Category: Race and Place in Baltimore Neighborhoods

Next Saturday walking tour at West Baltimore Farmer’s Market!

Tour group at the West Baltimore Farmer's Market, Greater Rosemont Walking Tour

Celebrate the end of the inaugural season of the West Baltimore Farmer’s Market and explore the history of the Greater Rosemont neighborhood with a free mile-and-a-half long walking tour on November 20 at 10:00 AM starting from the West Baltimore MARC Station (Southwest corner of the North Smallwood and West Franklin Street). In the early 1950s, the neighborhoods of Greater Rosemont flipped from nearly exclusively white to almost completely African American through a period of rapid “white flight.” The new residents established a stable middle-class community that successfully resisted demolition by the “Highway to Nowhere.”

This short walking tour will take you from the very beginnings of the neighborhood as a streetcar suburb up through the present day and the prospect of the new Red Line light rail route. It is also a chance to celebrate the last day of the West Baltimore Farmers Market which is brining fresh, locally produced food to residents who live in a community that is characterized as an urban “food desert.” Please RSVP for this free walking tour!

Join us this Thursday for Rethinking Urban History from the Margins!

Please join us this Thursday, October 21 is our annual Fall Baltimore Heritage Lecture called “Rethinking Urban History from the Margins” by Dr. Rhonda Y. Williams, a Baltimore native and associate professor at Case Western Reserve University. Note that the location has moved from Ebenzer AME Church to Saints Stephen & James Evangelical Lutheran Church (938 S. Hanover Street, 21230).

Date:                     Thursday, October 21, 2010
Time:                     7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Location:              Saints Stephen & James Evangelical Lutheran Church (938 S. Hanover Street, Baltimore 21230)
(This is in the historic Sharp-Leadenhall neighborhood)
Cost:                      Free!
RSVP:                    Click here to RSVP

The intersection of race and place is a central issue in the histories of Baltimore neighborhoods and is clearly present in the city’s tumultuous relationship with public housing.  Baltimore native Dr. Rhonda Williams will draw on extensive oral histories and archival research for to share the stories of the African American women as community activists who fought for “rights, respect, and representation” for their families and neighbors living in Baltimore public housing. Author of The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women’s Struggles Against Urban Inequality, Dr. Williams will challenge us to reconsider the role of public housing in Baltimore neighborhoods and its broader significance in Baltimore’s history of race and place.

This event series is supported by the Maryland Humanities Council and Free Fall Baltimore. Find out more information about the over 300 events in Free Fall Baltimore 2010 here or learn more about the many other events of the 2010 Baltimore Architecture Month sponsored by AIABaltimore between September 9 and October 25.

This talk is part of our October Race and Place in Baltimore series.  Thank you to all who are participating!

Join us in October for Race and Place in Baltimore Neighborhoods

In addition to our regular tours this fall, in October we are pleased to host a special series called “Race and Place in Baltimore Neighborhoods.”  The series includes three Saturday morning walking tours in Upton, Greater Rosemont, and Sharp-Leadenhall and a lecture by distinguished scholar and Baltimore native Dr. Rhonda Williams.  We would love to have you join us for one or all of these!  And, thanks to the Maryland Humanities Council and Free Fall Baltimore, they are all free.

Together with scholars from the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, UMBC, and Towson University, as well as neighborhood leaders from the Upton Planning Committee, the Evergreen Protective Association, and the Sharp-Leadenhall Planning Committee, we will walk through neighborhoods that have served witness to Baltimore’s challenging histories of segregation, civil rights, racial transition, displacement, urban renewal, and even historic preservation. You’re encouraged to stay for a light lunch after each tour to continue the discussion with our tour leaders as we delve into the complicated relationships between race and place and what this history means for the future of these and many other Baltimore neighborhoods.

Click here to register for one or more of the tours and the lecture or read on for more details.

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