Baltimore '68 Riots and Rebirth Collection ( BSR)
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Table of Contents
Currently the University of Baltimore is sending a team of students to interview people who were in Baltimore during the disturbance of 1968. We are in the process of updating this website to add new transcripts. If you would like to contribute your 1968 experiences to our archives, please contact Dr. Elizabeth Nix at enix@ubalt.edu or 410-233-3381. Baltimoreans have responded enthusiastically to this project, so you may expect a delay before the team can get to you.
The new interviews add to the group collected in the fall of 2006 by undergraduate students in Dr. Nix’s history class “The New South and Civil Rights." Students were able to talk to a racially diverse group of informants whose 1968 situations ranged from an Anne Arundel County white farm girl who came into Fells Point to attend a Catholic school, to an African-American physician who defended his fledgling private practice. The interviews capture the experiences of several National Guardsmen both black and white, as well as those of teachers, ministers, teenagers and housewives. Students made audio and video recordings and transcribed the interviews. This was the first time any of these students had attempted the tedious and demanding job of transcription, and they were working under a deadline. Currently readers will find spelling errors and inconsistencies. We are in the process of reviewing the transcripts to make them as accurate and as useful as possible.
In the spring of 2007 WYPR, Baltimore's NPR affiliate and a media sponsor of Baltimore 68: Riots and Rebirth, joined UB in a partnership that added a new dimension to the oral history project. WYPR provided equipment, studio time and the interviewing expertise of senior news professionals , Fraser Smith and Sunni Khalid, in an effort to capture the memories of Baltimoreans who held public office or represented distinct constituencies during the disturbances.
Informants |
Race |
Background |
Marion and Dorothy Bascom 
|
black | Minister and school teacher |
| Donna Baust | white | 8 year old girl in Parkville, Baltimore County |
| Lee Baylin | white | Reporter for Baltimore Evening Sun |
| Alan Bloom | white | Young lawyer, North Baltimore |
| Jack Bowden & Susan White-Bowden | white | reporters WMAR-TV |
| Frank Bressler | white | dry cleaner |
| Tom Brown | white | High school student from Montgomery County |
| Clinton Buise | black | 28 year old county resident |
| Tom Carney | white | Irish Catholic "Pigtown" teenager |
Art Cohen
 |
white | 30 year old legal aid attorney living in East Baltimore. He was new to Baltimore |
| Theodore Cornblatt | white | Attorney volunteered to process people arrested for violating curfew |
| William Costello | white | Young father living in Towson |
| Juanita Crider | black | 7 years old in 1968 living in East Baltimore |
| Edwin & Suann Crosby | white | living on farm in Anne Arundel County |
| Thomas D'Alesandro III | white | Mayor of Baltimore in 1968 |
| John J. Darlington | white | National Guard |
| Kenny Dennis | black | High school student |
| Joseph DiBlasi | white | National Guard (UB graduate) |
| Thomas J. Donellan | white | Roman Catholic priest |
| Robert Embry | white | City Councilman 3rd District |
| David Ettlin | white | Editorial assistant - Baltimore Sun newspaper |
| Bill and Carol Evitts | white | Johns Hopkins University Graduate Students |
| Homer Favor | black | Professor, Morgan University, Civil Rights activist |
| Ed Fishel | white | 19-year-old student at Loyola College, member of Loyola Students for Social Action |
| Rashida Foreman-Bey | black | Eight-year old child |
| Barbara D. Gaines | black | High School student |
| John Raymond Getzel | white | working adult living in Highlandtown |
| Bernard Gibson | black | Teenager, North Baltimore |
| Herbert Hardrick | black | In the military home on leave |
| Yvonne Hardy-Phillips | black | high school student at Eastern High, her mother owned a cafe on the east side of Baltimore. |
| Dorothy Hurst | black | Young C&P Telephone worker |
| Lillie Hyman | black | High school senior in Edmondson Village |
| Herman & Ethel Katkow | white, |
Jewish business owners, Pennsylvania Avenue |
| Harold Knight | black | 16-year-old at Baltimore City College High School |
| Richard Lawrence | white | Roman Catholic priest, activisit |
| Ted & Jane Lewis | white | Owners of Lewis Furniture Store |
| Marvin Mandel | white | Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates |
| Suann Myers | white | Living on farm in Anne Arundel County |
| Pats Family | white, | Jewish, owned and lived above Downes Brothers Pharmacy looted during the riots |
| Louis Randall | black | Physician, business owner |
| Esther Reaves | white | Wife and mother in Charles Village |
| Lois Fishbaugh Rebetsky | white | 15 year old living in Baltimore County |
| Devon Wilford Said | black | East-side teenage girl |
| William Donald Schaefer | white | President of the Baltimore City Council in 1968 |
Stuart Silberg
 |
white | Age 22 at time of riots, father owned Manhattan Drugstore at Rutland and Monument Streets in East Baltimore damaged during the riots |
| Charles "Bud" Stevens | white | Rent collector |
Ruth Stewart  |
black | School teacher, West Baltimore |
| Lynnwood Taylor | black | a junior at Forest Park High School |
| Jane Swope | white | Wife and mother, Cedarcroft |
| Rosalind Terrell | black | Young mother, North Avenue |
| Wilson Thornton, Jr. | black | National Guard |
| Terry A. White | black | Student at Forest Park High School |
| Chester Wickwire | white | Minister active in Civil Rights |
| Melvin Douglas Williams | black | aka "Little Melvin" Williams |
| Larry Alexander Wilson | black | College student at University of Pennsylavania |
| John Yost | white | Lutheran minister |