1864—1890
The “Pratt Street Riot,” Baltimore, 1861
Baltimore City was one of three main population centers of African Americans in the state, along with the mid-Eastern Shore Counties of Talbot; Caroline, the first home of Frederick Douglass; and Dorchester, birthplace of Harriett Tubman. The agrarian economy of Maryland’s Eastern Shore flourished — enriching the region’s plantation owners and many of its small farmers — thanks to the export of tobacco and corn, and the thankless work of enslaved Africans who made up the lion’s share of the workforce. Sharp Street Methodist Episcopal Church opened its first school in 1802.
Thomas Kelso Chairman, Founding Board of Trustees 1867–1876
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MORGAN MAGAZINE VOLUME I 2017
Baltimore City and its main industries of shipbuilding and ship maintenance attracted many African Americans, both free born and enslaved. Before the War of 1812, Baltimore was a small port town that employed skilled and semiskilled workers who served as caulkers, sailmakers, painters, carvers and common laborers. Sixteen years after the end of the war, construction on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad began, drawing larger pools of laborers: free and enslaved Africans, domestic and immigrant whites and a smattering of mixed race people. The unique feature of Baltimore from the 1830s to 1850s was a commingling of races working beside one another. Many of the free black residents of Baltimore during this time organized their communities into neighborhoods, fraternal orders, churches and benevolent societies. They also established schools. Sharp Street Methodist Episcopal Church opened its first school in 1802. Sharp Street’s congregation embraced the egalitarian vision of John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield, the founders of Methodism, who promoted education in sacred and secular matters as essential to citizenship.
President Lincoln ordered federal troops to occupy Baltimore during the Civil War.
However, beneath the apparent social progress, an undercurrent of animosity toward African Americans ran strong. The 1860s was a turbulent decade for the U.S. as a whole and for Baltimore in particular. On April 19, 1861, a week after the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter, S.C., a movement of Union troops through Baltimore sparked a riot that caused the war’s first deaths by hostile action. The “Pratt Street Riot,” Baltimore’s proximity to the nation’s capital and the ardent, pro-Confederate passions among Baltimore’s citizenry led President Lincoln to order Federal troops to occupy the city throughout the course of the war. Increasing growth of Baltimore’s black population, from 27,898 in 1860 to 39,558 in 1870, compounded the racial tensions. Baltimore’s government could not accommodate the influx of needy blacks leaving the Eastern Shore and perhaps lacked the will to find a solution. There were few jobs available for the semiskilled or unskilled, and housing became increasingly difficult to find. In response, city officials criminalized African Americans for vagrancy and fined them for lingering on city streets. The stigma attached to black skin infuriated African-American and radical white Christians. Both groups spoke out against the abuse black people suffered in Baltimore and charged that police and city officials fanned the embers of racism. By the close of the 1870s and in the wake of a cholera epidemic in 1866, white Baltimoreans gradually separated themselves, leaving black Baltimoreans to fill small areas within the city. In response to racism, the Black Church galvanized itself to provide social services for the community — including higher education.
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