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The 1807 Commission, formed in 2021, conducted extensive research with the help of consulting firm History Associates, examining 14 individuals associated with UMB buildings.
Photo: Diane Forbes Berthoud, PhD, MA, UMB chief equity, diversity, and inclusion officer and vice president.
When Ida Powell first heard the findings of the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) 1807 Commission on Slavery and Racism, it was a deeply emotional experience.
“It’s a lot. It’s a lot,” said Powell, a longtime UMB employee who works as a lead in the Department of Environmental Services (EVS). “You walk into these buildings and you feel different now,” Powell said.
The 1807 Commission, formed in 2021, conducted extensive research with the help of History Associates, Inc. (HAI), a for-profit consulting firm, examining 14 individuals associated with UMB buildings. The names, including John Beale Davidge of the eponymous Davidge Hall, were provided to the firm by the UMB 1807 Commission.
HAI investigated the individuals at repositories including the Library of Congress, the Maryland State Archives, the New York Public Library, and numerous digital sources.
“We conducted our research through the lens of researchers and historians, but this is part of a larger social justice endeavor that we are honored to be a part of,” said Megan Anderson, director of exhibits and historical planning, HAI.
The commission’s report, released April 4 during a presentation at the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry, documents how figures whose names grace campus buildings were directly connected to the enslavement of Black people or held racist ideologies that demonstrated a belief that whites were superior to people of color.
It found that four had direct ties to slavery, seven expressed racist views, and three had no known connections to these harmful legacies.
It’s a stark reckoning for the University, one that leaders say is necessary to fully understand UMB’s history and chart a more equitable future.
UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, said the report is part of the University’s responsibility to examine its full history, both positive and painful.
“This our history,” Jarrell said. “We’re here today to talk about part of our history that is not well known that we are in the process of discovering.”
Among the findings:
- John Beale Davidge, founder of the College of Medicine in Maryland and for whom Davidge Hall is named, enslaved at least eight people in Baltimore.
- George Gray, a Scottish merchant who bequeathed $5,000 to the University and for whom George Gray Research Hall is named, profited from the tobacco trade, which relied on enslaved labor.
- Former Maryland Gov. John Eager Howard, who donated land for the medical school and for whom Howard Hall is named, enslaved at least 42 people and advocated for laws that disproportionately punished enslaved individuals.
- Architect Robert Cary Long Sr., who built Davidge Hall, enslaved two people.
The report also details the racist views of individuals like Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, and Dorothea Dix, a 19th-century mental health reformer.