In 2024, while visiting AFRO Charities’ processing team at the Maryland State Archives, lead archivist Megan McShea told me about their effort to process the entire collection before moving to their permanent home in the renovated Upton Mansion. With plans to open the Martha E. Murphy Research Institute in 2027, the team has spent years reorganizing the records and materials housed in the historic, massive collection.
I’m no stranger to archives and understand that their processing, the work of sorting and labelling materials, is one of the crucial steps in making information available for the public. The choices made by processing archivists shape how researchers and the public understand history — Simply put, the decisions made in processing alter public perception. One new policy that McShea and the team put in place under the leadership of Savannah G.M. Wood, Murphy’s great-great-granddaughter, aims to right the past and bring women into the archive.
In Baltimore and beyond, women are challenging oppressive systems, readying their communities, and forging new futures built on lessons they’ve learned from the past.
As I explored photos of James Baldwin and other Black figures I was researching, Bilphena Yahwon emphasized that the processing team was working to document the names of women wherever they found them. In the past, married women were recorded by their husbands’ names — Instead of “Mr. James Johnson and Mrs. Cynthia Johnson,” a caption might read “Mr. and Mrs. James Johnson.” Omitting women’s names, which might have been common practice in the past, functionally removes valuable information from the archive. In this way, among others, women are written out of history. The decision to reclaim the presence of women in AFRO’s archives is a strategic choice by a team dedicated to shifting power and preserving a fuller picture of the Black past.
While that shift in processing procedures recovers the past, this issue of the Baltimore Beat, in highlighting the work and history of women in Baltimore, ensures that our present understanding of women’s labor in shaping Charm City is not lost. In this issue, we present contemporary stories of how women shape Baltimore and commit to the hard work of community and change. As others work to repair history, we’re hoping readers discover women improving the city day in and day out.
From building homes with Shelley Halstead and Black Women Build Baltimore to serving queer and trans communities like Iya Dammons of Baltimore Safe Haven, Baltimore is full of women who show up and change the world. For some, like Sonia Eaddy, showing up means protecting the neighborhood from predatory developers. For others, like Hess Stinson and Bobbi Sherrod, changing the world means studying African traditions and teaching others how these traditions mold our lives in Maryland.
Maryland’s long history is stitched with stories of women like Gloria Richardson, who challenged power. Organizers like Erica Caines of the Black Alliance for Peace and Tawanda Jones continue to challenge oppression. Both build space for others to politically educate themselves on prisons and policing amidst censorship and mass surveillance. Similarly, Lynn Pinder, a founder of Baltimore Green Justice Workers Cooperative, connects Baltimoreans from underresourced neighborhoods with apprenticeships, recognizing the necessity of workforce development for our city. Each of these women pushes us forward to a world where neighbors and workers are skilled while remaining educated on their conditions.
In Baltimore and beyond, women are challenging oppressive systems, readying their communities, and forging new futures built on lessons they’ve learned from the past. Page after page offers examples of women in every corner of the city working hard. It’s my sincere hope that this issue inspires us all to keep learning the names of women, past and present, who’ve changed the world.