Local leaders in the black community talked about racial injustice in the 1950s and ?60s through today in the struggle for equal rights in Maryland.
Sit-ins and protests by students from Dunbar High School and Morgan State University helped desegregate 150 Baltimore stores by the end of 1960, said Clarence Logan, a local civil rights activist, who helped organize pickets as a Morgan State student in the 1950s.
“I always give credit to the high school students for this,” he said.
Logan joined Maryland Court of Appeals Chief Judge Robert Bell, Maryland Attorney General?s Office Director for Civil Rights Carl Snowden and American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland Board Member Gary Rodwell, who discussed their personal experiences with racism Saturday at Enoch Pratt Central Library in Baltimore City.
“In the old days, when you went downtown to buy a hat, you couldn?t try it on,” Bell told the audience of about 50. “You couldn?t try on shoes; you couldn?t try on suits. You just had to know your size and hope for the best.”
Morgan State students, who had been active in the Northwood neighborhood near their campus, invited high school students, including Bell who was a 16-year-old student at Dunbar, to participate in downtown protests in 1960, Bell said.
On June 17, Bell and other students began picketing on Baltimore Street, with some whites forming a counter-picket.
“Fortunately no blows were struck, but ugly things were said,” he said.
Bell and 11 other students walked to Hooper?s Restaurant at the corner of Fayette and Charles streets to occupy tables and demand service. Police arrived and ordered them to leave. They refused and were arrested.
Snowden also described being expelled from Annapolis High School in the 1960s for leading a walkout when white students refused to play soul music along with country music during an assembly.
Rodwell talked about a Maryland state trooper pulling him over in 1998 and searching his car before impounding it, all without probable cause or consent.
