Education

The fight for education for the African American community in Maryland has had a long history. In 1887 Harry Sythe Cummings entered the University of Maryland School of Law and was one of two African Americans to graduate from the program before the school re-segregated. The law school would remain segregated until Donald Gaines Murray sought admission in 1935 and was denied. Murray went to court, represented by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP. The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled in Murray’s favor (Pearson v. Murray, 1936), but did not outlaw segregation in education throughout the state. Efforts to desegregate other schools was a focus of the Baltimore Chapter NAACP. In 1952, two years before Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Baltimore’s Polytechnic Institute was integrated. These are just a couple of examples of the effort to change laws within the state.

Henderson also photographed Morgan State College (now University), opened in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute, and Maryland State Teachers College at Bowie (now Bowie State University).

Unidentified women at typewriters. (Possibly Cortez W. Peters Business School). Paul Henderson, HEN.00.A1-094.

Unidentified women at typewriters. (Possibly Cortez W. Peters Business School). Paul Henderson, HEN.00.A1-066.

Unidentified women at typewriters. (Possibly Cortez W. Peters Business School). Paul Henderson, HEN.00.A1-067.

Unidentified students in classroom. (Possibly Cortez W. Peters Business School.) Paul Henderson, HEN.00.A1-070.

Group portrait outside of the Cortez W. Peters Business School. Paul Henderson, HEN.00.A2-075.

Classroom. Unidentified men and women seated at desks in classroom, ca. 1947. Paul Henderson, HEN.00.B2-250.

Classroom. Unidentified men and women in lab classroom, ca. 1947. Paul Henderson, HEN.00.B2-251.

Classroom. Unidentified men and women at large tables, ca. 1947. Paul Henderson, HEN.00.B2-252.

Classroom. Young men in a classroom lab setting, ca. 1947. Paul Henderson, HEN.00.B2-246.

Classroom. Unidentified men at desk in classroom with poster displays for “Correlated Visual Aids,” and “Know Your Bleaches – Antiseptics,” ca. 1947. Paul Henderson, HEN.00.B2-247.

Classroom. Men and women gathered around classroom lab with equipment. Shows nun in religious habit, ca. 1957. Paul Henderson, HEN.00.B2-249.

Classroom. Men and women gathered around classroom lab tables with equipment, ca. 1947. Paul Henderson, HEN.00.B2-248.