In the 1930s it was understood that if a Black man was accused of a violent crime against a white person on the Eastern Shore of MD, local officials would need to get him to this Baltimore City jail to keep him from being lynched. documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri…
Euel Lee narrowly missed being lynched in Worcester County in 1931 by being taken to the Baltimore City jail. Same for George Davis. Lynchers looked for him across 4 counties on the Eastern Shore in 1932.
George Armwood was taken to the Baltimore City jail for “safekeeping” after being accused of a violent crime against a white person. Here he is in the custody of a state police ofcr. He was returned to the local jail on the Eastern Shore the next day. 
That day a crowd that eventually swelled to an estimated 2000 people used a bartering ram, broke into the jail and violently removed him from the jail in Somerset County. He was dragged, hung and burned. The news that he was being returned gave them time to prepare...
Eastern Shore Black men who survived lynching & stood trial faced a legal system rife with racism - some of which was directly challenged by their lawyers. Those who were were convicted-like Isaiah Fountain in 1919 & eventually Euel Lee-were executed in that Baltimore City jail.
The Baltimore City jail was also a place of unspeakable horror & corruption out of Shawshank Redemption.Atrocities like the “whipping board” & the “female punishment cell” shocked Eugene O’Dunne who led a 1913 inquiry into conditions.
Reforms ensued and were reversed. Riots broke out multiple times over the years sparked by protests against conditions and guard violence in 1966 and 1972. All of this is well documented in Wallace Shugg’s “A Monument to Good Intentions.”
But the hideous conditions at the jail have continued. In 2015 the @ACLU_MD sued on behalf detainees and documented the horror: theguardian.com/us-news/2015/j…
So in my view, let the demolition commence with no nostalgia for the bricks and mortar that has contained so much suffering. But let’s engage the history of the jail in #Baltimore City as an opportunity to confront the persistence of inhumane prison conditions- esp during COVID.
