Baltimore National Heritage Area and the City's Civil Rights History

The Baltimore National Heritage Area in Baltimore, Maryland, is one of dozens of congressionally designated national heritage areas across the United States, and a certified heritage area in Maryland. A heritage area brings together historic buildings, landscapes, parks, museums and other places central to a region's cultural heritage.

Baltimore's includes more than 15 sites linked to the civil rights movement — colleges and universities, African American churches and a branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) — representing African Americans' fight for equality both locally and nationally. Among them:

• the AFRO American Newspaper and Archive;
• Morgan State University, a historically Black university;
• the Lillie Carroll Jackson Civil Rights Museum.

Baltimore's civil rights leaders

Civil rights leaders including Lillie Carroll Jackson, Thurgood Marshall and Parren James Mitchell called Baltimore home.

• Lillie Carroll Jackson served as president of the Baltimore NAACP for about 35 years, beginning in the 1930s. She led grassroots campaigns for equal rights in housing, education, employment and voting, earning the title "mother of the Civil Rights Movement." Her home became the museum that bears her name.
• Parren James Mitchell sued for admission to graduate school at the University of Maryland in 1950, and won. The Baltimore NAACP, led by Jackson, backed his case.
• Thurgood Marshall, a Baltimore native, was Mitchell's lawyer. The case helped pave the way for Brown v. Board of Education, which Marshall argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Students take a stand

In 1955, a year after the Brown ruling, Morgan State students staged one of the first successful sit-ins, protesting segregated lunch counters at Read's Drug Store. Morgan State students went on to play an important role in the city's civil rights movement.

Part of a national network

The Baltimore National Heritage Area joined the African American Civil Rights Network in 2024. Created by the African American Civil Rights Act of 2017 and coordinated by the National Park Service, the network honors the civil rights movement and the sacrifices of those who fought discrimination and segregation, telling their stories through public and private properties, facilities and programs.

Sources

• National Park Service, African American Civil Rights Network: "Baltimore National Heritage Area (Baltimore, Maryland)."