Black Lives in Focus: African American Faces from Early Maryland 

Registration not required, but encouraged. Please register for the event here.

Maryland’s 19th century African American community has a rich visual legacy that extends beyond Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. This program will introduce original print and photographic portraits from the Ross J. Kelbaugh Collection of Black enslaved and free Marylanders, the largest collection in the state, discovered through 50+ years of search and research. From the earliest identified portrait of an enslaved Marylander in 1750, the program then focuses on photographic images of these largely forgotten people from the 1845-1870s including rare daguerreotypes and wet-plate photographs accompanied by their recently discovered stories. Most of the photographs in this presentation from The Ross J. Kelbaugh Collection were just acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. through the generous support of the Ford Foundation to now make these images a permanent part of the American memory.

ASL interpretation will be available for attendees.

Presented in partnership with The Maryland State Archives and The Maryland Four Centuries Project.