The last bit of my internship with the Legacy of Slavery in
Maryland program at the Maryland State Archives continued my work in refining
their public facing content, researching victims, and writing new content for
their website. Additionally, I was tasked with researching Henry Davis (lynched
in 1906) exhaustively. Some representatives from the state government and
offices of former Governor O’Malley wanted to highlight the history of Anne
Arundel, including Henry Davis’ lynching in Annapolis. Hopes were high that
there would be some state documentation or record of the incident because the
governor back in 1907 took particular outrage with Davis’ lynching. I tore
through a number of sources at both the county and state level. Unfortunately,
the perpetrators of this crime were never brought to justice and based on the
absence of any records from the grand jury assigned to investigating the matter
it appears the governor’s wishes for charges were ignored. This last period
also saw me contesting a few lynching reports that we had been given by the
University of Washington. A few instances turned out to not actually have taken
place in Maryland or had little to no evidence to support placing them on the
website. Compared to the start of my internship, this last third was not the
flood putting content out the first few months were. We had to go name-by-name
and edit/check the work of other volunteers and interns up to this point to
ensure we were putting out a consistent product.
Overall this project highlighted the frustrations of
researching lynchings. Whether it’s the juries not pursuing the lynch mob or
families not being safe to return and identify the bodies, a number of
circumstances ensured that these incidents are not recorded in an “official”
manner which makes extracting these stories all the more difficult. I think
that also shows why the work done at the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland program
is massively important. Without a concentrated effort to uncover these bits of
information then a lot of these victims would go forgotten. Similar to the
barebones question of did something happen or not, we also had to contend with “did
these long passed down stories actually happen here? Or were they passed down
as families moved across the country?” I think that is where the
interdisciplinary and community of researchers across the country come in
handy.
In addition to the skills in writing, researching, and dreamweaver
that I picked up over the course of my internship, I have also acquired a deep
respect for the employees of the Maryland State Archives. I had the opportunity
to partake in database creation, adding new material to the archives, researching
both archived materials and newspapers, as well as constructing a good deal of
public facing online content. Still, I only got a taste for the sort of
research and organization involved in archive operation during my time with
them, but it was overall fascinating. I look forward to continuing to volunteer
with the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland program long after this internship has
ended.
