Article by Andre Nieto Jaime

Harold T. Pinkett
c. 1979
National Archives History Office Collection

Born on April 7, 1914 in Salisbury, Maryland, Harold T. Pinkett was the youngest child of Reverend Levin Wilson Pinkett and Catherine Pinkett. His siblings included seven brothers, Earl M., Franklin B., Llyod G., Allison J.,  Levin W., and Otho Pinkett as well as a single sister named Catherine Pinkett (later Catherine Thomas). Harold, seeking to improve himself and his standing in society through education, obtained higher education at Morgan College (now Morgan University), the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and American University over the course of many years and his endeavors led him to become the first African American hired at the National Archives at the professional level. Through his passion for education, history, writing in numerous publications, and his professional pursuits, Dr. Harold Pinkett was able to break barriers in the archival and professional world, paving the path for future Black professionals and scholars. In addition, through his work, Dr. Pinkett was a champion for the study of Black history as part of American history by advocating for its further exploration and emphasizing the Black role in record keeping.

Harold Pinkett was born to Reverend Levin W. Pinkett and Catherine Pinkett in Salisbury Maryland, the place where Harold’s ancestors also hailed from. Harold’s father was a minister, much like Harold’s grandfather, Adam Pinkett, was. Much of Levin and Catherine’s time seemed to have been spent traveling to preach in various towns across the Eastern Shore from the John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church in their hometown to Marydel, MD along the Maryland-Delaware border. Several issues of the Afro-American make note of Harold’s grandmother, Charlotte Irving, visiting the family wherever they were at the time, often times being in a different town every year. In 1924 it was Cambridge. The following year it was East New Market, and then it was Williamsburg. In 1930 Levin and Catherine were living in Easton, but the 16 year old Harold, according to census data, was not with them. Instead, he was living with his grandmother Charlotte back in Salisbury where he was attending high school (likely Salisbury Industrial High School) where he graduated summa cum laude. 

After graduating from high school, Harold Pinkett followed his brother Otho to Morgan College (now Morgan University), reportedly using a scholarship for his tuition and paying his remaining expenses by waiting tables in Ocean City. At Morgan, Harold was hugely successful. So successful in fact, that his feats were published in the Afro-American showing he ranked high among his peers and even made it to the top of his class during his junior and senior years. His graduation photo and name were also featured in The Crisis, the NAACP’s official publication and oldest continuously printed Black publication. It was also in college that Pinkett began testing his mettle as a scholar, either to test himself as a writer or to have a chance at winning a large cash prize (which most college students would find irresistible), when he submitted an entry to the paper for a slogan competition. The slogan he penned was “The Fearless Crusader for the Equality of All Men,” which foreshadowed Pinkett’s own contributions in the future.

Even if this entry was incentivized by a cash prize, Pinkett’s letters to editor were certainly not. Just a year later, in 1933, Pinkett had written a letter to the editor of the Baltimore Sun titled “Forgotten Groups Again,” in which he commented on the National Recovery Administration (NRA) established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Pinkett reminded the paper of the discrimination faced by African Americans “in every phase of their national life” and how white society was complicit in perpetuating it and if the NRA was truly to help the nation, that it must benefit all racial and economic groups as well. As early as his college days, Harold Pinkett was an activist for Black representation and equality in American society.

In 1935, Harold Pinkett graduated from Morgan College as the valedictorian of his class, unsurprising given how he consistently made it to the top of his class at the end of semesters. Additionally, both Levin and Catherine Pinkett encouraged Harold to improve himself through education. His grandfather, Adam Pinkett, undoubtedly also served as inspiration for Harold. Adam Pinkett and his brothers liberated themselves from enslavement to join the United States Colored Troops during the American Civil War. Afterwards, Adam learned to read and write, became a landowner, and a minister. Likewise, Levin Pinkett also became a successful minister and while Harold did not become a preacher like his father and grandfather, he did inherit their spirit of self-improvement and determination. 

​It was also around 1935 that Harold Pinkett received a gift from his father, perhaps a graduation gift, in the form of a collection of books. One of said books, Lives of the First Twelve Caesars, contributed to Harold’s life in several ways, including some that he likely did not foresee. First, this 1739 book was a unique addition, perhaps among the first and certainly among the oldest, to his collection of rare books that he started in college and would maintain through his life. Second, it was reflective of his “natural interest in things that document the past,” and interest in history which led him down his future career path. Lastly, the book became a useful tool for his next step in life where he used it as a teaching aid as a high school teacher. 

Following Pinkett’s graduated from Morgan College, he was assigned to be a high school teacher at Douglass High School in Baltimore, Maryland. While he had majored in history, Pinkett’s minor in Latin became useful. In 1937 he was reassigned as a special substitute for Latin and English at the same high school. In total, Harold spent roughly a year and a half teaching in Baltimore’s school system. He was not particularly fond of this position, at least at the high school level, citing that his young face and age resulted in difficulty asserting authority over his students who were barely younger than he was. After all, Harold Pinkett was only about 20 years old when he graduated from college. Wanting to enhance his education and continue teaching, Harold pursued a master’s degree in history.

At the time Harold sought to enroll in graduate school, the University of Maryland remained segregated. The state did, however, offer a heavily criticized solution: offering to pay prospective graduate students to go to graduate school outside of the state. The program began in 1935, offering up to $200 per student to pay for the difference in tuition for going to graduate school outside of the state if training in their field was not available at home. This program continued until 1957 and was condemned as an illegal practice intended to keep the University of Maryland “lily-white,” by spending over two million dollars to send students of colors out of the state for their education, rather than integrating. Harold Pinkett was awarded a scholarship through this program and attended the University of Pennsylvania, staying with family to save on costs. He received his Master of Arts degree in history from there in 1938.

Rather than waiting for a response, Pinkett took a position at Florida Normal College teaching history, government, and geography for six months before being contacted by Livingstone College with asking him to return to teach there. Professor Edward Pierce. Pinkett must have made a positive impression and made for a logical replacement given the fact he had substituted for Pierce just over a year ago. At this point, Pinkett was already becoming an accomplished author, having written an article in the Journal of Negro History titled “Efforts to Annex Santo Domingo to the United States, 1866-1871 for which he earned praise from individuals like Dr. Carter G. Woodson and Dr. Allan Nevins. Following his graduation, Pinkett received teaching position at Livingstone College to fill-in for Professor Edward Pierce. Pierce had left on sabbatical for the University of Chicago to get his PhD, allowing Pinkett to come in to teach history for a year. Recent events must have weighed heavily on Pinkett’s mind as during a December chapel service at Livingstone, he gave an address on the topic “Must There Be War?” At the time, the world was already becoming engulfed in war. In Asia, the Second Sino-Japanese war had kicked off the year prior and in East Africa, Ethiopia was being occupied by Italy’s fascist regime. In Europe, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime were steering a course for war in Europe having occupied the Sudetenland in September of 1938. Needless to say, Pinkett likely saw the writing on the wall and, distraught by the growing world tension, wished to issue his own condemnation of war. Drawing on wars from antiquity to the 20th century, Pinkett dubbed war to be “the scourge of nations” and urged “peace-loving nations” to make concerted efforts to prevent it. While the global powers paid his words no mind, his lecture did demonstrate that Pinkett was also concerned with the issues surrounding world peace and international affairs.

Once Pinkett’s year at Livingstone came to a close in 1939, he once again used the out-of-state funding opportunity to work on his PhD at Columbia University, during which he stayed with his brother Allison and his sister-in-law Grace who were living in New York. However, after a year, financial issues forced Pinkett to put his studies on hold to seek employment once again. It was here that Harold Pinkett made a decision that defined his career. While studying at Columbia, he became aware of a civil service exam for an open archival position and while he did not know much about archival work, he technically did meet all of the requirements for the position. Seeing this, he took the civil service exam and scored well, but did not hear back immediately.

Being short on funds, Pinkett could not afford to wait for a response. Instead, he took a position at Florida Normal College teaching history, government, and geography for six months before being contacted by Livingstone College with asking him to return to teach there. Unfortunately, Professor Edward Pierce, had passed away, leaving a vacancy. Pinkett must have made a positive impression and made for a logical replacement given the fact he had substituted for Pierce just over a year ago. At this point, Pinkett was already becoming an accomplished author, having written an article in the Journal of Negro History titled “Efforts to Annex Santo Domingo to the United States, 1866-1871 for which he earned praise from individuals like Dr. Carter G. Woodson and Dr. Allan Nevins. 

Harold Pinkett taught at Livingstone College for roughly a year when he at last heard back from the civil service with an offer for an entry level position at the National Archives in 1942. The position was classified at the time as SP4, a subprofessional level, but offered the opportunity to be promoted to the professional level and paid more than what Pinkett was making at Livingstone. Several other factors made the position appealing to Pinkett. It promised greater job security than that of Livingstone College since it was government funded and on top of that, it guaranteed his re-employment should he serve in the military. This last detail was important and likely pushed Pinkett into accepting. During his last stint at Livingstone, Pinkett had issued a warning about the current state of global affairs and he certainly kept these in mind as the U.S. entered the war in 1941. He was well aware that was going to be drafted, more likely than not, and this reality was one of the deciding factors for Pinkett to enter the National Archives. In April of 1942, Pinkett made the move to Washington D.C.

This transition to Washington was not an easy one. Socially speaking, D.C. was akin to the South. As Pinkett put it, “the South is in the Saddle” of the Archives and to a larger extent, in D.C. He struggled to find places he could sit and eat in, a situation that became even more frustrating when he was invited out to lunch by colleagues. They would either have to go to a lunch counter where Pinkett was forced to stand to the side, find an establishment that was not segregated, or eat at desegregated cafeterias like that of the Recorder of Deeds office. 
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On top of segregated facilities, there was the added pressure Pinkett felt by being the only Black employee at the National Archives in a non-custodial role in 1942. When Pinkett joined the National Archives team, African Americans made up over 15% of the staff, but this 15% were only employed in custodial positions. Solomon J. Buck, Archivist of the United States, reported that the National Archives would appoint African Americans to “high positions by promotion and from the outside in steadily increasing numbers,” in line with their policy of “getting the best employees available” to them. As the first African American hired in a professional capacity, the pressure was on Pinkett to demonstrate that African Americans were more than capable of professional archival work and that they should be employed at the professional level in what was described as “gentleman’s club” that, until Pinkett’s arrival, was practically all white.

When Harold Pinkett first started at the National Archives, he had been assigned to a packing and shelving unit where he took records, placed them on to steel trays, made lists of the records, and then labeled the steel trays. This work appeared so mundane that it made Pinkett question his decision to work at the Archvies and whether or not he wished to remain there. Luckily, Pinkett did not have to do this work for long. Vacancies were appearing at higher levels and within two months he was interviewed by Theodore Schellenberg, Chief of the Agriculture Department, and promoted to the P1 level at the Archives. His promotion made headlines at the time and his appointment as a junior archvist was announced in several papers in Washington D.C., Virginia, and Maryland. Work in the Agriculture Department was much more enjoyable for Pinkett. Here, his duties consisted of mainly arrangement, descriptive, and reference work. He also helped develop finding aids for records dealing with Agricultural topics. 

1943 was another eventful year for Pinkett. On April 24, 29143, he was married to Lucille Cannady who he had met while at Livingstone College. She was a high school teacher in North Carolina and, much like Pinkett, valued education as she was an honor graduate from Livingstone College. While the couple never had any children together, they remained together until Harold’s passing in 2001. She moved to Washington D.C. and settled into D.C. life, becoming known for her work in the Labor Department as a social science adviser. If an article of “Pearlie;s Prattle” is to be believed, she also became renowned among her neighbors for her remarkable cooking skills which she showed off at buffet parties the couple held. 

Later on in 1943, after having worked at the National Archives for over a year now, Harold Pinkett joined the Society of American Archivists (SAA), an organization he went on to spend much of his career with. Almost twenty years later, in 1962, Harold Pinkett was named the group’s first Black fellow for his significant contributions to the archival world. Six years later, he became the editor of the society’s publication, The American Archivist and in 1971, he was elected to their council. Needless to say, Pinkett spent many years with the organization and broke barrier within it.

While 1943 brought much joy and success to Pinkett's life, it also brought him “the most fateful greeting” he had ever received, but something he foresaw coming. That fateful greeting came in the form of a draft notice, but with little choice in the matter, Pinkett reported for duty and was inducted into the U.S. Army on December 9, 1943. For the duration of his service, Pinkett felt that he had not been prepared for many of his duties. After drilling a squad for the first time, he wrote “I suspect with no little dread that I shall have more of this and other military duties for which I have no effective training.” However, he was assigned a familiar task at the beginning of his service when he was sent to a special training unit at Camp Holabird (later named Fort Holabird) as a teacher, training semi-literate Black soldiers how to read and write as well as math. 

Pinkett remained an instructor in this unit until early 1945, Pinkett when he and his fellow teachers were put on a ship to be sent to Europe, leaving the day after President Franklin D. Roosevelt had died. As Pinkett was getting close to the potential of seeing combat, breaking news came. Just a few days after landing in France, Nazi Germany had surrendered. However, Pinkett and his fellow soldiers were not out of the woods yet. War continued for the United States in the Pacific, meaning that Pinkett was once again put on to a ship headed to where the global conflict continued to rage on. En route, just days after crossing the Panama Canal, Pinkett was once again spared from combat as Japan had surrendered. Yet, soldiers were still needed to garrison and occupy parts of Asia, so Pinkett was sent to the Philippines where he became the Assistant Battalion Supply Sergeant and then promoted to Battalion Supply Sergeant after his Signal Corps unit was sent to Japan. By the end of his service in April 1946, Harold Pinkett was a technical sergeant with several commendations for his service​.

After a brief period of well deserved leave for his service, Pinkett returned to the National Archives. As promised, he was allowed to return to his duties without issue. Once a few months had passed, Pinkett was promoted to P2 and then in 1951 he was elevated to assistant chief of the Agriculture Section under Carl Kulsrud. This achievement and promotion to a supervisory position caused Pinkett to be highlighted in the local paper, particularly the Washington Afro-American, which touted that Pinkett was going to be responsible for around 60,000 cubic feet of records and supervising archivists in his section. Additionally, the Washington Afro-American lauded Pinkett’s other academic contributions including his participation in the SAA, American Historical Association, and Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History). This paper also reveals Pinkett was beginning to assist with record retention and disposal, determining which records were archived for future generations. 

It was around this time, specifically 1948, that Harold Pinkett decided to return to school to finish his studies for his doctorate, electing to attend American University and earning his PhD in 1953. His work at the National Archives actually inspired him, as it exposed him to what became his dissertation topic: Gifford Pinchot and his contributions to early conservation work in the United States. In 1957 it was published in the North Carolina Historical Review. Then, a decade later, it won the Agricultural History Society’s book of the year award in 1967. By 1970 it was picked up by the University of Illinois Press. The excellence of his work in highlighting a lesser known aspect of Gifford Pinchot and the recognition it received contributed greatly to Pinkett’s scholarly career. Combined with the influence he was gaining from his position in the Archives, Dr. Pinkett was becoming a recognizable figure among historians and archivists alike. 

When the National Archives came under the General Services Administration (GSA) in 1949, there were fears that the Archives was going to shift away its historical and cultural mission toward a more service oriented one. While there was not much interference from the GSA initially, there was a gradual shift to an emphasis on service. The 1950s were relatively quiet in terms of Dr. Pinkett’s career in the Archives. With a change in policies, the focus of the Archives shifted to reference services to the point where, by 1952, the staff was devoting around half its time to providing reference services. During this time, Pinkett finished six preliminary inventories and outside of the Archives became an influential figure. In 1954, he was listed among attendees at a banquet that brought out “Washington’s best” in an article of “Pearlie’s Prattle.” He also was participating in other activities, among which was promoting Black history and encouraging Black employment in the Federal government.

In 1959, he gave a talk during History Week for the Midway Civic Association on the increasing interest in Black history and the role of African American have played in public affairs, particularly the growing civil rights movement. A few months later, now the Chief of the Agriculture and General Services Branch after a successful application, he was interviewed by Edward Peeks of the Washington Afro-American where Pinkett promoted the idea of Federal employment for young people, including African Americans, citing that it offers them “greater opportunity than some of the traditional professions” and that “times are changing” for people of colors. Although, he admits that they may “have to have more on the ball” than their peers if they are to stand out and advance in their career, similar to how Pinkett had to work harder for his promotions. 

Pinkett himself had stated that his employment at the Archives was influenced by changes in policy and pressure on the Archives. Going back to early 1942, the Fair Employment Practices Committee began pushing Soloman Buck to hire a Black archivist. By April, Harold Pinkett was brought into the fold as a subprofessional and promoted to the professional level. However, that does not diminish Pinkett’s skills and abilities as an archivist, it simply meant he had to work harder than his white colleagues. When he was promoted to branch chief in 1959 following the retirement of Dr. Carl Kulsrud, there were doubts about where Pinkett would be promoted as it would have been the first time an African American would be in charge of a unit. Ultimately, he was selected for the promotion, but Pinkett felt that it “came somewhat more slowly than it normally,” should have. The increased effort that Pinkett had to put into his promotions became apparent in the 1960s.
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Just three years into Dr. Pinkett’s tenure as branch chief, in 1962, the National Archives underwent another large restructuring that dismantled the section he had been heading. Pinkett was moved to a newly created office called the Office of Records Appraisal where he was tasked with creating retention plans for the Agriculture Department. By the mid-1960s, many of the employees of the Archives who were considered part of the “first generation” began to retire, leaving available offices that could be filled by people like Harold Pinkett. T.R. Schellenburg, head of the Office of Records Appraisal, left the Archives Pinkett and was replaced by Lewis Darter, who also retired after a few years. Pinkett had applied to fill the vacancy and, by his account, was the most qualified of the applicants and the only one with a PhD. Indeed, even E. Franklin Jameson of the National Democratic Committee commented that had Pinkett been anything “other than Negro, he would have been promoted faster,” in the Archives. Pinkett also agreed with this sentiment years after his retirement. In an interview in 1985, he noted that he did not advance as far as he wanted to or could have had he “not been black,” although he had no resentment over this fact and instead took it as a sign that there were still barriers to be broken in the fight for equality.

T. R. Schellenberg
1963
National Archives Identifier 12170456

Pinkett lost his bid for promotion to Meyer Fishbein due to the latter’s proclaimed computer experience, a developing technology at the time, but Pinkett was granted what he referred to as a “consolation prize.” On top of being the Assistant or Deputy Director of the Records Appraisal Division, he was also made editor of the American Archivist in 1968. This was the SAA’s publication in which Pinkett had already written for and this position gave him a window into the affairs of the SAA council. Additionally, this editorship allowed him to more overtly blend the roles of historian and archivist, something he had already been doing and was immensely proud of during his career.

Despite seeing the post as consolation, he came to enjoy it and was reluctant to let it go when he was promoted to the role of Division Chief of the Social and Economics Records Division in 1971. The official reason that Pinkett was given for having to give up his editorship was that his superiors feared he would be unable to perform both his new duties and that of editor. However, Pinkett suspects that the Archives wished to present the role of editor to another individual who they wished to coax into coming to Washington. Regardless of the true reason, Pinkett took the new position. 

As Chief of the Social and Economic Records Division, Pinkett was at the helm of one of the Archive’s largest collections, managing what Pinkett estimated to be about 200,000 cubic feet of records. By this point, he had written at least eight preliminary inventories, more than most of his colleagues had completed at this level, and still held a strong interest in description work. As such, he guided the branch toward the completion of more descriptive work as much as he was able to. This continued until Pinkett decided it was time to retire in 1979.

Pinkett’s choice to retire at the age of 65 was largely voluntary, but influenced by several factors within the National Archives. First, Pinkett felt that he “accomplished perhaps as much professionally” as he was able to and had not been promoted in quite sometime, despite his significant contributions and stellar reputation at the Archives. Additionally, the policy shift under the GSA was starting to be more greatly felt. To Pinkett’s displeasure, the National Archives had become more concerned with the quantity of their services over quality, scholarship and work. There was also a push to concentrate on managerial matters, with Pinkett’s superiors wishing that the heads of units would focus more on writing reports and managing their subordinates over efforts to “make records more readily available for research.” With the lack of advancement and the shift in the National Archives’ objectives, Dr. Harold Pinkett felt comfortable parting ways with the organization he had dedicated nearly 40 years of his life to.
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Despite his retirement from the National Archives, Pinkett remained an active and respected figure in the scholarly world. In fact, leaving the National Archives allowed Pinkett to focus more on scholarly and professional pursuits. His involvement in the SAA carried on into his retirement and to honor his legacy and contributions, the society renamed their award for minority graduate students after Harold T. Pinket in 1999. This award continues to recognize students with shining scholastic and personal achievement and a promising future in the archival world. Pinkett also continued to be a prolific writer, publishing over 60 works and a sizeable amount of books as well.

On top of his writing, Harold Pinkett also kept advocating the research of Black history and heritage, carrying on his search for records that scholars like himself could use to shed light on America’s Black history. In a similar fashion, he also assisted with the preservation of Black history by assisting several Black institutions with their own archives. In 1980, Harold Pinkett assisted Howard University when the university started its own archive. Additionally, he served as a consultant for other Black organizations that sought his expertise.

Just as Pinkett had picked up his pen in 1932 to describe the Afro-American as the crusader fighting for equality, Harold too used his pens to put these words into practice. His scholarship earned him respect in a world that, more often than not, was dominated by white male society. He wielded this respect not just to advance his own scholastic career, but to also open the door for future black scholars, archivists, and professionals in other fields. Just a few years after Pinkett’s retirement, in 1981, James Moore was elevated to Assistant Archivist of the United States, a massive advancement for African Americans within the National Archives. Pinkett’s legacy of preserving and writing about American history and breaking barriers in Black scholarship will be and has to be remembered. 

Article by Dr. Clara Small, professor emerita, Salisbury University

Mr. & Mrs. Fred S. Jewett of Coulbourne & Jewett Seafood Packing
​Photo Courtesy of the Talbot Historical Society
From Hollyday Collection.

​Frederick and Elwood were both active in the St. Michael’s community and both were lay leaders in the Methodist Church Conference which founded Princess Anne Academy (UMES) in 1866. Their involvement with UMES stemmed from their connection to the Methodist Conference, which strengthened when Jewett and Coulbourne sent their children to be educated there, and the fact that both men grew up in the Hopewell community in Somerset County.  The Jewetts were also politically active in the Republican, Party and Elwood served as the executive director of the local Colored Republican Club that backed the unsuccessful 1952 United States senatorial bid of H. Grady Gore, a cousin of former Vice President Al Gore. Frederick Stratton Jewett, the son of a United States Colored Troops veteran, identified a need in the community, state, region, and nation and developed a very lucrative seafood business and satisfied that need.  The business brought prosperity to the family, but it also provided gainful employment for hundreds of individuals, especially females, who shucked oysters, cleaned and graded the crabs which put seafood delicacies on many tables around the world.  Elwood Jewett continued his father’s business acumen until his own retirement from the business in the 1960s.  Elwood also maintained his political and social participation in the community until his death in June of 1977, at the age of 73.1  Meanwhile, the legends and legacy of the Jewett family’s success lives on in the community.  Most recently, a mural was erected in Crisfield under the auspices of the Beach to Bay Heritage Area, which portrays Frederick Stratton Jewett and his accomplishments to the seafood industry and the history of the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland, the state, and the nation. 

Article by Dr. Clara Small, professor emerita, Salisbury University

Article by Dr. Clara Small, professor emerita, Salisbury University

By 1981, Carrie Russell had developed a competitive team from the varsity golf program. She said, “It was a challenge to teach people the game of golf and scores, but her number one thing now was to teach. She really wanted to develop a golf team at Delaware State that could be competitive at any level.” Her greatest obstacle was to recruit some good talent in order to realize her dream. In 1981, there was a limited split-season schedule for the spring and fall. During the fall of 1981, she had six players at all times, while a team usually had seven to ten players.

While teaching the sport at DSU, she continued to play golf professionally. She believed that the sport had grown throughout the country and on a local level, which she believed was due to the profile set by the ladies professional tours and by Commissioner Ray Volpe. By 1974, she had earned LPGA Teaching and Club Professional Class A Member Status. Two years later, (1976), she be-came the first President of the LPGA Teaching and Club Professional Northeast Section; she served from 1976 to 1978. She reported that membership in her region had grown from 31 to 50 in the last years since Volpe had become Commissioner. When the LPGA reorganized its teaching division in 1976, Carrie Russell was among the founding section presidents who helped to build the frame work for the LPGA. 

While she continued to make progress in her career, she still held out hope for golf on the local level. She continued teaching English and Physical Education at DSU and coaching women’s basketball, as well as golf, but she found that the latter was more challenging. She was the first golf coach at Delaware State, but she believed that it was more challenging because...​​

National Black Golf Hall of Fame
39th Anniversary Celebration Fact Sheet

Ashaunta Epps was the inaugural recipient of the Carrie Russell Champion for Change Award in 2024
LGPA

Article by Andre Nieto Jaime

     While many people are familiar with Eugenie “Shanie” Shields through her involvement with the Chipman Cultural Center and time as a city councilwoman, they may not be aware of her deep connection to the Salisbury area. She has been a lifelong resident of Salisbury with family ties going back generations to the early founders of Salisbury’s Black neighborhoods. She is proud of her ancestors achievements and credits this lineage as the reason for her community involvement. Despite various hardships throughout her life, Shanie Shields has persevered, using her experiences to relate to her neighbors and improve her hometown. To this day she continues advocating for her community, using her knowledge of the city’s history and past experiences to enact positive change.

     Born on August 20, 1950 as Eugenie Pinkett, she was the daughter of Valerie Pinkett Lightfoot and Frank Davis. Her name was given to her by Dr. Arthur D. Browne, one of Salisbury’s early Black physicians, who delivered her at her grandparents house on 200 3rd Street. The building remains proudly standing, but is known as 147 Delaware Avenue today. According to Shanie herself, Dr. Browne did a tour in France during World War I. At some point during this tour, he had a French girlfriend named “Eugénie” which in French is pronounced “eu-zhay-nee.” However, English speakers pronounced it “eugene-ie” and her mother called her “eu-shanie,” causing inconsistent expressions of her name. As for what Eugenie calls herself, she preferred, and continues to go by, “Shanie,” which is closer to what her mother called her.

     Her mother, Valerie Pinkett Lightfoot, was a professional singer and performed in many jazz clubs in Philadelphia, even opening for The Platters at one time. Her father, Frank Davis, worked as a driver for the Allied Cab Company that was once present behind the Franklin Hotel. When Shanie was a little girl, her mother left to work in Philadelphia, leaving Shanie in the care of a cousin, Esther Winder Williams and her husband Henry Holloway Williams. Her early memories were of “terrorizing that part of the neighborhood,” and rolling down the hill by the incinerator. She remembers this hill being “like a mountain” in comparison to their size and the general flatness of the Eastern Shore.

     Her foster mother, Esther, was a music instructor who gave piano lessons at the home. Her foster father, Henry, was Jamaican immigrant that came to the United States in the 1940s. This was a common pattern during the war to meet the demand for farm workers. He stayed in the area following the end of the war, gaining citizenship in 1953. Henry was described as a hardworking man with several jobs including at the Campbell Soup facility, the Allied Cab Company, at the local hospital, and even raised pigs at home.

     The Williams family remained on Delaware Avenue with Shanie until 1956, when Route 50 was constructed through the California neighborhood. While their home was not among the many that were lost, Henry Williams felt that the highway was too close to be able to comfortably stay there and moved the family to Jersey Road. Here, Williams eventually built the family home that Shanie moved into at 14. Shanie felt fortunate for her upbringing, which she describes as being good, but strict. She was raised as an only child until the age of eight and spent much time with her father, leading to her calling herself a “daddy’s girl.” She learned a lot from her foster parents, her teachers, and members of her church which served as an extended family.

     ​Growing up in the comfort of the California community also meant that Shanie was sheltered from the effects of racism. In the past, California had been a thriving entertainment district full of multi-ethnic businesses operating side-by-side. Shanie remembers this area as being “downtown” (today’s Downtown was referred to as uptown) and was able to list more than a handful of businesses that once lined the street including:
    • Ms. Blanche Purnell’s Boutique
    • Dixie Bargain Center
    • Tony’s Shoe Shop
    • Willow Cab
    • Allied Cab
    • Ideal Cab
    • The Ritz Theater
    • Blue Moon
    • The Franklin Hotel
    • Winder’s Barbershop

     The presence of these stores nearby, many of them Black owned, meant that Shanie and her family rarely had to venture across the bridge where she would have been more likely to have a racist encounter. Although she did go "uptown" on a few occasions. The fact that schools were segregated also kept Shanie from experiencing  racism firsthand. Another contributing factor to this sheltered upbringing was that her household rarely talked about racism, but she did catch glimpses from overheard conversations.

     One of these conversations revolved around the 1931 lynching of Matthew Williams which occurred nearly two decades before Shanie was even born. She remembers conversations among her family in which they discussed how Dr. Browne witnessed the lynching, and how him passing as white allowed him to witness the horrific event, although he was “scared to death” while doing so. She also found out that her grandfather, James Stanley Pinkett, witnessed the lynching while he was working as a bell hop/captain at the Wicomico Hotel (now One Plaza East) and how the Black employees were made to watch the lynching as a form of intimidation. Shanie recognizes that it is a grim reality of our history, but that “its part of our history … and you can’t run away from it” no matter how bad it is. It is something that should be confronted and reflected upon in order to heal from it.

     Shanie often points towards history when she speaks, and highlights both the good and bad parts. The bad, such as the lynchings and destruction of Salisbury’s Black businesses, and the loss of Black schools, are some of examples of the bad history that can be learned from. The good history, such as those of California and its bustling entertainment district act as ideals to strive towards. “Don’t tear down your heritage,” is a warning that Shanie gives to the public.  These memories and structures act as reminders and are a part of the lower shore’s heritage. The California neighborhood, with multi-ethnic businesses operating next to each other is a strong memory Shanie has, but it does not have to be relegated to being a picturesque memory. It is a dream that can be made a reality again, and something Shanie has pursued consistently during her time in office.

     Shanie’s school life was spent almost entirely within a segregated school system, which also contributed to her being protected from experiencing racism firsthand growing up. As an elementary school student, Shanie attended Salisbury Elementary School on Lake Street. Today, it as known as the Chipman Elementary School, but many remember it as the Salisbury Colored High School. In 1954 the high school moved to Morris Street (today’s Salisbury Middle School) and elementary school students claimed the building. Shanie recalls memories of her time here and how one day she did not do her math work, which resulted in a phone call home from her 3rd Grade teacher, Ms. Johnson. That phone call seemingly unleashed the wrath of Shanie’s mother who made her “stay up ‘til I did every problem on the back of the book.” While it was probably not so funny to Shanie at the time, it is something she looks back at and laughs about today.

     Shanie’s days at Chipman Elementary were cut a little short in 6th Grade with her being among the first students transferred to Salisbury High School in 1961 due to the population outgrowing the schools. It was here in 6th grade where Shanie had her favorite teacher, Ms. Marion Church. Salisbury High was also the school that allowed her to travel to New York City in the 10th Grade to witness the 1964-195 World’s Fair, as her school choir was selected as “the best in Maryland” and sent to represent the Old Line State. This memory remains among her favorite from her childhood and early girlhood.

​

     However, Shanie’s life was soon shaken up. In 1966, schools in Wicomico County fully and suddenly integrated. While some Black students had been sent to white schools before as a test run, 1966 was the year that schools were fully integrated. Her beloved school, Salisbury High School, was closed, preventing her and countless other students from graduating from what they felt was their school. Instead of allowing white students to attend formerly all-Black schools, the county opted to close the Black schools and have their students integrate into white schools. Integration only went one way and it was devastating.

     The result? Black students lost facilities, resources, and teachers that understood their needs, histories, and genuinely cared about their success. They felt that “they lost everything,” during this forced transition, especially since many of the teachers that were at these all-Black schools were usually not carried over to the newly integrated schools. There was no expectation for white students and teachers to understand the incoming Black students nor was there any effort to understand their heritage, history, and culture. Meanwhile, Black students were expected to adapt to white schools, often while being discriminated against by their new white teachers and peers. It was a traumatic experience for those involved.

     No planning was done in advance of integration, besides sending a few Black students into white classes the year before as a sort of trial run, nor was there any preparation for the teachers. As Shanie put it, “they just threw us in there,” without consideration for the consequences. There also was no counseling offered to any of the students during this period of sudden change. Many students lamented the loss of their schools and teachers, including Shanie Shields who told the press “we didn’t get over it for the longest time,” when reflecting upon her school days. She still feels that it was among the worst things to happen to the Black community.

     Integration had an impact on the Black community as a whole, not just on its students. It hindered the closeness and self-sufficiency of the Black community that once looked after each other and ran its own businesses. Now, “everything Black business is torn down,” but the memories of the closeness is something that Shanie promotes, knowing that the spirit can and should be revived. Vance Elbert has added to these conversations, sharing how church was the center of Black life, and this too began to decline. The John Wesley Church, once the center of the Georgetown Community, saw the end of regular church service in the 1960s. Church leadership, while not gone, seems to have taken a less active role in the Black community as well. In a post-screening panel of Hidden in Full View, Shanie notes that religious leadership declined and that there has not been a minister who has been active in the community since the 1980s.

Salisbury High School
Photo from the Baker Family papers (2012.200)
Salisbury University Nabb Research Center ​

​     Returning to the 1960s, Shanie spent her senior year at Wicomico High School and this was when she became exposed to blatant racism for the first time. The prom theme for that year was “Southern Plantation,” given the timing and considering the history of plantation labor, it should come as no surprise that this theme was a highly offensive provocation. Many students, including Shanie, protested the theme and participated in sit-ins to have the theme changed. Shanie was suspended for five days as a result of her participation. This was only the beginning of her activism, with Shanie joining the NAACP following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and remained active in the organization through the 2000s.

Future Business Leaders of America
Vol. 1968: Tom Tom (Salisbury MD)
 1968 Wicomico High School Tom Tom
Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History & Culture​

Future Business Leaders of America
Vol. 1968: Tom Tom (Salisbury MD)
 1968 Wicomico High School Tom Tom
Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History & Culture​

     There was another challenge that Shanie faced before she could graduate, and it is one that has reared its head throughout her life. This was the loss of her foster father, Henry Holloway Williams, when he passed away at Peninsula General Hospital on May 31, 1967. Shanie shares that one of her greatest struggles in life is overcoming the deaths of those dear to her. The death of a loved one is difficult to overcome on its own, but it becomes even more arduous when the timing coincides with other hardships or challenges.
​
     A year later came Shanie’s graduation, after which, she had wanted to go to Morgan State College (now Morgan University). However, several factors in her life led to a change in course. Having become a single mother in 1966, going to college would be difficult. She knew her son would have been safe at home in the care of family, but did not want to have to rely heavily on her family to pay for her studies. This is what spurred Shanie to join the workforce. She could have taken a job with the State Department, having passed the civil service exam after graduating, but was not satisfied with the idea of having to move to Washington D.C. and declined the position she was offered.

     Shanie's first job became one at sewing factory doing piecework. Although, she quickly found out that she was not cut out for this line of work, being more of a “book person” that was not as dexterous as others. Remembering her father’s encouraging words, “you can be anything you want to be,” she decided to seek out work that was more suitable for her. At first, she tried giving the city life a try, moving to Camden New Jersey to live with her mother, Valerie. She had been working in Philadelphia as a performer and Shanie also found work here at Gerrard Trust, later known as Mercantile Bank. Shanie took a bus back and forth across the bridge linking Camden and Philadelphia for six months, until an encounter scared her enough to make her leave the city for good. She recalled getting off the bus and seeing a group of boys fighting in the street. She was back home in Salisbury the next day, confirming that city life was not for her.

     After returning to Salisbury, she had her second son, Pierre Holloway Pinkett, in June of 1969. Pierre had been born with congenital heart disease, adding another hurdle in Shanie's life. In December, she secured a position at Peninsula Regional Medical Center as a desk clerk and remained there for seven years. Around this time, she met Gregory Green and the two married in 1971. In 1976, Shanie enrolled in classes at Salisbury State College (now Salisbury University). However, she left Salisbury once again in 1978 when her husband entered the military. The couple moved to South Carolina until 1981 when Shanie returned. Green had been sent to Texas for military training and Shanie, not wanting to be left in South Carolina, moved back to Salisbury to wait for the family’s relocation to Arizona. However, the couple divorced in 1981 before this relocation could happen and this marked the final time Shanie moved away from the Salisbury area. 

     Shanie, always being able to get back on her feet, prioritized raising her children and did not let the divorce set her back. This is the moment that Shanie credits with sparking her involvement in the community. When she came back home in 1981, she struggled to find a decent job with proper benefits that could support her and her family. Instead of waiting idly by, she decided to fill her spare time with volunteer work, volunteering with various nonprofits.

     Her first volunteer work was with the Lower Shore Hunger Project through Delmarva Rural Ministries. As part of this, she would take food to different migrant camps and worked with James Leonard who further inspired her to do more activism. This activism helped bring attention to the poor and exploitative conditions faced by migrant agricultural workers in the area who were vital to the growing and harvesting of food on the peninsula. It was around this time that she also helped with a voter registration project in 1984 that registered 4,000 people to vote on the Eastern Shore.​

     The following year, Shanie became part of the Chipman Foundation’s board, joining at the behest of her cousin Elaine Brown who Shanie jokingly says coerced her into joining. The building that is now the Chipman Cultural Center has a special place in Shanie’s heart. It was the church her and her family attended, back when it was known as the John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church. She has fond memories of going to John Wesley, noting that the church served as a community hub. She remembers walking down the street to the drug store after Sunday school to get ice cream, dubbed “the best ice cream” by Audrey Jackson Matthews. She also reminisces on having dinner at her great-grandparents’ home late at night after Sunday school and how some nights they were having dinner as late as 10:00pm. Another reason that the Chipman Center holds a special place in Shanie’s heart is that she has an ancestral connection with the church. One of her relatives, Elijah Pinkett, was a founding member of the original congregation dating back to 1837 and the first structure built in 1838.

     When regular church service at John Wesley ended in the 1960s and moved to Wesley Temple, the building had fallen into disrepair. Through the Chipman Foundation, the building was restored and preserved as a cultural center, highlighting Salisbury’s Black history. It was under Shanie’s leadership that the mortgage for the Chipman Center and the land for the Boundless Garden was paid off. Additionally, several grants were awarded to maintain the building with Shanie as president. While she continues to serve on the Foundation’s board, she has stepped back from the board to focus on other endeavors. However, she continues to express her desire to see the building to expand its inclusiveness, wanting see more involvement and representation from other communities that make Salisbury as diverse as it is today.

     While Shanie was discovering her love for volunteer work, she was still looking for a decent paying job, which took six years of searching. In 1987, she was hired at Thompson Publishing Group as a data entry clerk and then promoted over time. Shanie remained there until the group left Salisbury seven years later, after which, she took the time to get her associates degree from Wor-Wic. She earned her degree in 1997, and during her education new opportunity came around the corner.

     This new opportunity took the form of Mel Toadvine, photojournalist and editor of The Daily Times. Toadvine had recognized Shanie from her involvement in community and called her, asking her to do a tab. Shanie was reluctant and already had a full plate “taking care of two moms...and going to school,” but was reassured when Toadvine told her it would only be for two weeks. The position ended up lasting 15 years. She was eventually transferred to the Somerset Herald and did the legal ads and obituaries for three papers: Eastern Shore News, Daily Times, and Somerset Herald.

     The 1990s was an eventful decade for Shanie. In 1990, Shanie Met her second husband, James H. Shields, in Princess Anne while he was serving as a bouncer at a club. Shanie had been practically dragged there by a friend. Shanie was working seven days a week with two jobs, and was understandably tired. Nonetheless, she relented and went to this club where Shanie gave her future husband a lecture on money. The lecture must have won James over, since the couple married the following year in 1991.

     However, these fruitful years were not without hardships which Shanie has been proud of overcoming. First, there was the death of her son, Pierre, in 1989 due to his aforementioned congenital heart disease. Then, just three years later, another son, Rotan Green was killed in the same neighborhood that Shanie had grown up in. Death reared its ugly head again in 1999 when her foster mother, Esther Winder Williams, passed away.

     The 21st century provided more obstacles for Shanie. In 2006, James H. Shield had passed away in his sleep. Even more shocking was that the loss occurred on their 15th wedding anniversary. On top of having to grieve the loss of her husband, Shields had to handle the loss of their home too. Shortly before his death, James Shields had refinanced the home, and with him gone, the mortgage became unaffordable. Just four months later, her biological mother passed away. Shanie Shields has said that overcoming death has been her greatest struggle as it is has left her to pick up the pieces by herself. Even so, she was able to overcome these losses and press forward with her life and become a local figure in politics. 

"Husband of Councilwoman Dies"
James Shields
Article by Monique Lewis
The Daily Times, July 8, 2006. ​

     Shanie kicked off her political career in the 1990s, running against Lavonzella Siggers for the District 1 seat in Salisbury’s City Council in 1994 and again in 1998. However, she did not get elected until 2005 when she finally beat out Siggers. Four years later, in 2009, Shanie narrowly won her re-election campaign and won once more in 2013. She ran for a fourth term in 2015, but did not end up re-elected, ending over ten years of city council work. However, that was not the end of her time in public office. She ran for county council in 2018 against Ernie Davis, but did not win her race until the next election in 2022.

     During her time on both the city and county councils, Shanie Shields has been an advocate for the vulnerable by pushing diversity, inclusivity, historic preservation, and home ownership. Her support for diversity and inclusivity extends beyond race; it includes age as well. Over the years, she has been a proponent of preparing the younger generations through job training. She has also striven to include the youth in civics and encourages them to take an active role in their community. Part of this has taken the form of urging them to get to know their history, especially the Black history, because it can serve as an example of what can be done when communities band together. One example she gives was the former Friendly Benefit Playground which was funded by women. This playground near St. Paul’s Church once served as a gathering place children and the community. Shanie hopes that reflection on the sacrifices of those who came before will get people to appreciate the rights that society enjoys today and will make them realize that they too can achieve greatness. 

Shanie also recognizes and embraces the growing diversity of Salisbury, noting that “we have to respect each other as human beings,” showing one of her guiding principles of treating others the way that one wants to be treated.

     Over the last 40+ years that Shanie has been volunteering, she has been a member of many boards and volunteer groups including:

    • SHORE UP! Inc. 
    • Habitat for Humanity
    • Salisbury Neighborhood Housing
    • Wicomico County Tenant Association, President
    • Westside Neighborhood Association, President
    • Chipman Foundation, President
    • Mayor’s Task Force of Housing
    • Salisbury Westside Revitalization Committee, Secretary
    • Wesley Temple Hunger Action Committee
    • Tri-County Council 
    • Delmarva Rural Ministries
    • Steering Committee of the West Salisbury “Hot Spot” 

     Shanie’s contributions to the community have been recognized with several awards, but she prefers not to show them off. Instead of hanging up her awards, she opts to hang up photos of her family, especially her grandchildren. Shanie says that “raising my kids to be good citizens” is her greatest achievement, highlighting how much she cares about her children. She also cares about the youth in her community, treating the neighborhood “boys on the corner” like her own children. By treating those around her with kindness and respect, she hopes to foster similar behavior in the community that she loves. 

     Ever since returning to Salisbury in 1981, Shanie Shields has been very community oriented. She attributes this to her deeply rooted lineage, saying that “It was in my blood to start getting involved in the community.” This deep history she has with the community has only made the love for Salisbury stronger. Shanie loves the place that she calls home and calls on others to “appreciate what you have. It’s like a blessing.” Her appreciation for her community has been evident through her work in both City and County Councils where feels that it has helped her give back to Salisbury. Her experiences as a single mother, care giver, divorcee, window, and displaced worker have given her a better understanding of her constituents and their needs while also allowing her to relate to them better. Using the past as inspiration for the future, Shanie wants to see her community succeed and knows it is possible if the community is able to work together towards their own improvement. Always having been project and community oriented, Eugenie "Shanie" Shields will continue to be an advocate for her community, education, the youth, the underprivileged, and for history for the foreseeable future just as her ancestors had been in the past. 

Article by Dr. Clara Small, professor emerita, Salisbury University

Ernest R. Satchell
University of Maryland Eastern Shore

Ernest Rogers Satchell, also known as “Ernie,” was born in Bird’s Nest Station, a small, rural community in Northampton County, on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. As a child growing up in segregated Virginia, he was an avid fan of baseball and Jackie Robinson, and his desire was to become a professional baseball player, but he had no talent for the sport.  He also suffered from asthma which meant that he could not always be outside or playing sports, so he began to read comic books and taught himself to draw. At an early age, he developed a sense of creativity. Since they could not afford toys, he and his seven siblings became creative and made their own toys, such as kites, baseballs, baseball bats, baseball mittens, carts and other toys. His father, his uncles, and his grandparents on his father’s side were carpenters, so he learned some creativity from them as well.  He observed his father and learned to carve and construct objects in various mediums, including pottery, leather, clay, sculpture and stoneware. Therefore, he states that “he had a rich childhood and all of those experiences were preparing him for a career in art.”

The youngest of eight children, Ernest and his siblings attended one, and two-room schoolhouses with no indoor plumbing. In the 7th grade, he attended school in a temporary building which had been an old White school, which was the first school he attended that had indoor plumbing, central heat and a custodian. In the 10th grade biology class, his talent was discovered as he began to draw in India ink. In the era of segregation, art education was not available to him, but he had already taught himself to draw from reading comic books. Once his talent was discovered, he filled bulletin boards at his school with his art work and was encouraged by his teachers to study art.  They were supportive and tried to find scholarship money for college tuition.  

Ernest had initially wanted to be an architect and wanted to study at Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, but his family could not afford to send him there.  In 1959, “he played the hand that was dealt to him,” and enrolled in Maryland State College (now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore), in Princess Anne, Maryland. Since Maryland State College did not offer a degree in architecture, he majored in art education. In 1963, he obtained a B.A. in art education, and under the tutelage of Jimmie Mosely, his mentor, Satchell was introduced to Dr. Kenneth Beittel, the celebrated ceramic artist and educator from Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Beittel taught him glazed techniques and numerous other mediums.  Learning from Dr. Beittel was a new experience because everything Ernest had done in the past had been in 3-D. During the six weeks that Dr. Beittel was at the institution, Ernest was his shadow.  He listened, watched, and literally absorbed everything Dr. Beittel said and did. 

Jimmie Lee Mosely Sr.
University of Maryland Eastern Shore

While in college, with little or no money to spend on anything other than required course materials, Ernest Satchell used his ingenuity to make money by collecting bottles and turned them into money for deposit at Mr. Ollie Jones store in Princess Anne. He and his classmate, Maurice Foote, worked together and took pictures and made portraits of students on Sunday evenings after the dinner meals. Those were some of their means to purchase items such as clothing, pickled bologna sandwiches and other items they shared with other students, especially the girls, because they could not go off campus. Mr. Wiles, a professor on the Maryland State College campus, allowed Satchell and Foote to use the photography equipment and facility to develop the pictures, and they became young entrepreneurs and gained experience at the same time. 

After graduating from Maryland State College, Satchell was recruited to teach art at Lockerman High School in Denton, Maryland.  He was the first art teacher to be hired there, but the art department had a limited budget for art and art supplies, which proved to be inadequate.  Mr. Mosely, Ernest’s mentor at Maryland State College, was supportive of Satchell and his career, and provided aid to Satchell and his students.   Whenever there was an art show, Mr. Mosely would ship student art pieces to Atlanta, Kansas City, Missouri, and all over the country and, as a result, the students at Lockerman High School and Maryland State College won many awards.  Some of the proceeds from the awards, prizes, and the sale of various art pieces helped Satchell to supplement the purchase of art supplies at his school. 

Lockerman High School Class Activities
The Wildcat - Lockerman Yearbook, 1966
Courtesy of the Chesapeake Heartland Digital Archive, Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College

However, Satchell’s teaching career in public school was cut short as he was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War.   His attempt to obtain a deferment was unsuccessful, so he enlisted in the United States Navy. He was in the Navy from January 1964 to the end of 1967 and was assigned the job of photographer on the air craft carrier Forrestal, the same ship as the late Senator and former presidential candidate, John McCain. Satchell took pictures of dignitaries as they visited the ship, pictures of the Forrestal’s band when it played for Haile Selassie, the late Emperor of Ethiopia, and numerous other noteworthy occasions.

After his service in the Navy came to an end, Ernest worked at the Veterans Hospital in Philadelphia as an Occupational Therapist for six months, and then worked as a Technical Illustrator at Boeing Air Craft Company on repair kits for helicopters.  At the time, Boeing was not promoting minorities and after being laid-off three times, Ernest made the decision to go back to school.  He enrolled in Towson State University’s graduate program, and in 1971 Ernest received his Masters of Education degree in art education.

While completing his degree from Towson State University, Ernest came home to the Eastern Shore of Virginia to see his mother, and she informed him that Mr. Mosely, his mentor at Maryland State College, had been trying to get in touch with him.  Mr. Mosely offered Satchell a teaching position at Maryland State College, and in 1971 he began a 39-year teaching career at Maryland State College, and eventually became the Chairman of the Department of Fine Arts upon the untimely death of Mr. Mosely, by one of his students and her husband.   From 1974 to 1988, Mr. Satchell served as the Chairman of the Art Education Department.  Due to inadequate funding for his programs, Mr. Satchell fostered cooperation between several departments on campus which benefitted all of the departments and the campus. He states that “his greatest achievement was being able to save the Fine Arts Department at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore,”  especially in the face of budget cuts.

Working with Dr. William P. Hytche, the President of UMES, in an effort to beautify the campus, Mr. Satchell made the first signs which stood in front of the buildings on campus.  He also made floats for homecoming parades, frames for portraits in the President’s Office, and created other enhancements around campus.  In 1984, UMES obtained a new Fine Arts building, and Mr. Satchell had input in the planning of the building.  With the new building, the need for art students became a critical element in the success of the program. The recruitment of art students was elevated to an unprecedented level; the enrollment increased immensely, and UMES acquired an Applied Design Program and various other related programs.   With the astronomical increase in enrollment, but without any additional staff, many faculty members taught overloads and some faculty taught 18-22 credits hours per semester.

Despite the heavy teaching load, Mr. Satchell earned his Masters in Fine Arts degree in Ceramics from Towson State University in 1989.  From 1988 to 1999, he served as Coordinator of the Art Education Program at UMES, and from 1999 to 2010 he was Chairman of the Department of Fine Arts, while simultaneously serving as Director of the Mosely Gallery from 1975 to 2010.  For 39 years, his works were shown in major exhibitions locally, regionally and nationally, and he was featured in the documentary film “Clay, Fire and Hands,” which was produced in March of 2005.  He had also been the recipient of many awards.  In the fall of 1996, he co-sponsored a clay workshop with Korean ceramist Dun-Hum of Won Kwang University in Iksan, South Korea.

He has also served as a mentor for many of his former students and community artists, including the renown, highly prolific painter and artist Patrick Henry.  In reference to his works, Professor Satchell states that “He goes to great lengths to point out injustices in life as exemplified in the Earthscope series, and considers himself to be “a clay conductor who orchestrates images and presents them in ways that makes life relevant and meaningful.” He conducts numerous workshops for teachers, has served as an “art specialist” with the Maryland State Department of Education, and chaired the State Art Credit Count Committee for the state agency.

Patrick Henry (1952 - Present)

Professor Satchell also has an international reputation for his expertise.  In July of 2003, he demonstrated Advanced Throwing Techniques at Border-Technikan University in East London, South Africa, and in July 2001, he served as a consultant to the same institution.   Professionally, he has served as the president of the Clay Guild of the Eastern Shore, treasurer of the Somerset County Arts Council, judge of the Black Expo held at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, and judge of visual and performing arts programs, pottery demonstrations, clay workshops, and children’s clay workshops. He has also served in a host of other capacities nationally, regionally and locally.
 
He has also produced a bust of a local educator and martyr, Stephen H. Long, which is permanently on exhibit and housed at the Sturgis One-Room School House in Pocomoke, Maryland.  The Long bust was commisioned by and underwritten by former UMES Professor Hammett Worthington-Smith to commemorate the seventy-fifth year of the martyrdom of Stephen Long.  Upon the retirement of the late former United States Senator from Maryland, Senator Paul Sarbanes, Ernie was commissioned by Gaines Hawkins, the Media Director at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore to create a bust of the Senator.  The bust was presented to the Senator and his family at his retirement.   He has produced two life-sized bronze statues of Drs. John T. Williams and William Percy Hytche, both former presidents of UMES, which graces prominent positions on the campus in front of the buildings that bear their names. A life-size sculpture of a local gentleman, titled “Chester,” is displayed in the Reginald Lewis Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. Some of his recent pieces are five feet to five and a half feet tall. Some of Ernest’s recent works focuses on the downtrodden and not the pillars of the community.  

Statue of Dr. John Taylor Williams at UMES
2025
Photos by Andre Nieto Jaime

Professor Satchell is also involved in numerous community activities because he enjoys working with people and believes “that you must be a part of the community.”  In January 2008, he began a three-year term as a member of the State of Maryland Trial Courts Judicial Nominating Commission for Somerset, Wicomico and Worcester counties.   The Committee selects and nominates to the Governor persons qualified to fill vacancies on State courts in the tri-county area.  Professor Satchell also serves on the board of the Community Foundation and works with many other groups and agencies, including a mentor for at-risk children.

In the fall of 2009, Professor Satchell and his wife, Elsa, who worked as a Special Collections Librarian at the Frederick Douglass Library, also at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, made a $10,000 contribution to a fund for the visual arts.  The Ernest R. and Elsa M. Satchell Scholarship Endowment for the Visual Arts is fully funded, provides need-based scholarships for students who have declared visual arts as their major, including art education, photography, graphic illustration, sequential arts and any other visual arts major created in the future.

Professor Satchell retired from teaching at UMES in 2010, but he has not retired from active participation in the community or from giving exhibits of his world-famous creations.  He may be retired, but he continues to be found in the pottery studios in the Thomas and Briggs Arts and Technology Center making the distinctive pots for which he is widely known.  He has participated in recent exhibits at numerous Juneteenth celebrations in Easton, Maryland, as well as in other locations and teaches young people the fine art of ceramics.  He has also participated in numerous exhibits, alone as well as with other artists and painters. 

Ernest Satchell
Clay Guide of the Eastern Shore

Professor Satchell’s most recent exhibit is at the Dorchester Center for the Arts, in Cambridge, Maryland. The exhibit is scheduled to last from January 10, 2026 to February 28, 2026 and is a dual exhibition entitled, “In the Making: A Community Mural on the Art of Giving Back.” The exhibit prominently features “Expressions In Clay: Retrospective of Ernie Satchell,” where some of the pieces in the exhibit are life-sized. One piece titled “Labor of Love,” is a near life-sized young man of clay hunched over a wheel from which (Ernie) Satchell himself might have “thrown a pot” into the shape of a ceramic face.”

Ernest “Ernie” Satchell’s talents will forever be shared with interested students and the community and for that reason Professor Satchell has more than earned the title of “Artist, Sculptor and Professor of Art Extraordinaire.” ​

Article by Andre Nieto Jaime

During an era of racial tension and efforts to divide Americans on the basis of skin color, Salisbury, like much of the South, felt the presence of Jim Crow. Its Black residents had to send their children to separate schools, even when White schools were closer. They were not allowed to dine in at restaurants, instead they had to pick up food around the back of the establishment or from a tiny window. There was also the threat of racial violence and displacement due to infrastructure projects. However, Black communities did not let those factors define their existence. Instead they took hold of their own futures by creating a tight knit community that helped each other. They established churches including the John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church, schools, businesses, and lived in proximity to white neighbors to form distinct thriving neighborhoods in Salisbury. Many of these neighborhoods are remembered fondly by residents despite having been dislodged by changes in the city. The Black community was also successful in managing long lasting businesses that catered to their needs, including a theater where they could sit anywhere. While many of these businesses are gone, they still survive in the memories of residents. Even though segregation and discrimination existed here in Salisbury, Black communities did not let those factors define their existence or who they interacted with. Instead they took hold of their own futures by creating tight knit communities that helped each other and crossed the color line. 

While Salisbury was officially established by the 18th century, it is important to remember that it was not the first settlement. Native People had been living in the area that is today known as Salisbury before the arrival of Europeans. However, by the 18th century, the original Indigenous inhabitants of the region had been largely displaced, were confined to reservations, or assimilated into white society. 

In 1732 “Salisbury Town” was established at the head of the Wicomico River by an act of the colonial general assembly. The area’s fertile soil and the economic prospects that came with large-scale farming also attracted planters like Isaac Handy who purchased Pemberton Manor in 1726 and built Pemberton Hall in 1741. However, with plantations came the introduction of slavery. While in the hands of Isaac Handy, Pemberton Hall had the hands of 17 slaves working the land. Likewise, Poplar Hill Mansion emerged as a plantation in the Salisbury area, near today's downtown area. Construction was started by Levin Handy in the late 18th century, and completed by Dr. John Huston who came to own the property in 1805. At his death in 1828, the plantation had eighteen enslaved people listed as being on the property. 

Slavery is part of Salisbury’s complex Black history, but it is not the only part. Black history cannot be reduced to just slavery and African Americans contributed to Salisbury’s history in significant ways. One such way was with the construction of the John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church in 1838. The congregation here was founded by five free African Americans (Levin Houston, George Pollitt, Major Toadvine, George James, and Elijah Pinkett) who had begun meeting at the property of William Williams in 1837. Together, these five individuals helped raise funds to build a church for the free Black community on what was once a meadow where the enslaved worshiped in 1838. This became  John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church when it was incorporated in 1876. The structure started off as a single story building, but over time alterations were made. In 1880, a second story was added and in the early 20th century several other improvements were made, leaving behind little of the original one-story church. 

A mural was dedicated Frederick Douglass' visit as part of our African American Heritage Project
October 15, 2024

Aerial photograph looking from downtown Salisbury towards the Black entertainment and business district. (Walter Thurston Photograph Collection 2016.096.10008)
Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History & Culture ​

Like the Georgetown community, California was proudly capable of being independent. California was a proper neighborhood and one where residents could get most of their essentials from. Shields recalls that “we stayed across the bridge because we had our own stuff,” only traveling uptown for banking and for the Woolworth’s, since Polan’s “wasn’t as big,” as the uptown five and dime. There was even a place for the children to play. A playground funded by the women of the community once sat on Delaware Avenue. California was a robust and flourishing district on par with today’s Downtown where segregation was often forgotten. ​​Shanie Shields noted that she did not truly experience racism growing up in California and Jersey until she entered into an integrated high school. It was not something she really thought of or dealt with until that point.

Similarly in Georgetown, racism was rarely experienced and there was a certain level of coexistence happening. Vance Elbert, in an interview, said that this phenomenon of near integration was “the peculiarity of the particular neighborhood [Georgetown],” and this was supported by Audrey Jackson Matthews. She reminisced about playing and eating dinner with one white neighbor, Johnny, who lived across the street from her. Jackson also recalled memories about her walks to and from her school on Lake Street. In the Spring, she and other children passed fruit trees growing in the yards of white homeowners and said that “those white people were very nice to us because they let us have a good time in their backyard,” allowing them to have the fruit from the trees. Vance Elbert also added to the conversation that the children from both neighborhoods played with each other without issue. Poplar Hill Avenue, which divided the two communities, became a unified playground where white and Black came together to play. 

The California neighborhood experienced a similar decline. In 1963 a fire reportedly damaged the Wroten building enough to warp the steel girders and the structure was ordered to be demolished by the city. The operator of the Ritz, E. Costen Cordery, called it a total loss and the building owner, Frank Parker, said he had no intention to rebuild. Jones’ hair salon, operated by Charles Jones, relocated to West Main Street for a time until being displaced by a revitalization project in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time of Jones’ passing, it was the only hair processing salon in Salisbury for over 40 years. The other businesses were not so lucky. This was only the beginning of the decline of this once bustling entertainment district.

​Route 50 cut through its northern end, but it was revitalization that had a greater impact. During an interview, Shanie Shields stated that her childhood downtown began to disappear in the 1980s. Newspaper clippings also confirm this, with several mentions of blight sparking a revitalization project along the Wicomico River. By the 1980s and 1990s, night life in the area had vanished and stores, like the Jones Hair Processing Center, were closing early in the evening. The loss of the Ritz and Blue Moon in the 1960s likely contributed to the loss of the neighborhood's night life. In an effort to revive this section of town and to remove “blighting influences,” the city launched an effort to acquire the buildings in the area. Black businesses were initially excited about this project, until they realized they were not being involved.

Earl Stanford Richardson was born on September 25, 1943, to Phillip Richardson, Sr. and Lena Mae Richardson in Westover, Maryland, on the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland, “in one of the most conservative parts of Maryland.”  Earl was the youngest of fourteen children born to the couple. He was well aware of racism and segregation as it was practiced in the area, and he was also acutely aware of the George Armwood lynching in Princess Anne in 1933 and those persons responsible for it.  Due to segregation, Earl knew that he could not visit nor rent a room at the famous Washington Hotel in Princess Anne, Maryland and other facilities in the area. Blacks could work there, but they could not patronize establishments within the town.  

Earl was educated in the public schools of Somerset County, and he readily admitted that he was an average student in high school because at that point in his life, he did not have role models to encourage him to attend college. However, before Earl finished high school, a couple of teachers began to recognize his potential and admonished him that he could do better. One teacher was Mrs. Ethel Cottman, whom he described as one of the best English teachers in the country. A second teacher, Mr. Lester Pollitt, gave him a guiding principle to live by, “Do well and someone will notice it.” Mr. Pollitt impressed Earl as a father figure, teacher, and mentor who helped to mold Earl and his classmates. According to Earl, he was taught “there is always someone greater than you, but if you looked at yourself in the mirror and liked yourself, you will have a great day.”

While Earl was still in high school, the Richardson family experienced a major catastrophe that may have destroyed any other family that depended upon agriculture as their means of survival.  A spark from an engine in a harvester caught fire and burned all of the family’s soybean crop, and the Richardsons lost everything, from which they never recovered.  However, his father remained in farming but as a contractor for groups of “field hands.” 

Upon graduation from Somerset High School in 1961, Earl did not immediately enroll in college because he did not know what he wanted to do.  Two weeks after the local college fall semester had begun, things quickly changed.  Earl had picked beans, cucumbers and other vegetables, but he realized that he needed to go to school so that he would not have to work as hard as his parents.  Earl made the decision to enroll in college, but he did not realize that his father, a tenant farmer, who only had two weeks of education but was very smart and was very knowledgeable, had used reverse psychology to convince Earl to go to college.  Earl’s father told him, “He was going to purchase an extra tractor for him to join him in working in the fields.”  The Richardson family was prepared to send Earl to college by obtaining loans and other agreements in order to ensure that he received an education.  After a bit of negotiation with the Registrar and then President of the college, Earl was accepted and enrolled in Maryland State College (MSC, now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore).  The goal was to make sure Earl received an education.

Earl appreciated the sacrifices his parents had made to enroll him in college, so he worked at night at the Texaco Diner at Goose Creek, in the village of Westover, and went to school during the day. He did not live on campus because his parents could not afford it, so he hitchhiked seven miles to school every day.  His days consisted of study and work because he did not want to disappoint his parents. Due to his diligence, Earl became an honor student.   Unfortunately, his father died at the end of Earl’s first year of college, but Earl did not stop in the pursuit of his career.  His parent’s sacrifices and his father’s death spurred him to succeed. He did not deny the impediments to his success, so he invested his total being in achieving his destiny--success.

​Ward's Restaurant, Westover, MD
John Jacob Collection Postcards
​​Edward H. Nabb Research Center

Earl said he had excellent teachers who encouraged him to succeed.  Two of those teachers included Dr. Wilfred Augustus Low and Dr. Mary Fair Burks.  Dr. Augustus Low was described as a brilliant social science professor who was most likely the reason Earl majored in the same discipline.   He was also the fourth editor of the Journal of Negro History (JNH) from 1970 to 1974, which was one of the first periodicals devoted exclusively to scholarly research on African Americans and the black diaspora.  Dr. Low along with scholars of the caliber of Drs. John Hope Franklin, Rayford Logan, Benjamin Quarles, Charles Wesley, Dorothy Porter, Alruthus A. Taylor, Luther Porter Jackson, A. A. Schomburg, Calubert Jones, James Brewer, and a host of others played an important role in getting Afro-American history established as an accepted area of specialization. Dr. Low was such an inspiration to Earl that Low became his father figure upon the death of Earl’s father.  

Earl was also impressed by Dr. Burks, his English professor, who he described as “The Black Victorian Lady.” Not only did Dr. Burks teach English, but she also fought against injustice.  Prior to moving to Princess Anne and Maryland State College, she had been a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement in Montgomery, Alabama, where she had been a member of Dexter Avenue Church under the leadership of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

In 1946, Dr. Burks formed the Women’s Political Council (WPC) as the result of not being admitted to the League of Women Voters and after witnessing racist police practices.  She and her group petitioned the city of Montgomery regarding mistreatment on the buses, but to no avail.  However, on December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, it sparked a bus boycott.  Burks, JoAnn Robinson, members of the WPC typed, duplicated and distributed flyers and leaflets, informed the black community, and organized car pools to transport workers for the originally planned one-day bus boycott.  The boycott lasted over a year, and blacks walked, carpooled, and hired black-owned taxis and car ser-vices instead of using city buses despite the violence, intimidation and legal pressure exerted by the city of Montgomery. The boycott ended in December of 1956, after the United States Supreme Court ruled Alabama’s segregated bus system was unconstitutional.  Dr. Burks and other protest leaders were targeted with the loss of their jobs. Dr. Burks came to Maryland and found employment at Maryland State College. 

Not only was Dr. Burks a wonderful teacher, but she held tea parties at her home where she entertained her students as they discussed various pieces of literature. She also taught her students proper decorum, proper dress, and social graces, which Earl never forgot in his countless social settings and utilized in his career.  With the support and encouragement of professors of the caliber of Drs. Low and Fair Burks, Earl Richardson was assured of success because he had positive role models that did not accept failure. 

In 1965, Earl graduated from Maryland State College (MSC) with a Bachelors of Arts degree in social science and was second in his class.  He also served as class president from his freshmen year to his junior year. Because it was mandatory for him to be in the Reserved Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at MSC, a land-grant college, he was required to serve in the military upon graduation.  He entered military service as a Second Lieutenant, and served in the United States Air Force from 1965-1969 as an officer.  He worked for the base commander and could have remained in the service for 30 years, but he did not desire to go to Vietnam.  At the time, he had achieved the rank of Captain, but he made the decision to leave the military.

When his military obligation ended, Earl Richardson returned to Maryland State College (now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore)  in 1969 and worked in Student Affairs.  One function of his job was to  take students to other colleges and to encourage them to attend graduate school.  When he took students on a trip to the University of Pennsylvania, he was asked to apply for admission to graduate school. He applied, was accepted into the graduate program, and became a Ford Foundation Fellow.  While there he took an unprecedented number of hours for a graduate student and completed his degree in record time.

During his matriculation at the University of Pennsylvania, he went to England, under a program of exchange courses from the University of Michigan at Ypsilanti, during a summer.  While at the University of Michigan he enrolled in classes at the University of Reading and traveled to Austria and other countries. At the University of Pennsylvania, he was noticed by his professors, and once he had completed his M.A. in Educational Administration in 1973, he was asked if he wanted to pursue a terminal degree. In order to defray costs, he received a Ford Foundation Fellowship, which provided full tuition, books, and a monthly living stipend, and as a veteran, he was also the recipient of funds from the GI Bill.  As a result, he completed his doctorate in three years, in 1976.  Not only was Earl a Fellow of the Ford Foundation, but he also completed a fellowship through the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.
 
Over the years, Dr. Richardson conducted extensive research on critical problems in higher education relevant to racial autonomy, desegregation, and integration. He also wrote several articles on the implications of proposals to merge historically black institutions with white institutions and on interinstitutional cooperation in higher education.

After completing his doctorate, Dr. Richardson returned to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, as an administrator. In June of 1975, when Dr. William Hytche was offered the position of Acting Chancellor of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, he appointed Dr. Richardson his Executive Assistant, whom Dr. Hytche described as his most valuable appointment.  Dr. Hytche was well acquainted with Dr. Richardson because Earl had been one of Dr. Hytche’s former math students, and together they guided UMES through some of its most immediate challenges. Dr. Richardson served in a number of administrative positions at UMES, including Director of Career Planning and Placement and Acting Director of Admissions and Registration. He also taught at the graduate level. Due to his upbringing and experience in a depressed, rural area of the state, Dr. Richardson understood the impediments faced by many students, especially minority students who enrolled in colleges and desired an education. Knowing and understanding those factors made Earl sensitive to the needs of students who may not have tested well on exams or may not have been exemplary students in high school, yet they desired to succeed. Therefore, Dr. Richardson was the ideal person to render assistance to those students, and he made special programs available to them in order to help them excel.

Dr. William P. Hytche Sr.
University of Maryland Eastern Shore

​

Dr. Earl S. Richardson with President Clinton 
President Clinton delivered a commencement speech at Morgan State University in 1997
Morgan State University

Those conflicts ultimately led to a very publicized disagreement in 2010 that involved Dr. Richardson and MSU.  The dispute was over unnecessary program duplications and the disparity of funds allocated to HBCU’s (now known as Historically Black Institutions, or HBI’s) and white institutions (Traditionally White Institutions-TWI’s) by the Maryland State Legislature.  Dr. Richardson could not personally sue the state of Maryland or the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) because he was employed by the State, but he was instrumental in organizing the alumni and other concerned groups in forming the Coalition for Equity and Excellence in Maryland Higher Education. In a lawsuit brought by the Coalition for Equity and Excellence in Maryland Higher Education, Inc., et al., against the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC), et al., Dr. Richardson testified that “Morgan State University had been unable to fully execute its mission because of poor financial support from the State of Maryland.”  He further testified that Morgan had enormous potential, but it did not have the resources to fulfill its mission.  Litigation to correct the disparities was filed in 2006, and the litigants sought an estimated $2.1 billion to make the HBCU’s “comparable and competitive” to traditionally white institutions (TWI’s), such as the University of Maryland College Park, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Salisbury University, and Towson University.

During the lawsuit, the Coalition for Equity and Excellence in Maryland Higher Education presented evidence “that Maryland still operated a dual system of higher education in which the State’s Historically Black Institutions (“HBIs”) lack(ed) institutional identifiability beyond race and had only 11 unique, high-demand academic programs compared to 122 at the Traditionally White Institutions (“TWIs”).

During the course of the trial, Dr. Richardson testified before the United States House of Representatives in 2008, where he emphasized the mission of HBCU’s.  He testified that Black schools educated the most talented Black students but also sought to attract students who did not consider, or thought they could not afford to go to college.  He stated, “We can make them the scientists and the engineers and the teachers and the professors-all of those things. But only if we can have our institutions develop to a level of comparability and parity so that we are as competitive as other institutions.”

David Burton, one of the plaintiffs in the case, stated that the case was comparable to Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas, the landmark lawsuit that brought about similar issues of disparities in educational opportunities for Black students, but the Maryland case raised the issues for students in higher education. Burton also described Dr. Richardson as the visionary behind the lawsuit and he knew where the skeletons were.  At one point, during the trial, state attorneys objected to Dr. Richardson’s presence in the courtroom and even asked the judge to make him leave, even though he had a right to be there as an expert witness.  Dr. Richardson also provided historical details about the case because it was a desegregation case.  The case also highlighted the funding disparities faced by HBCU’s nationwide and the budget cuts they have faced in recent years.6  In the final analysis, the court ruled that Maryland…

…“had never dismantled the de jure era of duplication of programs that facilitated segregation- and it has maintained policies and practices that have even exacerbated the problem. …”The State offered no evidence that it has made any serious effort to address continuing historic duplication and has failed to prevent additional unnecessary program duplication.” …. “Maryland is not prepared to abandon this unconstitutional practice… and through a combination of aggressive litigation tactics and vaporous promises, the State had delayed for a full generation dismantling its unconstitutional system.”  As such, “the State’s violation of the Equal Protection Clause continues.  Though Maryland has always attempted to minimize the significance of unnecessary program duplication as a traceable vestige, of all the de jure era practices, it is the most inextricably linked to the policy of “separate but equal.”…Acting alone, without another vestige, it acts to steer white students away from Maryland’s HBIs. Because of the State’s policy, the HBIs have fewer white students enrolled now than they had in the 1970s. … Maryland’s deliberate policy of unnecessary program duplication undercut integration at the HBIs.”

The evidence presented during the trial in the United States District 
Court for the District of Maryland showed that Maryland was well aware that it had unnecessarily continued to support the duplication of programs that had segregated HBIs.  However, it had previously agreed to discontinue the practice as a part of agreements that had been made years before, but the State of Maryland did not follow through on its commitment. In its 1985 Desegregation Agreement, the State promised the HBIs 25 academic programs, but only provided 13.  The Court ruled that duplication was worst in Maryland than in Mississippi and as such was a violation of the United States Constitution and must be remedied.  In the final analysis, in October of 2013, the Court ruled in favor of Dr. Richardson and The Coalition for Equity and Excellence in Maryland and Higher Education, Inc.
​
The lawsuit began in 2006 and was settled in 2021 when the State of Maryland agreed to give $577 million in supplementary funding over 10 years to the four HBI’s. Dr. Richardson led the 15-year-long lawsuit that ended in a historic settlement for four Black schools in Maryland-Morgan State University, Coppin State, Bowie State, and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.  It also put the spotlight on funding disparities for all the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBI’s).

Bill signed directing $577 million to Maryland HBCIs
2021
Executive Office of the Governor

Even though Dr. Richardson retired in 2009 after an illustrious career at Morgan State University, as the second longest serving president at MSU, with a tenure that lasted 26 years, he continued to fight for its success and to resolve its many conflicts with the State of Maryland and its many detractors.  He retired, but he continued to serve as a consultant and also taught higher administration classes on the campus.  Recognition of his commitment to Morgan State University and other HBI’s was quite evident when the Center for HBCU Media Advocacy, Inc. named Dr. Earl Richardson as the recipient of its second annual HBCU Awards Lifetime Achievement’s Trailblazer Award, which was presented to him on April 20, 2012.  The award recognized “his tireless advocacy, vision and dedication to national equity for historically black colleges and universities over his more than 35 years in higher education.” In the announcement for the award, it was stated that Dr. Richardson “was a treasure in the state of Maryland, and an icon within African-American history.”

​Although Dr. Earl Richardson retired in 2009, he had not retired from civic engagement and community organizations. He served on many boards and committees, including the following:

Dr. Earl Richardson was also selected to serve on a U.S. Presidential Board.  President William Jefferson Clinton named Dr. Richardson to the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and, in 1998, Dr. Richardson served as the Chairperson of the President’s Board of Advisors of HBCUs during the Clinton Administration.  He also received Maryland Senate’s Prestigious Citizenship Award and was recognized by President Barack Obama for Outstanding Service to American Higher Education.

During his career, Dr. Richardson’s affiliation with academic and local organizations was also quite extensive.  He was a member of Alpha Kappa Mu Honor Society, 1964-65; president of the Board of Directors and member of Somerset County Head Start Program; President of Delta Omicron Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., 1976-1979; President of the Panhellenic Council of the Eastern Shore, 1977-79; and a host of other organizations. 

Dr. Earl S. Richardson officially retired from the Presidency at Morgan State University in 2010 to assume his distinguished professorship with research in the Robert M. Bell Center for Civil Rights in Higher Education and teaching in the Graduate School of Education.  He ultimately resigned from state service in June of 2020.

Throughout his career, Dr. Richardson fought valiantly to improve educational levels for all students on local, state and national levels and to specifically advance the cause of Morgan State University and other HBI’s.  His vision of educational excellence while advocating equity and parity in the funding of HBCUs was pursued with a vengeance during his presidency.  His legacy is that of an extraordinary, very humble, thoughtful, educator determined to make a difference in the lives of others and to provide the most suitable environment for all students to receive the best education possible within the State of Maryland.  As such, one of his most enduring legacies is Morgan State University’s state-of-the art, 222,000 sq. ft. library which had been named in his honor in 2008.

Sadly, on September 12, 2025, Dr. Earl Stanford Richardson passed into eternal rest.  His death was a profound loss to his local community, the region, the State of Maryland and the nation, as he fought to eliminate disparities in education and all facets of life for all people. 
 
In reaction to his death, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, offered condolences to Richardson, his family and friends.  He stated that “For decades, President Dr. Earl Richardson was a pillar of Maryland and the Morgan State University community.  Dr. Richardson dedicated his life to the education of young Marylanders-our home is strong because of his work.”

Many others offered similar words of sympathy in his memory.  Dr. Richardson’s services were held on September 27, 2025 at the Ella Fitzgerald Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Princess Anne, Maryland. His internment was at Green Acres Memorial Park on West Road, Salisbury.  He will be sorely missed.

Article by Andre Nieto Jaime

​1979.10.20: Clifford P. Cropper Pound Fishing Crew with eight fishermen and a cart, c. 1920;
​Gift of Etta Cropper Davidson (Collection of the Ocean City Museum Society)

Assateague Island was not always preserved as the natural and scenic island we know it as today. Prior to the establishment of Assateague State Park and Assateague Island National Seashore, Assateague Island was frequented by hunters and later those wishing to develop the island into a resort similar to Ocean City. Before the construction of the Verrazano Bridge in 1964, access to the island was limited to ferries that would shuttle people, ponies, and cars between the mainland and island. The most memorable of these ferries was perhaps the South Point ferry which took passengers to a landing spot known as North Beach. John Albert Purnell Sr, also known as “Jack Pot-Pie” or simply “Pot-Pie,” was one of these ferry captains that transported passengers across the Sinepuxent Bay from South Point. His charm and service have been remembered years after the ferry took its last passengers across the Sinepuxent, making him a lasting part of the area’s history.

John “Jack Pot-Pie” Purnell was born to Albert and Annie (also known as Anna) Taylor Purnell sometime around 1893, likely in the East Berlin area. Based off of his 1917 World War I draft registration card, he was born in Taylorville, a small community located between Ocean Pines and Berlin. On the same document, he was described as being of medium height, slender build, and having black hair and eyes when he registered at the age of 23. Another detail about his appearance can be gleamed from what was listed as a claim for exemption, which was that he was “little-ler on right foot.”

Wicomico Military Records 1917-1918, Albert John Purnell
FamilySearch

Jack Pot-Pie spent the majority of his life near Berlin and Ocean City, working the land and waters here. In an interview with The Daily Times, he recalls working with his father “back in those days” and the they “hauled ice down from Ocean City to Chincoteague,” on an ice boat. In 1910, documentation shows that he lived with his parents in East Berlin. His father Albert, 44, was working as a boatman while Pot-Pie was working as a farm laborer. He most likely helped his father on top of his farm duties. Then, seven years later, Pot-Pie was employed at C.P. Cropper Fish [and Oyster] Co. During an interview, Ricks E. Savage looked back on Pot-Pie and the stories he told during ferry rides and explained that Pot-Pie was an engineer on a pound boat before the inlet was cut in 1933. Purnell himself also looked back on working for Clifford P. Cropper on a pound boat, sharing how every day he was out in the water with his crew checking the traps and how they pulled the boat up on the beach with horses at the end of each day.

While working for Cropper, Jack Pot-Pie became the captain of a seven man crew, quite a feat at a time when the pound fishing industry was mostly dominated by white men. Mac Simpson, during a 1999 interview, noted that very few African Americans were working on pound boats, making it exceptional that Pot-Pie became a captain of one in the early 20th century. Simpson only had recollection of one Black man, Charles Smith, in his own crew and this man was the only one trusted with the combination to their safe. According to Simpson, when Smith passed, it was mostly white people that attended his funeral, showing how respected he was among his fellow fishermen. Pot-Pie too commanded great respect among his peers, being remembered as a great waterman.

Back tracking to the early 20th century, it was around this time that Pot-Pie became a married man. Census data reveals that Pot-Pie lived on Sinepuxent Neck Road with his wife, Blanche Ellen Derrickson, and their recently born daughter, Nellie, in 1920. Blanche was born to Edward J. and Phyllis Derrickson around 1896 and, like Pot-Pie, grew up in the East Berlin area. In 1910, she had been working as a farmer on a home farm at the age of 14, likely helping her family at home on Sinepuxent Road. It was sometime between 1910 and 1920 that Blanche married John “Jack Pot-Pie” Purnell. In Pot-Pie’s 1917 draft registration he was listed as being married. The same is true for his entry in the 1920 Census where there seems to be an age discrepancy. Pot-Pie was listed as being 23, the same age as his 1917 registration and only 7 years older (when he should have been ten years older) than in the 1910 Census. Meanwhile, Blanche was listed as being 22 in 1920. In 1930, Pot-Pie’s recorded age of 37 lines back up with his 1893 date of birth. Here, it is written that he married Blanche, who is now 34, at the age of 25 while she was 22. Given the fact they were married by 1920, had married 12 years ago in 1930, and Pot-Pie’s draft registration lists him as married in 1917, suggests they married sometime around 1917 or 1918. ​

1920 & 1930 Census Sheets. Entries for John A. Purnell
Family Search

Elements of Blanche’s and Pot-Pie’s lives between 1930 and 1950 can be garnered through census data. In 1930, Pot-Pie was still working on the water as an ocean fisherman. He was also still living on Sinepuxent Road with his wife Blanche and three new children. In addition to Nellie (now 11 years old), there was John (8 years old), Savannah (6 years old), and Leon (1.5 years old). A decade later, in 1940, it seems that Pot-Pie was primarily a farmer, although he likely continued fishing to some extent. He also had added four more children and a grandchild to the household. Eugene (9 years old), Vernon (7 years old) Hughie (4 years old), Roxie (2 years old), and Ruby L. (3 years old, daughter of Nellie). Two years later, another draft registration sheds more light on Pot-Pie’s life.

In 1942, it came time for the “Old Man’s Draft” where men between the ages of 45 and 65 were required to register for the Selective Service. Pot-Pie, being around 52 years old, fell into this age bracket. His date of birth was filed as being “March 1890?” which is a close match with his official social security death index date of birth, listed as March 3, 1891, and not far off from his 1893 date of birth. When he registered Pot-Pie was still living in the Berlin area, with his address and place of employment being listed as “Berlin R.F.D #2” indicating he was sharecropping or in a similar situation with his employer. His employer was listed as a W. McCabe living in Salisbury, but the person he had listed as always knowing his address was C.P. Cropper in Ocean City, hinting at some sort of continued contact with Cropper. Perhaps he was close friends with Cropper, or worked with him to some extent. 

Along with hints at his residence and employment, this registration provides hints at his appearance 25 years after his first registration. Instead of a general description of his height, there is now a more specific measurement of five feet and five inches tall. His eyes were described as being brown, his hair gray, and his complexion light brown with a weight of 145 lbs. No distinguishing features, such as scars, were noted that could help identify him.

President Roosevelt signing the Burke-Wadsworth Conscription Act.
September 16, 1940
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

Philadelphia Military Records 2001
John Abb Purnell
FamilySearch

During this period, plans of a ferry service to Assateague began to formulate. Assateague Island was relatively undeveloped until the mid-20th century and the barrier island was mostly being used for pony penning, gunning clubs, hunting, and fishing. There was also no ferry, at least not a consistent one, or a bridge to take people to the island. The most common method to get to Assateague was via boat. Kathrine Massey Bounds, whose father penned ponies on the island, remembers a time when there was no ferry. A monitor pulled by a gasoline boat was how her father, Raymond, got to and from the island. Patrick Henry also told of how the only was across to Assateague was via ferry. When reflecting upon his youth, Henry noted that he did not spend much time on the island until after the Verrazano Bridge was built, since “the only way you could get over there” was via ferry. Unless one had a boat or knew someone with a boat, it could be difficult or inconvenient to get to the island. 

When word of a ferry service coming to the island spread, it stirred great excitement. One 1946 paper shared a rumor of a ferry from the Ocean City harbor to Assateague and was causing commotion among fishermen. At this point, the Worcester County commissioners had already set in motion the establishment of the South Point ferry, but the idea of a ferry from the harbor to the island was heavenly for anglers. People were itching for easier access to the island for hunting and fishing. In the fall of 1946, a channel was already in the process of being dredged for the South Point ferry and all that was left was to build a wharf.

The following year, in 1947, the ferry was operational and according to the paper published the day before, the operator was Noah Hudson of Berlin. Pot-Pie came into the picture two years later when he became the ferry tender. Despite being remembered as the ferry captain starting in 1949, this may have been a side job for Pot-Pie. The 1950 Census has his occupation as working in a poultry plant, a rising industry on the Eastern Shore at the time. Regardless, he was still operating the ferry in the late 50s and early 60s. In 1959, Pot-Pie shared his life story with The Daily Times, noting that he started his position as ferry tender a decade prior. He continued with this position until at least 1962, when he is named in a paper describing the after math of the Ash Wednesday Storm. One of the two ferries had been washed up on shore and the North Beach slip was left in shambles. To make matters worse, even the channel for the ferry had been filled in, leaving Purnell with the daunting task of navigating the ferry back without a channel or markers. This contributed to the end, but was not the final nail in the coffin for the South Point ferry.

1984.10.311: Ferry at South Point going to Assateague Beach circa 1950s;
Gift of George and Suzanne Hurley (Collection of the Ocean City Museum Society)

Ferry service proved to be vital for and hunters. Alfred Showell remembered how hunters had to come to Pot-Pie to get across the bay in their cars. Fishers likewise made great use of the ferry, especially for fishing tournaments. In 1952, the first annual Ocean Beach Surf Fishing contest was held on Assateague Island and the ferry was advertised as the sole way of accessing it. Even the entries had to be weighed and certified at the ferry terminal. If fishermen wanted a chance at winning this contest and the cash prize, they had to go to Pot-Pie. By 1954 the South Point ferry opened up to 24 hour service due to fishing demand, although rides after 10pm had to be arranged in advance with the ferryman.

Pot-Pie continues to be remembered fondly for his compassion, kindness, and skills as a waterman. In 1961 Pot-Pie’s care and thoughtfulness were reflected when he noticed that one man he took across the Sinepuxent had not returned. Remembering that the man did not bring enough provisions to last more than a day, Pot-Pie reported the situation to the authorities who investigated and found the individual. Ocean City resident Ricks E. Savage also recalled how Pot-Pie was rather easy going, joking that he may have taken more free rides across the bay than paid ones.3 Then there was Alfred Showell who expressed admiration for Pot-Pie, proclaiming him to be “one of the best watermen ever had around there,” and that “he knew, he knew the water” and boats very well.4 So well in fact, that there “wouldn’t be a storm too bad he couldn’t take a boat and go and come” back from. This statement proved true during the event he is perhaps most remembered for.

In 1962 a devastating storm, known as the Ash Wednesday Storm, blew through Ocean City and caused significant damage. Savage described his experience of the aftermath, explaining how many of the houses were “virtually destroyed” and how water was high enough to reach the windshields of cars on the street.5 This storm left many individuals stranded and according to anecdotes, Pot-Pie came to the rescue of many. Nelda Purnell, Pot-Pie’s great granddaughter, shared how Pot-Pie took the ferry to West Ocean City and saved people he found “standing on refrigerators” and took them to safety.6 Pot-Pie was not discouraged by the flooding and put the safety of others over his own. 

The 1962 storm, as mentioned previously, left much destruction in its wake. It also leveled much of Ocean Beach, a new development similar to Ocean City that was planned for Assateague. This resulted in the abandonment of Ocean Beach and paved the way for the creation of Assateague Island National Seashore in 1965. The State Park side of the island had been in talks since the 1940s and opened to the public in 1965, a year after the construction of the Verrazano Bridge. Pot-Pie passed the same year the bridge was completed, on April 30, 1964.7 His funeral was held at St. John’s Methodist Church in Sinepuxent, which has been described as the heart of the Sinepuxent community by some.8 Through his marriage with Blanche, he had nine children who brought him over 15 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren at the time of his death. 
​
Pot-Pie and the ferry he captained were one of the few ways to access Assateague Island before the bridge was completed. Without the ferry service, the culture of hunting, fishing, and gunning clubs on the island to likely would not have flourished the way it did. This iconic culture and time period lives fondly in the minds of many today and Pot-Pie contributed to it. He also became a pound boat captain at a time where very few African Americans were reported as working in the industry. Evidently, he became a well-known and respected waterman based off of Showell’s praise and he proved his skills during the 1962 storm rescues. Pot-Pie contributed to sustaining waterman and hunting culture by facilitating access to the island and by virtue of his own captaining skills. He has ingrained himself into Eastern Shore history and his legacy has made a lasting impact in the memories of local communities.

Remnants of Leon Ackerman's Ocean Beach Subdivision on Assateague
c. 1965
National Park Service

Verrazano Bridge on Assateague Island - suwt0114
Walter C. Thurston Jr. Collection (2016.096)
​Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University

Primary Sources:
1910 Census. "Maryland, United States records," images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RJB-94XD?view=index : Oct 17, 2025), image 943 of 1242; United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Image Group Number: 004971683 
1920 Census. "Maryland, United States records," images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GR6L-CZT?view=index : Oct 17, 2025), image 1009 of 1261; United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Image Group Number: 004966055 
1930 Census. "Maryland, United States records," images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRHM-K?view=index : Oct 17, 2025), image 404 of 1121; United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Image Group Number: 004951061 
1930 Census. "Maryland, United States records," images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRHM-9L7?view=index : Oct 17, 2025), image 405 of 1121; United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Image Group Number: 004951061 
1940 Census. "Worcester, Maryland, United States records," images, FamilySearch (https:// www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9M1-ZNC7?view=index : Oct 17, 2025), image 594 of 600; United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Image Group Number: 005461126 
1950 Census. "Worcester, Maryland, United States records," images, FamilySearch (https:// www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHN-GQHW-298Z-4?view=index : Oct 17, 2025), image 17 of 24; National Archives and Records Administration. Image Group Number: 108967242.
1950 Census. "Worcester, Maryland, United States records," images, FamilySearch (https:// www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHJ-5QHW-2987-R?view=index : Oct 17, 2025), image 18 of 24; National Archives and Records Administration. Image Group Number: 108967242 
“Assateague Island Ferry Begins Tomorrow.” The Daily Times, August 2 1947. 
Cochran, Bill. “Assateague Ferry Back in Water.” The Daily Times, March 21, 1962.
“Ferry Captain Recalls Pound Fishing at Resort.” The Daily Times, August 20, 1959.
“Ferry Rumor.” The Baltimore Sun, September 29, 1946.
“Fishing Contest to Start Today,” The Daily Times, September 5, 1952. 
Interview with Mac Simpson, 6 July 1999. Delmarva Folklife Project.  maaf-kf-md-ft-7.6.99.332a, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland. https://archive.org/details/maaf-kf-md-ft-7.6.99.332a 
Interview with Ricks E. Savage, 12 July 2004. Community Audio.  oh-58-savage. Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland. https://archive.org/details/oh-58-savage 
“John A. Purnell.” The Daily Times, May 1, 1964.
McNally, Tom. “Waters and Woods: Scorpion Leads.” The Evening Star, September 20, 1954.
Philadelphia. Military Records 2001. "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States records," images, FamilySearch (https:// www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-D1NQ-287?view=index : Oct 14, 2025), image 3000 of 3307; United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Mid Atlantic Region. Image Group Number: 004133519 
Pitts, Tom and Pat Russell. Interview with Alfred Showell, Enduring Connections Audio & Video, May 19, 2004. Enduring Connections: Exploring Delmarva’s Black History, Nabb Research Center, Salisbury University. https://libapps.salisbury.edu/enduring-connections/r/enduring_connections_media/80. 
Wicomico. Military Records 1917–1918. "Wicomico, Maryland, United States records," images, FamilySearch (https:// www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9YTX-32SF?view=index : Oct 14, 2025), image 3514 of 4958; United States. National Archives and Records Administration,United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Atlanta Branch. Image Group Number: 005152052 

Secondary Sources:
Assateague Island National Seashore Geologic Resources Inventory Report. Natural Resource Report NPS/NRSS/GRD/NRR—2013/708. National Park Service & US Department of the Interior. https://www.npshistory.com/publications/asis/nrr-2013-708.pdf. 
Assateague Island National Seashore. “It’s Wayback Wednesday! As the gale force of Assateague Island National Seashore’s Maintenance Division, Nelda Purnell keeps the park's buildings ship shape.” Facebook, December 11, 2013.https://www.facebook.com/AssateagueNPS/photos/its-wayback-wednesdayas-the-gale-force-of-assateague-island-national-seashores-m/763005577047153/?_rdr. 
Eshelman, Ralph E. and Patricia A. Russell. Historic Context Study of Waterfowl Hunting Camps and Related Properties within Assateague Island National Seashore, Maryland and Virginia. National Park Service & Department of the Interior, 2004. https://npshistory.com/publications/asis/hunting-camps-hcs.pdf 
Ocean City Life Saving Station Museum. “From the Archives: This week's ‘From the Archives’ is about Captain Jack Pot-Pie Purnell.” Facebook, February 4, 2023. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=581727473969753&rdid=hOItDlbYS074tWqB. 

Article by Dr. Clara Small, professor emerita, Salisbury University

Mary Gladys Jones was born May 10, 1919 to Norman Edward Jones and Martha Showell Jones, in Whaleyville, in Worcester County, on the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland. She always loved education and even started elementary school at the age of five, at Whaleyville Elementary School. By the time school officials realized she was too young to be in school, she was within a couple of weeks of completing first grade, so administrators allowed her to remain in school to complete the first grade. Upon the completion of her early grades, at Flower Street High School in Berlin, Maryland, her family found a place for her to live (board) in Wicomico County where she could continue her education, at Salisbury High School, the only colored high school on the Lower Eastern Shore at the time. There were no buses for her to travel to and from school, so her parents paid for her to live with a family in Fruitland during the week and picked her up on weekends. She graduated from the Salisbury Colored High School in 1935, at the age of 16, so she lived in the Salisbury/Fruitland area from the time she was 14 years old.

Her formative years were spent during the Great Depression, so she learned how to survive in a segregated society with less. She had just entered high school when the depression began, but because her father was a veteran, her family did not suffer as harshly as others. Her mother, a housewife, was also enterprising, as she helped the family make ends meet. The family had a truck farm and her mother canned and preserved fruits and vegetables, raised chickens, ducks, hogs and had plenty of food, which they shared with others in need. Although they were not wealthy, they were comfortable. Her mother also sewed, and Mary Glady’s sister knitted and crocheted, which helped to make very fashionable clothing for the family. That cooperative, sharing spirit which began in her parents’ home guided and sustained Mary Gladys Jones throughout her life.

Her parents inspired her to succeed in life and provided a firm foundation for her success. However, she also received a great deal of inspiration and support from an uncle named Charles Pullett, whom she called “Uncle Butcher.” He and his wife, Aunt Julia, accepted Mary Gladys as the daughter they did not have. Uncle Butcher worked for well-to-do families as a chauffeur in Salisbury. His speech pattern was so precise and admirable, that he inspired her to speak well and he also purchased beautiful clothes for her. At the age of twelve, he purchased Mary Gladys’ first watch and a dictionary, and she used the dictionary to learn a new word each day. Unfortunately, he died very suddenly during her first year in high school, but his spirit and the inspiration he gave to her kept her focused on education and the desire to succeed. In her later years, Mary Gladys once stated that “she believed that if he had lived, most likely her ultimate dream of being a college professor would have been realized.” 
After graduation from high school in 1935, she attended Bowie State Normal College (now Bowie State University), and graduated in 1938 with a certification to teach elementary education, which had to be renewed every five years. She attended Bowie State College even though she lived in very close proximity to Salisbury State College, but at the time African Ameri-cans were not allowed to attend that institution. Her aunt and uncle worked at Salisbury State College, but blacks could not matriculate there. In 1953, she obtained her Bachelor of Science degree from Morgan State College (now Morgan State University). Post-baccalaureate course work for her “Masters Equivalency” included work at Temple University, the University of Maryland College Park, Maryland State College (now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore), the University of Delaware, and Salisbury State University (now Salisbury University).  ​

​Mary Gladys Jones always believed, “You must educate the whole child.” Her regimen for after school learning included not only an emphasis on a solid foundation of academic basics but also cultural experiences, re-spect for authority, and insistence on good manners and overall character building. Her motto was always: “Good, better, best. Never let it rest until the good becomes the better and the better becomes the best.” She believed that as long as there were caring people in the community, there would always be a way for the Fruitland Community Center to help fulfill the needs of future generations of young students in need of after school mentoring in Fruitland. As such, there would always be a need for a safe haven where children could grow and learn after school. Not only did Mary Gladys Jones help the youth of the community, she also helped many student teachers from Salisbury University get off to a promising start as their mentor in the cooperating teacher program.
For her life-long service and commitment to the education of the youth of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Mary Gladys Jones was the recipient of a host of well-deserved awards, certificates of appreciation and proclamations. A list of some of those commendations are as follows:

• Outstanding Senior Citizen of Maryland Award by the Jaycees of Maryland
• All-Star Volunteer by Shore CAN
• Unsung Hero by Shore Living Magazine
• Certificate of Honor from the Wicomico County Commission for
• Women for Outstanding Service to the Community
• Certificate of Merit for Outstanding Citizenship, a Proclamation from the Wicomico County Council
• Resolution from the Maryland House of Delegates
• 2000-2001 Maryland Retired Teacher’s Association-Certificate of Appreciation
• 2000-Tri-County NAACP Organization Coalition, Inc. Award
• 2001-Named Fruitland’s Outstanding Citizen of the Year
• 2005-Wicomico County Partnership for Families and Children
• Certificate of Appreciation-Friend of Children Award
  
• 2008-Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., recognized her at its National Boule in Celebration of the 100th Anniversary
• 2010-Outsanding Achiever Award by the Maryland African American Pride Magazine, winter edition
• 2011-Volunteer of the Year Award, presented by the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore
• A Street was named in her honor in Fruitland, Maryland on her 99th Birthday (May 11, 2018)
• Light of Literacy Award (2019)
• Salisbury Award (2019)

Due to her longevity and extensive career, as well as her remarkable job of teaching and mentoring such a vast number of students, the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore established the Mary Gladys Jones Volunteer of the Year Award. The first recipient was, none other than, Mrs. Mary Gladys Jones in 2011. The award is presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding, sustained, and unselfish contributions to community service, and whose vital ideas and personal sacrifices exemplify the ideal of service to our community. Nominees must have made significant contributions in such areas of community service as youth, education, human services, community development, health or the environment. The qualities of exemplary leadership, vision, integrity, compassion, cooperation, and generosity of time and talents will also guide the selection of the recipient.
Mary Gladys Jones was a member of a host of organizations, some of which are:

• Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
• Wicomico County Teachers Association
• Wicomico County Retired Teachers Association
• Maryland State Teachers Association
• National Education Association
• Salisbury High School Association
• United Methodist Women in Faith
• Member of Mt. Calvary United Methodist Church
• Girl Scout Troop Leader

Mary Gladys Jones spent nearly eighty years as an educator for the Worcester and Wicomico Counties Boards of Education. She mentored teachers and encouraged young children to excel as she touched their lives in so many ways. Mary Gladys Jones’ legacy is a commitment of life-long learning to the community. She has been described as the kindest, most gracious, loving teacher, mentor and mother figure to those who needed guidance and someone to emulate. They found all of those qualities in the person of Mrs. Mary Gladys Jones, a truly outstanding teacher, mentor, community volunteer, and role model.
Sadly, after faithfully serving her community, teaching and tutoring hundreds of local children, Mrs. Mary Gladys Jones passed away on February 3, 2025 at her home in Salisbury, Maryland, at the age of 105. Her Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Sorors performed the Ivy Beyond the Wall Memorial Service for her on Friday, February 7, and her funeral services were held on Saturday, February 8, 2025 at Mt. Calvary Community Church in Fruitland, Maryland. The community lost a kind, gentle, loving teacher, who never stopped teaching and spreading words of encouragement and guidance, until her last breath was taken.