Old Fourth Ward descendants petition for ‘atonement and repair’

Phillip Chambers, from left, Elizamae Robinson and Argo Duenas discuss their old neighborhood. Former residents of Annapolis’s old Fourth Ward, a once vibrant historic Black neighborhood talked about its destruction during an urban renewal program in the late 1960s and 70s. Paul W. Gillespie/Staff

Phillip Chambers Jr. remembers the Old Fourth Ward in Annapolis as “a city within the city.”

Even though Chambers did not live in the Old Fourth Ward, he often frequented Chambers Barbershop, a business in the area started by his grandfather, as a kid in the 1960s.

“We had restaurants, we had entertainment, we had just different fraternities and sororities. We had the churches. You could get mentorship any and everywhere,” he said.

That was the Old Fourth Ward until the mid-1960s when urban renewal — a federal program that funded the large-scale redevelopment of neighborhoods deemed to be run down — came to town. The Annapolis Urban Renewal Authority directed such efforts. Many homes and businesses were purchased or taken in the predominately Black and Jewish Old Fourth Ward through eminent domain and transferred to developers, while others were razed and replaced by the John Whitmore parking garage.

On Sept. 9, dozens of people came before the Annapolis City Council to ask for reparations for what urban renewal did to the Black families who used to live in the Old Fourth Ward.

The Old Fourth Ward consisted of roughly 3,000 people and reached from the north, where St. John’s College sits on King George Street, south to Shaw Street, according to a GIS storyboard curated by Anne Arundel County. It stretched west on Poplar Ave and east on College Avenue.

“The city must take immediate action to restore what was lost and to support the community by rebuilding its future by taking concrete steps toward acknowledgment, redress, and closure. This includes a formal apology, financial atonement, and ensuring that the voices of the Old Fourth Ward Displaced Member Group are central in planning and decision-making processes,” said Ahsun Powell, facilitator and strategist for the Coalition for Atonement and Repair, which is spearheading the effort. The Old Fourth Ward Displaced Member Group is made up of the individuals, families, and businesses — including their descendants — harmed by urban renewal policies, according to Linda Mundy, spokesperson for the group.

Argo Duenas, 75, was one of many at the Sept. 9 council meeting who called for the city to make amends. She grew up on West Washington Street in an area known as “Little Harlem” for its music and nightlife.

Duenas’ great-grandmother bought a home on West Washington Street in 1944. The home was then passed to her grandfather and became a multigenerational household as the family grew. Duenas lived there, along with her grandmother, uncle, mother, sister and brother.

To Duenas, the Old Fourth Ward was a “thriving, self-sustaining community. It was self-contained [and] self-sufficient. We had a strong economic base.”

At night, the Dixie Hotel and the Washington Nightclub on West Washington Street pumped out jazz and blues.

“At night, the music was … we were just alive. That street was alive. On Sundays, I could hear the choir from the First Baptist Church. And as I’m walking to Asbury Church, the First Baptist Church was rocking,” she said. “It was just a lot of love, unity and pride in our community.”

While some moved to public housing after they were displaced, Duenas’ family did not. Duenas was 19 when her family moved to Newtowne 19, a once-private apartment complex located where Admiral Oaks in Ward 3 now stands. Now, only bushes and a metal fence stand between where her family home was and the side of the parking garage.

“When I drive through that garage, my soul cries out,” Duenas said.

In 2021, the Annapolis City Council repealed a City Code section on urban renewal that established the racially exclusionary development practice.

There was no apology or action taken to repair the damage done.

“We’re already talking about an apology and how, as a Council, we frame that,” Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley said in a statement Thursday. “Since before I was Mayor, I recognized the injustice of what was done — people moved across the tracks with one road in and one road out. Those actions have a lasting impact on communities. From here, we will need to work with the county and state to look at the properties and how we can go about making it right.”