Read’s Drugstore lunch counter on display at Morgan State was spark of Civil Rights sit-in movement
By Jenyne Donaldson
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BALTIMORE (WBAL) — A historic lunch counter from Read’s Drugstore that’s on display at the Morgan State University Student Center demonstrates what would help spark the Civil Rights Movement across Baltimore.
Morgan State’s rich legacy has always been shaped by bold action and purpose, especially by its students. That includes a group of students who risked their own safety for desegregation.
“For whatever reason, popular history has the sit-in protest movement beginning in Greensboro, North Carolina, to Woolworth’s Feb. 1, 1960,” said Edwin Johnson, a proud Morgan State alum who serves as the special assistant to the provost and the university’s historian.
But that’s wrong.
While lunch counter sit-ins took place across the country, a group of Morgan State students was the first to take bold action against segregation in 1955.
“I’ve been corrected several times by Morgan alumni in that area, and they said, ‘We didn’t sit in, baby. We sat down.’ So, they were occupying segregated businesses and they sat down in order to agitate and advocate to integrate,” Johnson told WBAL-TV 11 News.
The students did so at great personal risk. While Maryland is not considered a part of the Deep South, it is a Southern state in which Black people who stood up against Jim Crow laws faced danger.
“I’ve met Morgan alumni from that 1947 to that 1963 history that inhaled tear gas, were clubbed by Maryland state troopers the whole nine,” Johnson told WBAL-TV 11 News.
Just a few days after the sit-in, Read’s announced all of its Baltimore-area stores would desegregate.
Johnson said there’s an important thread beginning at Read’s integrating because Arundel Ice Cream followed, as did, after a long fight, the Northwood Theatre, Gwynn Oak Park and even the Northwood Shopping Center next to Morgan’s campus.
“Fifty years ago, Morgan students were just fighting for entry, and here today, in (a) full circle moment, we own the space. There are students that are actually taking classes and studying and spaces that were legally off-limits,” Johnson told WBAL-TV 11 News.
Students who protested and fought were jailed in a fight for freedom.
“This is so important that we never forget those battles because freedom is not something that is freely given, it has to be fought for. And, those Morgan students of this generation have to understand that the torch is being passed to them,” Johnson told WBAL-TV 11 News.
Morgan’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement spans from 1947 through 1963, and some would contend it never ended.
“It is also important to America’s story. We’re celebrating the 100th year of Black History Month and the same year the 250th anniversary of America, so make that math work for me,” Johnson said.
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