Harford Civil Rights Project tells story of county as a "hub of civil rights"
If you have spent time in Harford County, you know of Ray's Caribbean American Food and Hickory Ridge Elementary School.
What you may not know is how they are connected to the Civil Rights Movement.
"Not as well known, as say maybe what happened in Baltimore or in other places further south, but a lot did happen here," said Dr. James Karmel, director of the Harford Civil Rights Project and professor of history at Harford County Community. "It was kind of a hub of civil rights."
Dr. Karmel says the Harford Civil Rights Project was created to highlight what happened over the past 60 years, the pivotal players, and how change was made.
He hopes it inspires people to use their voices for positive change, too.
"Where there is injustice, where there is severe inequality as there was in the Jim Crowe Era, you want people to think about, what can I do to change this? What can I do to make things a better world to progress?" said Dr. Karmel. "You can enact change like this but it takes hard work and it takes maybe some amount of courage and maybe a little sacrifice sometimes too."
Uncovering the seldom-told stories
Within the 437 square miles of Harford County lie pivotal moments in Civil Rights history that many do not know about. That's why Dr. Karmel started the Harford County Civil Rights Project.
"If I go here and look at our exhibition, which is harfordcivilrights.org, you can scroll down and see these are the stories which are all kind of site-based stories related to different civil rights themes, things that took place in Harford County," said Dr. Karmel.
The project started with a grant in 2018 from the National Endowment for Humanities, and it has since involved more than 700 students of all different backgrounds, researching and adding to the project.
Student Elizabeth Hunter focused her research on activist H. Rap Brown.
"One of the protests that he was at, maybe you'd say running, was one that got pretty violent and ended up having a lot of rioters and arson committed. He was then charged and his trial was in Bel Air, Maryland of all places," Hunter said.
The project includes oral history clips, photos, and in many cases, documents.
Multimedia efforts
The multimedia efforts are also included in the featured article on the Route 40 Freedom Ride, a protest to end segregation in several locations along the highway, put together by student Josiah Carey.
"I never knew that there was an actual freedom ride for Harford county so it was really interesting to learn about and to learn how it started and how they kind of just traveled down there and just took their stand against it," Carey said.
The website and GPS-activated app for guided tours features countless stories about Civil Rights icons like Dwight Petit and the Stamp family, segregated education at the Central Consolidated School and the Havre De Grace Colored School, restaurants such as the Flying Clipper and the Bonnie Brae Diner.
"It impacts me"
While learning about the past, those who have contributed to the app hope people can apply what they learn to the present and the future.
"I feel like it impacts me as a person of color, as a person who is a minority," student Quentin Santiago said. "I think it's really important to learn the history so it can be even more impactful to me for the future so I can maybe help out in the future or I could stand against things with a better, more clear mind on the issues at hand."
"I know how hard he's worked and everyone else involved to try to get more of the information out there because it needs to be," student Brittany Baylor said. "It shouldn't be something that should just only be learned for a few months. It happened, you can't erase what happened."
The students say that while we've come a long way in the last 60 years, we still have a long way to go.
"I hope they find a reason themselves, maybe take a reason of why I did the project, and apply it to themselves and take that into the future or into the present, and do with that knowledge what they will be it to protest or to stand for something or to help an organization or build an organization from the ground up," Santiago said.
"Obviously, over the last couple years, we've seen a big influx in the BLM riots, and I think today we sort of think we have it all figured out and it's all perfect when obviously that is far from the truth," Hunter said.
