Pine Street Walking Tour a STORY of COMMUNITY, FAITH, HOPE, and CHANGE

Pine Street Walking Tour A STORY OF COMMUNITY, FAITH, HOPE, AND CHANGE CAMBRIDGE, MARYLAND The Pine Street area of Cambridge was a self-sustaining African American community during segregation. African-American community during segregation. Pine Street Cambridge, Maryland Known as the “Black Wall Street” first black residents moving to that part of Cambridge on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the early 1800s. The Pine-Washington-High streets community was For more than half of the 20th century, the city of a vibrant center of black enterprise and culture Cambridge supported two bustling downtowns, from the 1920s into the 1960s. Most of the two hearts beating in the same body, pumping the buildings—houses, barber shops, grocery stores, lifeblood of commerce and culture through two funeral homes, nightclubs, and music halls—were distinct communities. One downtown was and remains Black-owned and long-time residents recall how today centered along Race Street (named after a mill neighbors looked after one another and viewed their race), a traditional “Main Street” business corridor part of Cambridge with pride. once so busy with foot and motor traffic that, more than any other place on the Eastern Shore, it Pine Street’s successes went well beyond everyday resembled the commercial districts found in bigger commerce. Because the community embraced music, cities such as Baltimore and Philadelphia. The other Pine Street became a favorite stopover on the “Chitlin’ downtown, a mix of shops, churches, and houses Circuit” for many of the country’s best-known African- defined by Pine Street, was only a block away and ran American musicians spanning the ages of jazz, big parallel to Race Street. It was just as vibrant as Race band, blues, and soul. Street and, in many cases, livelier. For Dorchester County African-Americans over the Race Street was predominantly white. Pine Street was age of 60, the expression “up Pine Street” conjures a long-standing African-American community, with its memories of shopping and socializing along the city blocks from Washington to High streets. “There were grocery stores, confectionary stores, THANK YOU: Thank you to David “Nicky” Henry for restaurants, beauty salons, barber shops, pool halls, supplying many of the photos used in this brochure. funeral homes, a drug store, an opera house, night Mr. Henry wrote the two-book series, Up Pine Street. clubs, antique shops, cleaners,” wrote Pine Street Thanks also to Bill Jarmon for his help and guidance. COVER PHOTO: JILL JASUTA; INSET PHOTO: HUBERT WRIGHT IV PAGE 3 When the company was sold in 1957, the economic ill effects contributed directly to the decline of Pine Street and ultimately fed the development of “The Cambridge Movement,” a nationally significant chapter in the civil rights struggle. It was here in the Pine Street community, and in demonstrations on neighboring Race Street, that community activists sought to expand the goals for the civil rights movement from the public accommodations and voting rights that dominated in the Deep South into the areas of housing, jobs, and economic justice. During the turbulent 1960s, Pine Street thrust Cambridge before a worldwide audience when it emerged as one of the most important battlegrounds in the civil rights movement. Gloria Richardson, the Arvel Jenkins at the Community Lunch Room, located daughter of a Cambridge pharmacist, was but one of on the corner of Pine Street and Dunns Lane in 1939. the home-grown leaders who helped define the movement’s goals, first for integration of public native David “Nicky” Henry, who compiled and accommodations and later for equal treatment in published two important volumes in the Up Pine housing, employment, education, and health care. Street series about the community. “Tailors, seamstresses, boarding houses, shoe repair shops, and After protests turned violent in June 1963, the a vault-making business.” This workday bustle with its National Guard came in—and imposed martial law entrepreneurial energy wasn’t the only factor making for more than a year. Pine Street a key center of African-American life and On the night of July 24, 1967, the Student culture on the Eastern Shore. Churches, too, played a Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chairman H. Rap central role on Pine Street—and had since they were Brown appeared in Cambridge at the invitation of first established in the community during slavery times, local black leaders. He climbed atop a car that night in the mid-1800s. The Charles Cornish Garage in 1927, then located in the 500 block of Pine Street. Pictured is Charles Civil rights movement Cornish, his two daughters, and a friend. The Pine Street downtown and its nearby residential neighborhoods, so full of energy that it was nicknamed “little New York,” fell upon hard times in the 1950s with the decline of local industry. Many Cambridge Blacks were dependent upon Phillips Packing Company, one of the biggest tomato canning outfits in the country, for jobs and, in some cases, housing. PAGE 4 Gloria Richardson, civil rights leader Charismatic and outspoken, Gloria Richardson was the first woman in the country to lead a grass-roots civil rights campaign outside the deep South. She grew up in Cambridge, but didn’t get involved with civil rights until after her daughter Donna joined Pine Street after the fire destroyed two blocks of the the SNCC in the early 1960s. Richardson helped form community in July 1967. the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee (CNAC), and exhorted Blacks to be more aggressive in their the only affiliate of the SNCC that was not student-led. struggle for equality. Several hours later, a fire broke As the head of the CNAC, Richardson changed out at Pine Street Elementary School, but firefighters the focus of the protests to demand not only were kept away from the blaze by city officials who desegregation, but also good jobs, housing, schools, feared for their safety after Brown’s speech. The fire and health care. spread across two square blocks, reducing much of She was an early advocate for the use of violence in Pine Street’s famous downtown to ashes. The cause self-defense when necessary, a position that helped of the fire has never been firmly established. push parts of the national civil rights movement This single event, however, in many ways came to toward militancy. define Cambridge and its Pine Street community in the national media. U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy summoned her to Washington for face-to-face negotiations in Five decades after the fire, the Pine Street community July 1963. The following month, Richardson went remains an important center for African-American life to the March on Washington, where she was one and culture in Cambridge. It’s home to influential of six “Negro Women Fighters for Freedom” on religious institutions, such as Bethel AME, Waugh the program. United Methodist, and Mount Olive Baptist churches; it’s home to vibrant fraternal organizations, most Richardson resigned from notably the Dorchester Elks Lodge 223. Pine Street the CNAC in the summer may no longer be the downtown it once was, but it of 1964 and moved to New is no less important. Historically and culturally, it is a York City, where she unique part of the fabric of Cambridge. continued to be involved in civil rights organizations. On February 11, 2017, the This walking tour TAKE A WALK: state of Maryland highlights some of the important places honored her legacy by in the history of the Pine Street community, dedicating the day as as well as sites related to local African- “Gloria Richardson Day.” American heritage. We welcome you to walk through history. PAGE 7 At Great Marsh Park GLENBURN AVE yz OAKLEY ST BELVEDERE AVE WILLIS ST Walking Tour MapWEST END AVE CHOPTANK AVE WATER ST SCHOOL ST Choptank River The Pine Street Walking Tour Long Lighthouse brochure was created in Wharf TRAVERS ST Park partnership with the Dorchester County Health Department. CHOPTANK RIVER WILLIAMS ST 1 To encourage walking, we have mi included the mileage between COMMERCE ST CAMBRIDGE stops on the map. The entire CREEK Sen. Frederick C. Malkus Jr. route is aboutLOCUST ST1.3 miles. Memorial Bridge 2 Waterfront Walk GLASGOW ST CHURCH ST BAY MILL ST 3 HIGH ST BRIDGE 4 Bill Burton Fishing Pier 5 State Park BYRN ST P To t HAYWARD ST mi GAY ST MUSE ST MARKET ST TRENTON ST FRANKLIN ST POPLAR ST POPLAR MARYLAND AVE 14 6 AURORA ST HENRY ST DORCHESTER AVE 13 PARK LN mi ROSE HILL PL ACADEMY ST FAIRMOUNT AVE HIGH ST RAMBLER RD MUIR ST mi 12 KILLARNEY RD LECOMPTE ST HIAWATHA RD CROSS ST ABACCO LN 11 RACE ST GREENWAY DR ELM ST LAGRANGE AVE 10 CEMETERY AVE 8 z PINE ST ROSLYN AVE TALISMAN LN 7 mi BETHEL 9ST To CEDAR ST t WELLS ST 341 CRUSADER RD DOUGLAS ST CEDAR ST KEY Visitor Information P Free Parking RACE ST METEOR AVE WASHINGTON ST Lodging Historic District Restaurant y Public Boat Ramp Shopping z Kayak Launch ROBBINS ST Art Gallery/Studio Nature Area WASHINGTON ST AVE DORCHESTER BOUNDARY AVE OCEAN GTWY (ROUTE 50) PINE ST Harriet Tubman Memorial Garden WOODS RD OCEAN STONE BOUNDARY RD CITY GOODWILL AVE 341 CHESAPEAKE DR 1 Long Wharf 4 Dorchester County Court High & Water Streets House As a deep-water 206 High Street tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, the The current building dates to 1854, but there was an Choptank River was a earlier courthouse here destroyed by fire. African- commercial artery of American records of enslavement, auctions, transfer the Eastern Shore since of human property, and related materials were lost in colonial times. Cargoes that fire. This was also the site of the first escape that of timber, tobacco, Harriet Tubman engineered: Her niece Kessiah Bowley and farm harvests were and her two children escaped from the slave auction hoisted by dockworkers to waiting ships.

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