position . She would run the branch until 1970 . Murphy supported Jackson ’ s leadership as Chair of the Legal Redress Committee , helping to decide which cases the NAACP would take on and obtaining funds to support them .
One pivotal case for which Murphy helped raise money is Brown v . Board of Education . His work ensured that Thurgood Marshall — then a young Baltimore attorney before becoming a Supreme Court Justice — and his struggling lawyers could carry the “ separate but equal doctrine ” and the school desegregation suits all the way to the Supreme Court .
He also fought hard against the restaurants along U . S . Route 1 ( the highway between Baltimore and Washington , D . C .) that refused to serve African Americans . According to an AFRO article by Murphy ’ s daughter Frances L . Murphy , he embarrassed the restaurant owners by having two of his reporters dress up as African dignitaries and ride down the highway in a limousine to eat at the larger restaurants . All served the “ African diplomats ” and the color barriers soon dropped .
The Fight for Freedom
Baltimore ’ s Civil Rights Legacy
Baltimore ’ s bold and unapologetic approach to fighting injustice can be traced to the brave individuals who made the first moves toward civil rights locally and nationally .
Long before the official Civil Rights Movement began , two famous Marylanders were working to abolish slavery and advance opportunities for African Americans . Revolutionary author and abolitionist onist Frederick Douglass spent time in Baltimore as both an enslaved individual and a prosperous free man — a history that is explored at the Frederick
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Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park Museum in Fell ’ s Point .
Harriet Tubman landed in Baltimore in 1850 after helping her family escape to freedom via the Underground Railroad — the first of 13 dangerous forays into Maryland that facilitated the escape of about 70 enslaved individuals . One such story is memorialized at Pier 4 outside the National Aquarium , where Tubman helped a woman named Tilly . You can learn more about the role Baltimore played in the Underground Railroad , and the stories of those who took the journey , at the B & O Railroad Museum , an official Network to Freedom Site .
Douglass and Tubman ’ s resilient spirit is also seen in Baltimore ’ s 20th-century civil rights leaders and the AFRO journalists who covered their fight for equal treatment . In 1931 , future NAACP leader Lillie Carroll Jackson and her daughters , Juanita and Virginia , spearheaded Baltimore ’ s “ Buy Where You Can Work ” campaign , encouraging boycotts of businesses that refused to hire Black people . One decade later , in 1944 , Baltimorean Irene Morgan was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on an interstate bus traveling from Virginia to Maryland — 11 years before Claudette Colvin ’ s and Rosa Parks ’ better-known refusals . And in 1955 , protesters from Morgan
State University and the Congress of Racial Equality ( CORE ) staged successful sit-ins at two Read ’ s Drugstores in Baltimore , leading the chain to desegregate all 39 of its Baltimore-area locations and sparking similar protests in Greensboro , NC and Wichita , KS .
The AFRO covered these issues , and many more , extensively when other publications would not , galvanizing and emboldening the city ’ s residents to join the movement for their civil rights . As the nation prepared for the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom , the AFRO wrote article after article publicizing the event , and sent more than 10 reporters to cover all aspects of the March — from the speakers to the fashion , youth organizers and more .
The AFRO Archives illustrate the paper ’ s outsized influence on the city ’ s ( and state ’ s ) Civil Rights Movement . The collection includes more than 3 million photographs , reporters ’ notebooks and rare audio recordings among other ephemera collected since the paper ’ s founding . Afro Charities , a nonprofit partner to the media company helmed by fifthgeneration Murphy descendant Savannah Wood , manages a this archive and makes it accessible to the public through reference services and artistic and educational programming .
The historic Upton Mansion ( pictured left ) will become home to AFRO News , and Afro Charities ’ state-of-the-art research center . Expected to open in 2026 , it will feature millions of archived items , some of which are pictured to the right .