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2024 Election Coverage

Shining light on enslavers in Congress and honoring those held in bondage

At least 36 enslaved individuals worked and lived at Homewood estate. Today, the home is a museum on the campus of Johns Hopkins University.

Half a century after the 13th Amendment ended slavery, people who had been slaveholders continued to serve in Congress.

Washington Post reporter Julie Weil describes her research into the more than 1700 Congressmen who were enslavers at some point in their lives.

Check out the WaPo Q&A about this research.

One of those members of Congress was Charles Carroll of Carrollton. We hear from curator Michelle Fitzgerald and scholar Jasmine Blanks Jones about an effort to honor the Black people held in bondage by the Carroll family at their Homewood Estate in Baltimore, on which Johns Hopkins University sits today.

Read about the Ritual of Remembrance. Learn more about the Ross family.

Admission at Homewood Museum will be free in February in honor of Black History Month. Registration required. Details here.

Sheilah Kast is the host of On The Record, Monday-Friday, 9:30-10:00 am.
Maureen Harvie is Senior Supervising Producer for On the Record. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and joined WYPR in 2014 as an intern for the newsroom. Whether coordinating live election night coverage, capturing the sounds of a roller derby scrimmage, interviewing veterans, or booking local authors, she is always on the lookout for the next story.