The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University

The Musical Life of Maryland's African-American Communities

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Baltimore's African-American community has a long and rich musical history. Despite the terrible constraints imposed by segregation, gospel music, symphonic music, oratorio, art song, blues, ragtime and jazz all flourished in Baltimore during the first half of the 20^th century. With the Civil Rights Movement and increasing racial integration in the 50s and 60s, new musical opportunities opened up to Baltimore?s Black community, but at the same time many of the institutions that had been created in a segregated environment withered and died. The Colored Symphony Orchestra went out of existence; the Black musicians union (Local 543) merged with the white local; one by one the clubs on Pennsylvania Avenue closed their doors; and in 1971 the Royal Theater was torn down to make way for an urban renewal project. Yet the musicians who had come of age in these earlier years passed their skills, their wisdom, and their memories on to the next generation.

Sounds and Stories began as a joint project between the Peabody Archives, the Musicology Department of the Peabody Conservatory and the History Department of the School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. In the fall of 2002 a seminar of 18 students undertook to interview people who had participated and still participate in the music of Baltimore?s Black community, to record their memories, and to document their world and their legacy. Grants from the Maryland Historical Trust and the Maryland Humanities Council made it possible for the interviews to be transcribed immediately. The students edited the interviews, went over them with the interviewees, and enhanced them with visual and audio materials provided by the participants and by local archives. This website opened to the public on February 2, 2003. It aims to serve as a resource for African-American history, for Baltimore and Maryland history, and for music history. Even more, we hope that it communicates a sense of the richness, the creativity, and the value of a world whose legacy remains central to Baltimore and the world today.

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