Built as the Douglas in 1921, the theatre was renamed the Royal Theatre in 1926. With seating for more than 1,000, it became Pennsylvania Avenue’s biggest entertainment jewel.

All of the biggest stars in black entertainment, including those in jazz and blues, performed at the Royal including greats such as Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Redd Foxx as well as the first integrated all-female band the Sweethearts of Rhythm: a 40-piece band that toured with Count Basie and featured some of the best female musicians in the world. A “must play” venue for African American “stars” – Pearl Bailey debuted as a lead singer for the Sunset Royal Band here as did comics such as Moms Mabley and Slappy White. Later groups such as the Platters, Temptations and Supremes played the Royal. Boxer Jack Johnson gave a boxing exhibition on stage, and local groups followed the headliners. You could hear vocals from the Clovers of Washington, D.C., the Cardinals, Orioles, Royallettes and Swallows of Baltimore, and the Marylanders of Annapolis. The MidNighters and Drifters were also Royal regulars.

Baltimore City’s first motion picture featuring an all black cast, The Scar of Shame, was shown at the Roya in 1929. It was produced by The Colored Players Film Corporation of Philadelphia and is one of the earliest examples of films with a black cast produced for black audiences.

Sadly, the theater was demolished in 1971.

Corner of Lafeyette and Pennsylvania Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

The celebrated African American artist Romare Bearden’s most famous mosaic, “Baltimore Uproar,” adorns the Upton Metro Station, and rightly so. The mosaic features a jazz group composed of Baltimore native Billie Holiday and six instrumentalists, setting the tone for Baltimore’s once-famous musical venues. The 14’ x 46’ Venetian glass mosaic was unveiled on December 15, 1982 in the Upton Metro Station.

In 1935 Bearden (1911-1988) became a weekly editorial cartoonist for The Afro-American Newspapers where he graphically captured the African American experience until 1937.

Bearden’s life and art covered a spectrum of interests, including music, performing arts, history, literature, and art. He also was a renowned humanist, supporting young, emerging artists. Within his extensive education portfolio, he attended the Art Students League in New York and the Sorbonne in Paris.

From the mid-1930s through 1960s, Bearden was a social worker with the New York City Department of Social Services, working on his art at night and on weekends. He counted among his many friends, James Baldwin, Stuart Davis, Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Joan Miró, George Grosz, Alvin Ailey and Jacob Lawrence.

Among Bearden’s numerous publications are: A History of African American Artists: From 1792 to the Present, coauthored with Harry Henderson and published posthumously in 1993; and Six Black Masters of American Art, coauthored with Harry Henderson (1972). Bearden’s artwork is included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and The Studio Museum in Harlem.

Metro Station Pennsylvania Ave., Baltimore, MD 21217

Old West Baltimore claims a possible future Saint who worked tirelessly serving and educating Baltimore’s blacks. Born in the French colony, Saint-Domingue, Haiti, in 1784, Elizabeth Clovis Lange was the founder and first Superior-General of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first black Roman Catholic order in the United States. The Haitian revolution forced her to leave her birthplace. After migrating to eastern Cuba, she eventually settled in Baltimore in 1827. Here, she invested her inheritance to open the first school for the City’s black French-speaking immigrants.

Pope Gregory XV provided for Mother Lange to organize the Oblate Sisters of Providence because of her unwavering dedication to her church and the educationally deprived. With the assistance of a Cuban refugee, Marie Magdelaine Balas, and Father Joubert, a French Sulpician priest, her vision took shape at the Saint Frances Academy. She also served the greater community through various aid programs for the hungry and the homeless.

“During the Civil War years, she became Local Superior of Saint Benedict’s School in Baltimore and later led the establishment of other schools in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.” By the time she died in 1882, the Oblate order influence had extended across the United States, to the Caribbean, and Central America. Attempts to make her the first African American female to be canonized continue. Today, the Saint Francis Academy serves the Baltimore community and educates Baltimore’s best and brightest.

610 George Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

The strength of Old West Baltimore’s community-based fabric springs from the practice of faith.

In 1791, at the invitation of Bishop John Carroll — the first American bishop — Sulpician priests came to Baltimore from France to found St. Mary’s Seminary, the nation’s first Catholic seminary.

The Sulpician Fathers built the first significant church in the U.S. in the neo-gothic style, designed by the French émigré Maximillian Godefroy and completed in 1808. In the early 19th century, the crypt of the chapel served as the parish church for area residents, including many Haitian refugees.

The site is closely associated with heroic women: In the 1820s Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first religious community of African American women in the U.S. They used the Chapel basement to provide parochial education for black children.

Mother Theresa Maxis Duchemin, founder of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was also one of the founding members of the Oblates of Providence. The daughter of a Haitian refugee, Mother Duchemin was born in Baltimore in 1810. Her great-grandfather, Maxis, whose name she used, was a slave in Haiti. Theresa was raised by her mother’s guardians, the Duchemin family, who provided education for her as they had for her mother.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821), the first native-born American Saint, took her vows in St. Mary’s Seminary Chapel on March 25, 1809. The Chapel is adjacent to the Mother Seton House where she lived while in Baltimore.

St. Mary’s Seminary and University are now located in the Roland Park section of Baltimore. The historic sites are now part of the St. Mary’s Spiritual Center.

600 N. Paca Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

The Perkins Square Gazebo harkens back to the grandeur of Baltimore’s 19th century architectural and landscape heritage. As early as 1810, Baltimore purchased the land at the head of the springs, providing the City with an abundant supply of fresh water and allowing for the creation of the City’s first public parks.

In 1871, the Gazebo was built as a spring shelter, the centerpiece for a new park. The reputedly medicinal spring flowed at the rate of 60 gallons per minute and was one of the numerous early Baltimore natural springs. This land had been part of the Chatsworth estate originally owned by Dr. George Walker, one of Baltimore’s original commissioners. As early as the 1850s, the City became interested in preserving the spring and surrounding ground as “a place of public resort for the citizens of Baltimore.” Once triangular in shape, the park became known for its extravagant plantings with luxuriant beds of coleus and petunias planted in shapes of stars, shields and anchors, and rock formations with creeping vines. In the 1950s, Perkins Square became part of the site of a public housing project.

The octagonal shaped Gazebo has eight cast-iron columns supporting a metal roof. These architectural details capture Moorish influences especially in the arches and roof shape. The cast-iron construction, a rarity today, also lends significance as an example of a building technology for which Baltimore was a national center of production. In 1963, the surrounding neighborhood was razed for the Murphy Homes housing project, which has since been demolished to make way for Heritage Crossing, a new group of modern housing for low and moderate-income families. The Gazebo lives on as its centerpiece. Today, the Gazebo is one of two spring shelters left in the City.

George Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Highlights to come soon. Please check back.