The late civil rights advocate and preservationist Helena Hicks has been honored with a mural near the former Read’s drug store at Howard and Lexington streets, where she led an anti-segregation sit-in in 1955.
Andrew Pisacane, a Baltimore-based artist also known as Gaia, painted a portrait of Hicks this month on the metal gate of a vacant storefront in the 200 block of West Lexington Street as a tribute to her. “In memory of Helena Hicks,” it says at the bottom, with the word ‘Reads’ partially visible on the right side of the painting.
Gaia’s homage to Hicks is one of 21 murals that were created as part of “Art After Dark,” an evening of “live art and music” held last week in and around The Meadow green space at Lexington Street and Park Avenue.
The event was co-hosted by the Mayor’s Office, the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC), and Whitney Frazier of WGF Studio in conjunction with International Placemaking Week and the Placemaking conference held in Baltimore from June 5 to 8.
As part of the event, the city invited 20 artists to participate in a public art project aimed at “reimagining” the metal gates on vacant buildings in the so-called Superblock, an assemblage of city-owned buildings that are targeted for preservation and redevelopment.
The event was part of Mayor Brandon Scott’s “Downtown Rise” initiative, which seeks to bring new life and activity to the downtown area by introducing works of art and other enhancements. Besides Gaia and Frazier, participating artists included Pablo Machioli; Bryan Robinson; Wendell “Supreme” Shannon; Tony Shore; Adam Stab; Christine Curtis; Tiffany Harris and others.
Each artist was assigned a storefront gate to turn into a work of art while others watched a “livestream” of the artists at work, projected on an adjoining wall. Their responses varied from Gaia’s portrait to more abstract designs. Several artists collaborated on larger pieces, underscoring the spirit of “community and creativity” that underpinned the event. Part of the goal was to create works of art that can be left behind to enhance the area long after the event is over, just as the city did last year by commissioning artists to paint murals in the area where Artscape takes place.
The Read’s sit-in
The Superblock assemblage includes the former Read’s drugstore at the southeast corner of Howard and Lexington streets, where Hicks and other Morgan State students staged an impromptu sit-in at the lunch counter in January of 1955, demanding that African-Americans be served.
At the time, the retail chain had a policy of not providing lunch counter service to African-Americans at any of its 37 stores around the city, including one near the Morgan State campus. The students’ protest, along with others at local Read’s stores, worked: That month, the chain began serving all patrons at all of its Baltimore-area lunch counters, and other local retailers subsequently changed their policies as well.
The Baltimore sit-in predated by five years a better-known 1960 sit-in at a segregated F. W. Woolworth Co. lunch counter in Greensboro, South Carolina, an event that prompted that business and others in the South to start providing lunch counter service to African Americans. It also triggered a sit-in movement.
The Baltimore sit-in was largely overlooked in the annals of U.S. civil rights history, experts say, because it wasn’t photographed or widely reported by the mainstream news media, whereas the South Carolina protest received coverage around the world.
The former Woolworth’s branch in Greensboro has been preserved and now houses the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, which features a restored version of the lunch counter where four protesters, known as the Greensboro Four, sat. Part of the original lunch counter is on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D. C.
The Baltimore protest received more attention after a New Jersey-based developer proposed to tear down the Read’s building to make way for a new mixed-use project called Lexington Square more than 15 years ago.
Hicks joined Baltimore Heritage and other preservationists aiming to save the Read’s building from demolition, stressing its importance in civil rights history. The New Jersey developer never moved ahead with its project. The BDC, responding to the urging of Hicks and others, selected a replacement team that is taking a more preservation-oriented approach, including plans to restore the exterior of the Read’s structure. For now, the Read’s building is still owned by the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City while the selected developer finalizes its plans.
Hicks’ recollections
A longtime administrator with city and state government, Hicks served on Baltimore’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation and belonged to many other groups and commissions. She died in April at the age of 88 and is widely remembered for her efforts as a preservationist and civil rights advocate.
In a 2011 interview, Hicks recalled how the sit-in unfolded. She said she was a student at Morgan State College (now Morgan State University), waiting for a bus at Howard and Lexington streets with six to eight other students, all headed to campus in January. It was shortly after noon and the students were cold and hungry.
At the time, African-Americans could enter a Read’s store to shop but they weren’t served at the lunch counter. African-Americans “could go into Read’s and buy a pack of cigarettes or a pack of gum,” Hicks recalled. “But you couldn’t buy a cup of coffee or tea or anything.”
It was one year after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, which led to the desegregation of U. S. public schools, and civil rights was a front-burner issue. “We felt like we needed to keep the ball rolling,” Hicks said.
While the students waited for the bus, a plan took shape: They would go inside to the store’s first-floor lunch counter and wait to be served. “We just thought: we’re going to go in and sit down and see what happens,” she said.
She said the students entered Read’s and took seats at the lunch counter to indicate they wanted service. Right away, the store’s manager approached and said they would not be served, in keeping with the store’s policy. He also warned that he would call the police if they didn’t leave.
Hicks said the students “stayed for a while,” discussing what to do. Most were upperclassmen and didn’t want to jeopardize their chances of graduating by being arrested.
“At that point, people could only be pressed so hard,” she said. “Pine Street [police] station was three blocks away…We could only do so much…We had no legal right to be there.”
Eventually, the students got up and headed for the door.
“We left voluntarily,” Hicks said. “We wanted to be served, but we didn’t want to go to jail.”
The sit-in lasted less than half an hour. The students weren’t arrested, but they weren’t served either. Within days of the protest, and after protests at other Read’s branches, the company announced that it was changing its policy.
The decision got a one-sentence mention in The Sun, on January 18, 1955. A longer article appeared on January 22 in The Afro-American newspaper, under the headline “Now Serve All,” and word spread more widely after that. Later local protests led to the opening of theaters, restaurants and other businesses that had been closed to African-Americans.
A New York native, Gaia attended the Maryland Institute College of Art and stayed in Baltimore after graduation but works around the world. In mythology, Gaia or Gaea was the ancient Greek goddess of the earth, born at the dawn of creation.
Gaia’s previous local murals include the much-photographed portrait of Mr. Ed the Cat on the side of a house at Remington Avenue and Wyman Park Drive and “I’m So Beautiful,” a portrait of Divine at 106 E. Preston Street in Mount Vernon. He is one of five artists recently named to paint a portrait of a Baltimore mayor for display in City Hall; his subject is Sheila Dixon, who was mayor from 2007 to 2010.
Considering Hicks’ background and contributions to the area, she was a logical subject for a work of art on Lexington Street, Gaia said in a statement.
“Given the context of the Superblock, it only seemed right to acknowledge the legacy of Helena Hicks,” he said. “Hicks was not only instrumental in the original Read’s drug store sit-in, but also helped save the building from demolition many decades later.”
Model for other initiatives
The Art After Dark event drew a diverse crowd, including artists, skateboarders, downtown residents and international visitors attending the placemaking conference. Food trucks lined the street and DJ Impulse provided music while Terry Kilby of Evergreen Digital Imaging captured the muralists making art after dark.
Tonya Miller Hall, Senior Advisor of Arts & Culture in the Mayor’s Office, said the artists’ work on Lexington Street can be a model for improving and energizing other parts of the city. She said murals were created on both Lexington Street and Park Avenue, and several gates that featured previous work have been or will be touched up.
“Art After Dark is more than just an event,” she said. “It was a moment in history and testament to the power of art to transform and unite communities. This project marks an important first step in reimagining and revitalizing unused spaces. We look forward to future collaborations.”
