Ms. Gloria: A Maryland Icon

Artistic processes play into my curiosity. When the Chesapeake Arts Center posted a Call for Art for HER Maryland, I knew it was an opportunity for me to learn about women in Maryland who I wanted to know more about.

As soon as I mentioned it to my partner, she told me about an iconic photograph of Miss Gloria Richardson in Cambridge, MD (which is now a part of the collection at the National Museum of African American History and Culture).

I was in, and that led me down a path of learning more about this iconic woman born in Baltimore and raised in Cambridge, MD. I want to share opportunities for you to listen to her experiences and reflections yourself.

As Mr. Baldwin said, "we carry [history] within us...it is literally present in all that we do."

“A first-class citizen does not beg for freedom. A first-class citizen does not plead to the white power-structure to give him something that the whites have no power to give or take away. Human rights are human rights, not white rights.”

-Gloria Richardson, SNCC Digital Gateway

Eastern Shore Network for Change
Interview by Kisha Petticolas as a part of the Reflections on Pine series of event

More on the Eastern Shore Network for Change and the way they are continuing the work.

“...And then they get violent and then you get more determined.”

-Gloria Richardson, ESNC Interview

Library of Congress
Civil Rights History Project Interview

How Gloria Richardson’s Look of Righteous Indignation Became a Symbol of No Retreat

Smithsonian Magazine interview by Janelle Harris Dixon

“[History likes] to call them riots, but they were shoot-outs. Because at night, cars would come by shooting at our houses,” she told us. “It was more like a war. I mean, there were times when you couldn’t even go out in the street because the shooting back and forth was so bad.”

-Gloria Richardson, How Gloria Richardson's Look of Righteous Indignation Became a Symbol of No Retreat

Voices of the Chesapeake Bay
Episode 47