Consider history in redevelopment of the Inner Harbor
There is an interesting history between abolitionist Harriet Tubman, organizer of the Underground Railroad, and Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. In 1856, Harriet Tubman helped an enslaved black woman named Tilly escape slavery by boarding a steamboat docked near what is known today as Pier 4. The steamboat was en route to Delaware, and scholars describe it as her most complicated and clever escape attempt. During this daring adventure, Tubman and Tilly were almost arrested by slave traders but eluded capture. Recognizing the importance of this incident, the Baltimore Aquarium memorialized the site in 2023 with a plaque that stands there today. This is a little-known, but well-documented, story that most Baltimoreans are unaware of. It’s a story of heroism and courage, one that should inspire us all to be more humane.
Today, Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is a dilapidated ghost town that symbolizes neglect. It’s certainly not what it once was four decades ago when Mayor William Donald Schaffer jumped into these waters to celebrate the harbor’s evolution from an industrial wasteland to a world-renowned tourist attraction. And let’s not forget some important history just yards away from where the mostly vacant Harborplace pavilions stand today.
As Baltimore researcher and writer
Ralph Clayton noted in The Baltimore Sun in 2000: “What most of the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit the Inner Harbor each year don’t realize is that they are walking on sacred ground, where countless thousands of men, women, and children suffered during Baltimore’s darkest hour.”
Between 1815 and 1860, traders in Baltimore established the port as a key location for ships transporting slaves to ports in the deep South. Slave dealers from Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia built slave pens near Pratt Street. By the late 1850s, several slave pens were erected between Pratt and Camden Streets. This was a significant part of the local economy, treating the bodies of mothers, fathers and children as commodities.
Abolitionist Frederick Douglass also has a history with Baltimore and its waterfront that’s been written about for over a century. Douglass spent a considerable amount of time in the area enslaved, beginning as a boy of 8 years old, before escaping slavery as a young man to become a legendary orator who spoke truth to power.
Baltimore was founded in 1729, 300 years ago. And despite this long history, I could not find any documentation to establish that any person of color has ever owned a piece of commercial real estate along its sacred waterfront. In 2024, in modern-day Baltimore, which is known for people, places and things that exemplify
diversity and inclusion — like Artscape, Thurgood Marshal, Kurt Schmoke, John Waters, the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore School of the Arts and on and on — it seems unthinkable for such a disparity to persist.
And why does any of this matter? Because whenever we’re making important decisions about Baltimore’s future, a thorough examination of its history should always be part of the decision-making process. So, as we continue to debate the future of the redevelopment of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, I ask that you take this history into account. I also ask that you take into consideration the fact that for the first time in 300 years, an African American real estate developer can lead the redevelopment of one of the city’s most prized possessions. The irony of this cannot and must not be overlooked.
Harborplace is more than just a place where tourists visiting from out-of-town purchase fudge from The Fudgery. Harborplace
is more than just a place where college students go on Friday evenings to drink beer at Hooters. This cherished property symbolizing Baltimore is more than just a place where students from Mervo, Poly and Western celebrated their high school graduations at the Cheesecake Factory with their parents. Baltimore’s waterfront is a place where African Americans were once held in bondage, escaped bondage and thrived irrespective of their former bondage. It’s a place where Harriet, Frederick and a woman named Tilly helped change the course of this nation. Today, it’s a place where a Black real estate developer can rewrite a historic narrative and rebuild the Inner Harbor into a place that everyone can embrace. It’s a moment in time where diversity, equity, and inclusion should matter to us all.