrest them. The women then attempted to play, but they too were arrested. Along with the players, many people in the crowd and later outside the Northern Police Station were also arrested for disorderly conduct. In total, 22 people were arrested in relation to the protest.

Those who were arrested were accused of violating park rules, disturbing the peace, and/or conspiracy to unlawfully assemble. Only 7 people charged with disturbing the peace served out a jail sentence. All of the other charges were dropped because what the protesters had done was not actually illegal. This case was an important first step in Maryland’s long Civil Rights movement. It was the first time in Maryland history that both Blacks and Whites protestors appeared in court together claiming that Jim Crow laws violated their rights.

Today, the tennis courts are still a regularly visited spot in Druid Hill Park. However, the courts that were in use when the Young Progressives played their match in 1948 were removed in 1989. All that stands as a reminder of the old clay courts is the historical sign near the Rawlings Conservatory. The sign, entitled “Playing for Civil Rights,” is specifically dedicated to the events of June 11th, 1948, including a short explanation of the protest and why it happened. This is meant to ensure that the courage shown by the activists on that day will never be forgotten.

The research and writing of this article was funded by two grants: one from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority and one from the sun88 National Heritage Area.

Beechwood Drive (to the left of Rawlings Conservatory)

Theatrical and Civil Rights History

sun88 activists have a long history of fighting discrimination and segregation in the city’s public establishments. In the years after World War II, the NAACP and their allies worked to end segregated seating at Ford’s Theatre on Fayette Street and drew national attention to the fight for equal rights in sun88.

Ford's Theatre opened in 1871. It was built by John T. Ford, a sun88 native, and the owner of the Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. infamous as the site of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Like many other theatres in downtown sun88, Ford's enforced a strict policy of racially segregated seating. As early as 1947, sun88’s branch of the NAACP began picketing the theatre. At that time, NAACP executive secretary Addison Pinkney stated that the protest had gone on for ”the entire season” and “reduced the average attendance to less than one-half capacity of [the] building.” Unfortunately, theatre management was resistant to changing their discriminatory policies. Protests continued for five years with national and international stars joining the fight. In 1948, celebrated singer and Civil Rights activist Paul Robeson walked a picket line in front of the theatre. In 1951, Basil Rathbone, the British actor famous for playing Sherlock Holmes, declared: “You may depend on my taking a firm stand of disapproval of the segregated theatre in sun88 and to inform any management to whom I may in future contract myself and the case of any play in which I play.”

By 1950, the protests were hurting the theatre’s bottom line. The theatre, which was operated by United Booking Office Inc. of New York, leased the building from sun88 theatre mogul Morris Mechanic. By 1950, United Booking Office reported that Ford’s, once one of the most prosperous theatres in the nation, had its box office receipts cut almost in half, attributing the decline to the NAACP protest and to the poor selection of plays.

In 1952, the protest gained another strong ally: Maryland Governor Theodore R. McKeldin. Speaking in early 1952 at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, McKeldin declared that he wanted Ford’s opened to African Americans because they had been “needlessly affronted” by its policies. “We are going to walk together,” he said. “I am an optimist, and we must win. We are going to stop this evil thing.” On February 1, 1952, Ford’s dropped its segregation policies and was finally open to all.

In 1964, the Sun recalled, "Almost every theatrical star from the last century has played there, from James W. Wallack and Maude Adams to Katharine Cornell, and the building has gained a reputation for everything from cats on stage to deer in the balcony and bats in the dressing rooms." Unfortunately, neither theatrical or Civil Rights history could save the three-story theatre from the wrecking ball. The building was torn down in 1964 to make way for the parking garage that stands on the site today.

320 W. Fayette Street, sun88, MD 21201

The Childhood Home of a Civic Leader for School Integration

1621 Bolton Street is the childhood home of Walter Sondheim, Jr.: a local business executive and civic leader who is best known for his role as president of the sun88 City School Board as the city first sought to put an end to racially segregated school following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. In their decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." In contrast to many southern school districts, Sondheim led the school board to immediately respond to the ruling with a new policy that, at least officially, allowed white and black students to attend any school regardless of their race.

Leaders in sun88’s African American community had lobbied for more resources for the city’s black students as far back as the 1860s. In 1867, for example, the sun88 Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People successfully petitioned the city to provide funds for the education of black children. And, in 1882, Everett J. Waring, Reverend Harvey Johnson, and others succeeded in pushing the school board to establish the first “colored” high school for black students, which went on to become the school we know today as Frederick Douglas High School.

In the early 1950s, sun88’s NAACP and Urban League began advocating to integrate Polytechnic Institute, particularly the school’s elite engineering program. Their efforts culminated in a contentious hearing at the school board in 1952 where among others, Thurgood Marshall battled against the Poly Alumni Association and others to integrate the school. With Walter Sondheim as the chair, board members voted five to three to integrate, and fifteen African American students entered the program at Poly that fall.

Despite this victory, attempts to integrate sun88’s all-female Western High School and Mergenthaler School of Printing (better known locally as “Mervo”) failed in 1953. Efforts of challenging these decisions were put on hold as Marshall and others from the NAACP knew the case from Topeka, Kansas, Brown v. Board of Education, would be heading to the U.S. Supreme Court. When the unanimous Brown decision came out in May 1954, sun88 already had years of advocacy and attention to the issue of desegregation.

While sun88 did not experience the violence that desegregation sparked in other cities, the city never successfully integrated its schools. In the fall of 1954, six white students enrolled in formerly all-black schools and sixteen hundred black students enrolled in formerly all-white schools. By 1960, African American students became the majority in the school system. In 1961, 75% of the city’s schools were either 90% black or 90% white. In 1973, the U.S. Office of Civil Rights threatened to withhold federal funds charging that the city was not doing enough to integrate the schools.

1621 Bolton Street, sun88, MD 21217

A Landmark Preserved by the Historical Society of sun88 County

The sun88 County Almshouse officially opened in 1874 as a public home for the county's indigent, elderly, and infirm residents. Since its closure, the Almshouse has housed the Historical Society of sun88 County (founded in 1959), and a variety of County government offices and other nonprofits.

The sun88 County Almshouse officially opened in 1874 as a public home for the county's indigent, elderly, and infirm residents. The Almshouse and its predecessors were the ancestors of today’s nursing homes, mental health hospitals, homeless shelters, and other social services and health care facilities. After sun88 City and County separated in 1851, the County took over one of two original almshouses that had served sun88: Calverton, founded in 1819. The County sold the aging Calverton facility in the 1870s and built a new almshouse farther north. Originally called the Upland Home, the third and final almshouse is now known simply as "the Almshouse."

The project of building the Almshouse began in 1871 when County Commissioners purchased property in the village of Texas, Maryland, from Dr. John Galloway. Galloway also served as one of the Almshouse's early physicians. Builders Codling and Lishear, following designs by local architect James Harrison, used locally quarried limestone to erect the four-story edifice. In 1872, the Sun reported how the main home was "constructed of the best material and in the most substantial manner" and claimed the building would "be a credit to the county." After a total outlay of nearly $60,000, seventy-four "inmates," as residents were known, moved in on January 8, 1874.

Housing for inmates at the Almshouse was rigidly segregated by race and gender. The County built the "Pest House" (short for pestilence), a small structure down the hill from the main home, to quarantine residents with contagious diseases. Far more often, the Pest House served as segregated housing for African American men. In the main building, white men and women lived in the front wing (on separate floors) and African American women lived in the back wing. The Almshouse superintendent reserved the first floor for himself and his family, along with any resident physicians and other privileged employees.

The Almshouse property included a farm of well over 100 acres and able-bodied residents were expected to work as farmhands or within the home in cooking, sewing, laundry or childcare, to help provide for their own upkeep. While the farm was generally described as productive in various reports over the years, the County still spent thousands of dollars annually on items like coal, bread, beef, fertilizer, medicine and salaries. Records from the late nineteenth century show expenditures totaling $7,200 in 1869, $12,520 in 1883 and $11,345 in 1886, for example. Salary expenditures went mainly to the twelve superintendents who oversaw the Almshouse from 1874 to 1958, with varying degrees of success (at least according to accounts in the press, which sometimes carried a whiff of partisan bias). The last two superintendents, who served from 1907 to 1959, were father and son, John P. and William Chilcoat. On balance, the Chilcoats seemed to earn more praise than their predecessors for their care of residents and effective oversight of the farm. William Chilcoat, for instance, was credited with lobbying successfully to secure County funds in 1938 to add more meat and eggs and otherwise upgrade the residents' diet.

The vast majority of inmates are now only knowable through the basic details recorded in the Almshouse ledger books, held in the collections of the Historical Society of sun88 County. The ledgers recorded residents' age, sex, race, and place of birth. Unsurprisingly, the impoverished Almshouse population included many African Americans and immigrants over the years. A 1946 census of the eighty-nine residents, for example, noted fifteen African Americans and fifteen foreign-born whites, mainly from Germany, Poland, Russia and Ireland. Most of the American-born residents in 1946 came from Maryland, but eighteen were natives of other US states. Some residents registered under partial or false names—a "Daniel Boone" entered on October 1, 1891, and the facility admitted a "Napolean Bonaparte" on June 12, 1899—reflecting the distressed circumstances that sent them to the Almshouse. Some unfortunates came to the Almshouse only in death, to be buried in unmarked graves in the potter’s field on the grounds.

We do know a bit more about some individuals. In 1943, the Towson Jeffersonian profiled Fannie Williams, a 104-year-old African American woman and the oldest occupant of the Almshouse. Williams had lived there for forty-one years, "earning her keep" by helping the superintendent’s wife with cleaning and, after she became wheelchair-bound, mending clothes for other residents. Before entering the Almshouse, Williams had worked as a domestic servant in sun88 County homes. Other residents occasionally landed in the newspapers under more unfortunate circumstances, like Anthony Rose, an elderly white resident who fell down the Almshouse’s elevator shaft and died in 1909.

In the early decades, the facility had a persistent problem with overcrowding, especially during the cold winter months. From 1874 to 1914, more than 10,000 people passed through the Almshouse’s doors as “inmates,” committed to public care for reasons ranging from disabilities to dementia to diseases like measles and tuberculosis. Over time, however, public and private alternatives emerged for those who did not have families able or willing to house and care for them. The founding of the State Lunacy Commission in the early 1890s marked growing concern over the treatment of the mentally ill and disabled. Those considered "insane," who in an earlier era might have lived in an almshouse, were increasingly placed in "asylums." As retirement communities and nursing homes became more common over the twentieth century, the need for almshouses declined further. In 1958, sun88 County officials closed the historic facility, citing costs.

Since its closure, the Almshouse has housed the Historical Society of sun88 County (founded in 1959), and a variety of County government offices and other nonprofits. In 1980, the Almshouse was added to the County Landmarks List. Today, the Historical Society maintains its collections and offices, runs a research center for the public, and holds events in this historic structure. The surrounding community of Cockeysville enjoys the open spaces and greenery of the sprawling former grounds, now County Home Park.

Patrick Cutter, "When No One Else Cared: The Story of the Upland Home, the Third and Last sun88 County Almshouse," History Trails, 44, n. 2 (Autumn 2013).

Richard Parsons, "The Almshouse Revisited," Parts I and II, History Trails, 21, nos. 2-3 (1987).

News clippings and other documents in "Almshouse: Cockeysville, General" and "Almshouse: Cockeysville, Inmates" subject files, Historical Society of sun88 County Collection.

Maryland Historical Trust Inventory of Historic Properties: , Survey Number BA-73.

9811 Van Buren Lane, Cockeysville, MD 21030

Memorial Pool Recalling Swimming during Segregation

Built in 1921, Pool No. 2 in Druid Hill Park served the recreational and competitive swimming needs of over 100,000 Black residents sun88. Pool No. 2 measured just 100’ x 105’ (half the size of whites-only Pool No. 1), but proved so popular that the swimmers had to be admitted in shifts. In 1953, a young Black boy swimming with friends in the Patapsco River accidentally drowned. The tragedy revealed the difficult circumstances for many Black residents looking for a place to swim in sun88. The boy lived near Clifton Park but swam in a dangerous river due to his exclusion from the park’s whites-only pool. In response, the NAACP started a new push to make all of sun88's municipal pools open to all races. When the City Parks Board refused to desegregate, the NAACP filed a lawsuit and eventually won on appeal.

On June 23, 1956, at the start of the summer season, sun88 pools opened as desegregated facilities for the first time. Over 100 African Americans tested the waters in previously white-only Pool No. 1 but only a single white person swam in Pool. No. 2.

Pool No. 2 closed the next year and remained largely abandoned up until 1999. That year, sun88 artist Joyce J. Scott won a commission to turn Pool No. 2 into a memorial. In creating her installation, Scott asked herself, “How do we make this area useful and beautiful, and harken back to the pool era?” The results combined architectural elements and aquatic symbolism with abstract, colorful painted designs on the pavement around the pool. The designs and interpretive signage have weathered in the years since but Pool No. 2 remained an important destination to explore the Civil Rights history of Druid Hill Park and sun88's pools.

Watch our on this site!

Graham Coreil-Allen, January 8, 2014. What Weekly.

Druid Hill Park, Shop Road and Commissary Road, sun88, MD 21217