Timeline
Entries from 1892 to 2007 pair Baltimore and Maryland events, such as lynchings, desegregation of public places and the Cambridge protests, with national milestones like Brown v. Board of Education.
The timeline was part of the 2007 project. It opens in Baltimore in 1892 with John Murphy starting the Afro-American and ends in February 2007 with the death of Walter Sondheim, Jr. Maryland entries, such as the lynchings at Salisbury and Princess Anne, the March to Annapolis, the Poly "A" course, the Northwood Theatre, Gwynn Oak Park, and the Cambridge disturbances of 1963 and 1967, sit alongside national markers from Brown v. Board of Education to the Voting Rights Act. The entries are brief and carry no citations. Many of the Baltimore items are treated at length in the essays elsewhere on this site.
- 1892Baltimore 1892
The Afro-American was started by John Murphy.
- 1931Salisbury, MD December 1931
Matthew Williams was lynched.
- 1933Princess Anne, MD October 1933
George Armwood was lynched, the last lynching in Maryland.
- 1934Baltimore 1934
Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School opened on Caroline and McElderry Streets. "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" campaign on Pennsylvania Avenue concluded successfully with the hiring of black employee Thomas Hawkins at A&P.
- 1936Baltimore 1936
Court of Appeals of Maryland upholds Judge Eugene O'Dunne's decision to overturn segregation policy of University of Maryland School of Law, which cemented Donald Gaines Murray's entrance to the school.
- 1942Baltimore 1942
The March to Annapolis took place to stop the brutalities of African Americans by white police officers.
- 1944Baltimore 1944
Eleanor Roosevelt spoke at Sharp St. Church.
- 1947Baltimore 1947
First African American was promoted to the rank of sergeant. This marked the first time an African American of the force outranked a white patrolmen.
- 1947Baltimore 1947
Presentation of “Deep Are The Roots” to nonsegregated audiences at Morgan State College, after the playwrights had refused to permit the play to be presented at Ford’s Theatre because of its segregation policy.
- 1948Baltimore 1948
Judge Calvin W. Chesnut ruled that African American golfers were entitled to play on all municipal courses. The Park Board acted promptly by designating certain days of the week on which “Negroes” and “Negroes” only, could use each of the four public courses.
- 1948Baltimore 1948
Judge Chesnut ruled that the Maryland Art Institute, although a recipient of some public funds, could restrict its enrollment to white students.
- 1948July 1948
The Progressive Party of Maryland staged an interracial tennis match in Druid Hill Park in defiance of the segregation policy of the Board of Recreation and Parks. Police stopped the match and arrested 34 people. Twenty-two were charged by the Grand Jury with conspiring to riot and seven were convicted.
- 1949Annapolis 1949
Wesley A. Brown became the first Black graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He was appointed by Black U.S. representative Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., of New York in June 1945.
- 1949Baltimore 1949
A 19-year-old African American was stabbed to death in Carroll Park during a fight between White and Black kids.
- 1949Baltimore 1949
Protests were held against the use of Clifton Park by Dunbar High School students and against the construction of Black housing in the Cantonsville suburban area.
- 1950Baltimore 1950
African American professionals were appearing regularly in International League games at Baltimore’s Municipal Stadium, a scheduled baseball game on a park diamond between Baltimore Junior College and York (Pennsylvania) Junior College was cancelled because the York team had two Black players.
- 1950Baltimore 1950
African Americans protested against exclusion from Fort Smallwood, a city bathing beach.
- 1950Baltimore 1950
A White person was stabbed which caused an attack on African Americans by a gang of White kids that necessitated a police guard at the Latrobe public housing project for African Americans.
- 1951Baltimore 1951
The Board of Recreation and Parks abandoned its “white” and “colored” days at municipal golf courses, and also relaxed it rule against mixed play at more than a score of its baseball diamonds, tennis courts and other athletic facilities. Some segregated facilities remained particularly the swimming pools.
- 1951Baltimore 1951
As a result of court action, the Fort Smallwood bathing beach was opened to African Americans but on a limited basis. For example, during the first two-thirds of each summer month the beach was reserved for white bathers; during the last third, for African Americans.
- 1951Maryland 1951
The Maryland State Teachers Association became an integrated organization.
- 1952Baltimore 1952
African Americans were hired as operators by the Baltimore Transit Company.
- 1952Baltimore 1952
African Americans were admitted to the “A” course at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute.
- 1952Baltimore 1952
Segregated seating was abolished at Ford’s Theatre.
- 1953Baltimore 1953
The Baltimore Fire Department ended 95 years as an all-white municipal agency by appointing ten African Americans to its force.
- 1953Baltimore 1953
The Enoch Pratt Free Library opened its largest and newest branch on the corner of Pennsylvania and North Avenues with an integrated staff.
- 1954May 17, 1954
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The Supreme Court unanimously decides that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.
- 1954Baltimore 1954
Around 500 students stay away from classes in protest of school integration.
- 1954Baltimore 1954
Following the Brown announcement, the Catholic parochial schools announced that all parochial schools in the Baltimore area would be desegregated (Catholic high schools and colleges were already on a nonsegregated basis).
- 1954Baltimore 1954
Friends School announced that it would take African American students, beginning with the first grade.
- 1954Baltimore 1954
The Park School decided it would admit qualified African Americans to any grade.
- 1954Baltimore 1954
The Baltimore City Dental Society voted to continue its exclusion of African American dentists.
- 1954November 1954
Three African Americans were elected to the Maryland General Assembly: Harry A. Cole was elected to the State Senate; Emory Cole and Truly Hatchett to the House of Delegates.
- 1955December 1955
Rosa Parks, a member of the NAACP, is arrested for refusing to give up her seat up to a white passenger and take her place in the “colored section” of the bus. In response, Montgomery’s black community launches a bus boycott.
- 1955Baltimore 1955
Read’s drug stores, the largest local chain, opened its lunch counters on a city-wide basis to seated “Negroes.”
- 1955Baltimore 1955
Two downtown motion picture theatres quietly dropped their white-only policies and a court test brought a reversal of the Liquor Board’s regulation against serving alcoholic drinks to mixed clientele.
- 1955Maryland 1955
The first African Americans toll takers were assigned to the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay bridges.
- 1955Baltimore April 1955
On April 29th, between 100-125 Morgan State students tried to gain entry to the movie theatre at Northwood Shopping Center. They were denied.
- 1955August 1955
Emmett Till, a 14-year-old, was kidnapped in Money, Mississippi. His body was found four days later in a river.
- 1956December 21, 1956
After a year of boycotting, Montgomery buses are desegregated.
- 1956Baltimore 1956
Mondawmin, a huge shopping center, opened in northwest Baltimore in an African American neighborhood. Most of the 50-odd stores showed a willingness to serve colored patrons without discrimination but one restaurant admitted whites only. Mondawmin’s tenants also exposed shoppers, predominantly white, to African American salespeople on an unprecedented scale.
- 1957September 1957
In Little Rock, Arkansas, Central High School, formerly an all-white high school, blocks the entry of nine black students as ordered by Governor Oval Faubus. President Eisenhower deploys federal troops and the National Guard in an effort to mediate on behalf of the “Little Rock Nine.”
- 1960February 1, 1960
In Greensboro, North Carolina, four black college students are refused service at a segregated lunch counter in Woolworth’s.
- 1960April 1960
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is established at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, giving young blacks greater status in the Civil Rights movement.
- 1961MD Route 40 1961
On June 26th an Ambassador from Chad entered the Bonnie Brae Diner. He was told that “The Diner didn’t serve Negroes.” The Ambassador filed a protest with the State Department in Washington, D.C.
- 1961May 4, 1961
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) implements “freedom riders” to test the new interstate travel facility integration laws.
- 1963Baltimore 1963
Northwood Theatre was integrated on February 22nd due to protests by Morgan State students and the Civic Interest Group (CIG).
- 1963Baltimore 1963
Protestors went to Gwynn Oak Park to challenge its segregation policy. Hundreds were arrested as whites yelled insults to the people being led away to jail.
- 1963April 16, 1963
During anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Alabama, Martin Luther King, Jr. is arrested and jailed and writes “Letters from Birmingham Jail.”
- 1963May 1963
Televised throughout the world, Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene “Bull” Connor turns police dogs and fire hoses on black demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama.
- 1963Cambridge 1963
On May 14th Gloria Richardson, along with her daughters, was arrested at the Dizzyland Restaurant for trespassing. This resulted in 62 people being arrested for protesting the Richardsons’ arrest.
- 1963Cambridge June 1963
On June 10th and 11th African Americans demonstrated. The protests turned violent. There were shootings by blacks and whites, brick-throwing and fires started by Molotov cocktails. 20 people were arrested.
- 1963Cambridge 1963
Governor J. Millard Tawes ordered the National Guard to Cambridge. They imposed a strict 10 p.m. curfew, ordered all businesses to close at 9 p.m., and ordered all establishments selling alcoholic beverages to close until further notice.
- 1963Cambridge July 1963
On July 11th, two carloads of white men ripped down Pine Street, the main black throughfare, at seventy miles an hour, shooting in all directions.
- 1963August 28, 1963
Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech to about 200,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington and Gwynn Oak Park was integrated when Sharon Langley entered the Park.
- 1963September 15, 1963
In Birmingham, Alabama, four young girls:Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins, were killed while attending Sunday School when a bomb explosion at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
- 1964January 23, 1964
The 24th Amendment abolished the poll tax.
- 1964July 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed by President Johnson.
- 1964August 4, 1964
In Mississippi, three civil-rights workers: James E. Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, two white and one black, were found murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in an earthen dam.
- 1965February 21, 1965
Founder of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, Malcom X was shot to death.
- 1965March 7, 1965
Dubbed “Bloody Sunday” by the media in Selma, Alabama, blacks began a march to Montgomery in an effort to gain voting rights but were stopped short by a police blockade at the Pettus Bridge where they were tear gassed, whipped, and/or clubbed.
- 1965August 10, 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed by Congress.
- 1965August 11-17, 1965
In a black section of Los Angeles, race riots erupted.
- 1966October 1966
Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panthers in Oakland, California.
- 1967June 12, 1967
Interracial marriages declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia.
- 1967July 1967
Major race riots in Newark, New Jersey and Detroit, Michigan.
- 1967Cambridge 1967
On July 24th H. Rap Brown, gave a speech urging blacks to arm themselves and be ready to die. An hour later violence broke out. 17 buildings were damaged by fire during the night. Governor Spiro Agnew sent in the National Guard and declared that Brown was personally responsible for the violence.
- 1968Baltimore 1968
Black Panther Party chapter organized.
- 1968April 4, 1968
In Memphis, Tennessee, Martin Luther King, Jr., at the age of 39, was assassinated by James Earl Ray.
- 1971Baltimore 1971
The Baltimore Branch of the Black Panthers opened the People's Free Clothing Program at 1829 Edmondson Ave. The Royal Theater closed on Pennsylvania Avenue.
- 1971April 20, 1971
In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, the Supreme Court upholds using buses as a means of achieving integration in public schools.
- 19731973
In Atlanta, Maynard Jackson becomes the first elected black mayor of a major Southern U.S. city.
- 19831983
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a federal holiday.
- 19891989
The first black elected governor was L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia. Also, in 1989, General Colin Powell became the black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
- 1992April 29, 1992
In Los Angeles, four white police officers, caught on tape, were acquitted for the beating of Rodney King.
- 2003June 23, 2003
The Supreme Court ruled that race can be one of several factors that colleges consider when admitting students.
- 2005June 21, 2005
Edgar Ray Killen was convicted of manslaughter for the Mississippi civil rights murders that occurred on August 4, 1964.
- 2005October 2005
Rosa Parks, whose act of civil disobedience in 1955 inspired the modern civil rights movement, died Monday in Detroit, Michigan. She was 92.
- 2005Baltimore 2005
Elkridge Club, on the Baltimore city/county line, admitted it first African American member in its 127-year history.
- 2006Baltimore January 2006
Victorine Quille Adams former Baltimore City Council, General Assembly member and community activist passed away at age 93.
- 2006January 2006
Coretta Scott King died at the age of 78. Wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., and a pioneer of the civil rights movement.
- 2007Baltimore February 2007
Walter Sondheim, Jr. passed away at the age of 98.
Timeline compiled by the student researchers in 2007. Gold markers are events in Maryland.
Questions about this page
When was Gwynn Oak Park integrated?
Gwynn Oak Park was integrated on August 28, 1963, when Sharon Langley entered the park, the same day Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his I Have A Dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Earlier in 1963 hundreds of protestors had been arrested there.
What happened in Cambridge, Maryland in 1963?
On May 14, 1963, Gloria Richardson and her daughters were arrested at the Dizzyland Restaurant for trespassing, and 62 people were arrested protesting that arrest. Governor J. Millard Tawes later ordered the National Guard to Cambridge, which imposed a 10 p.m. curfew.
Which lynching does the timeline call the last in Maryland?
The timeline records the lynching of Matthew Williams in Salisbury in December 1931 and of George Armwood in Princess Anne in October 1933. It describes Armwood's lynching as the last lynching in Maryland.