Linda Grace Morris: Baltimore Boomer Tales from the Hood

Send us Fan Mail Alvin Lee shares with us his family's journey from Nova Scotia to Washington, DC, to Cherry Hill. The son of a schoolteacher and ship's waiter, this young man was destined to chart an out-of-the-ordinary course for himself, and that he did. He tells us how he navigated the waters of segregation coming of age in the 1960s to accomplish breaking barriers in the world of ad...

Send us Fan Mail This is a story of so many twists and turns that I had to do it in two episodes because every detail was essential. Cherry Hill is the launching point for the life that Michael has navigated so well with his faith at the core of his being. As we are told in James 2:26, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." Michael not only put...

Send us Fan Mail After ending Michael's first episode because of time constraints, I felt uneasy because there was more that needed to be said to give you the full view of Michael's journey. I had planned to publish this the following week. However, I think it better serves you, the listener, to have it immediately.  Make every moment count! E-mail me at Lindagracemorris@gmail.com and te...

Send us Fan Mail Salima "Dolly" Siler Marriott describes herself as a feminist activist. That seed was planted by her maternal great-grandmother, Eliza Finney Fosque, who was born in 1874 in Exmore, a small town in Accomack County on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. She was a midwife in the town until 1940. Salima's activism has changed the landscape of the lives of women all over the...

Send us Fan Mail No, they are not twins like Tia and Tamera Mowry, but they do love their hats. Sisters are special. They are our first girlfriends. They protect us and lead the way if we are little sisters. They are a pain--sometimes--if we are big sisters. Even still, blood is thicker than water. Sidney is one of my dearest friends from my Cherry Hill childhood. She was a year ahead of me at Sch...

Send us Fan Mail Dreaming big is something we all should do. In Stephanie's case, she worked for a non-profit called Dream Big in Cherry Hill before exploring her dream in fashion. I met my Millennial friend when I was registering voters at the Cherry Hill Shopping Center for the 2020 Baltimore City Mayoral election. She is a beautiful young woman with a very striking presence, but yet so app...

Send us Fan Mail Whenever Towson's black students need anything done, Kenny Abrams is the go-to man. This Generation X leader has been influential in the University reckoning with its racial slights of the past. From the naming of a dormitory in honor of Towson's two first black graduates or coordinating support for a bust of the first Dean of Minority Affairs, Kenny was involved. In thi...

Send us Fan Mail Ella Gross is another friend from my childhood. We were children in the same church, and we later met up in high school. We have maintained our friendship through the years just hanging out occasionally and fellowshipping over Ella's cooking. She makes a mean kidney stew and waffles and bakes great cakes for all occasions.  Make every moment count! E-mail me at Lindagracemorr...

Send us Fan Mail Terry Banks is the nephew of Cherry Hill's Dr. Jerry Luck. He grew up as the only child, and was the son of Dr. Luck's oldest sister, Theresa, and William Banks.  His parents were educators, and his mother taught at several Baltimore schools, including Northern High School from which she retired as a counselor. Terry says that Jerry, Jr., and his brother, Larry, were mor...

Send us Fan Mail Baltimore's Billy Murphy truly is a man of the people. Ironically, Billy is a member of the Silent Generation. However, silent he has never been. Everyone knows of his legal prowess from him winning some of the most prominent cases of our time. He is a crusader for the underrepresented and the downtrodden. The only thing he is missing is his superhero's cape. However, he...

Send us Fan Mail I first met Rethia Roach in my early years at Cherry Hill Elementary School #159. She lived right in front of the school. How neat! I caught up with her as she was visiting with Jacqueline Sewell Thomas, the subject of Episode 17. We had a wonderful time discussing our life in Cherry Hill. Make every moment count! E-mail me at Lindagracemorris@gmail.com and tell me in 25 words or...

Send us Fan Mail It is hard to imagine that Dr. Nicole Fabricant, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Sociology, and Criminal Justice at Towson University, takes time to eat and sleep. She is a ball of energy modeling passionate involvement for her students with causes that impact their lives. I met Nicole, a member of Generation X, when I was introduced to the community garden that used to be in...

Send us Fan Mail As pictured above from left to right, Juanita and Anita are identical twins. When I booked this interview, my assumption was that they would talk about how similar they are. However, to my surprise, they expressed their differences. Listen to their journey as twins and hear how each has traveled through time as a twin, but also individual women. As noted in the interview, Anita is...

Send us Fan Mail Rose Backus Davis Hamm is the wife of Leonard Hamm, the subject of Episode 16. Rose began her professional life with the Baltimore Public School System doing crisis intervention teaching. She ended as principal of the Frederick Douglass High School. Rose shares with us the story of her life and her innovative career in education.  Make every moment count! E-mail me at Lindagracemo...

Send us Fan Mail Although this podcast is not necessarily about Cherry Hill, Cherry Hill is a recurring theme because that was my home for my elementary school years, and I have made a lot of contacts since writing the Cherry Hill book. Rev. Braxton contributed a piece to the book about neighbors loading up their cars on Sunday morning--way before seat belts--with the neighborhood kids and droppin...

Send us Fan Mail When my cousins and I get together, it's like a pajama party. We always find some morsel of information about the family that we did not know. When my grandparents, Alfred Louis and Mary Ann Kellam Speaks, got married, they had 9 children of 12 that survived to adulthood--8 girls and 1 boy. They were, in order, Rosina Speaks Wiggins, Mary Speaks Harmon McGuire, Margaret Speak...

Send us Fan Mail In 1948, 16-year-old Harriet Eleanor Taylor found herself struggling to be a mother to two children, one a year old and the other 4-months-old. Her prominent black middle-class family shunned poor Harriet as they tried to take her babies away from her. They found an aunt in Cleveland who was willing to take the older child, but Harriet was so fearful of losing the child she had kn...

Send us Fan Mail "The Hill" will always be in Leonard Hamm's heart--as with many of us first generation Cherry Hill kids. It may sound trite to many of you, but you just had to be there. The brand new Cherry Hill Homes community had the greenest grass, the bluest skies, and the freshest air, fragranced with honeysuckle--when you weren't smelling the trash from the dump. All of...

Send us Fan Mail Ever since Rick Nelson and Jenny Wilson met in the quadrangle on the Poly/Western High School campus in the 1970s, they have been sailing through life together--literally. They kept the relationship alive through college and graduate school by telephone, and the rest is history. These Baltimore Boomers share their love for each other and the sailing life. Make every moment count!...

Send us Fan Mail There are times when you meet people who are called to do what it is they do.    Dr. Marcy Rachamim Jackson is one such person. At an early age, she began relating to the people with special needs who resided in her grandmother's home as family. When she had a child with special needs, Dr. Jackson did the work necessary to find him services. After over 17 years of formally ho...

Send us Fan Mail Each week I will have commentary on where the podcast stands or is going. In this episode, I have also provided my thinking on the contributions of the author, Antero Pietila, the former Baltimore Sun reporter, and William Lloyd Adams, known to many Baltimoreans as Little Willie Adams.  Make every moment count! E-mail me at Lindagracemorris@gmail.com and tell me in 25 words or les...

Send us Fan Mail Boomers range in age from 79 to 61. Kevin and Mary were not aware they were Baby Boomers until this interview. I chose to interview them because whenever I see them, they seem like newlyweds. Hear their advice for staying together and enjoying the journey. Make every moment count! E-mail me at Lindagracemorris@gmail.com and tell me in 25 words or less why I should interview you.

Send us Fan Mail Wayne and Debbie are my cousins. They have a delightful story of life as a career military family. High school sweethearts, they married at 18, and the rest is history. They have travelled internationally and at one time, considered staying in Europe.  Their children were raised multiculturally, which prompted one of them to ask--when in an inner-city McDonald's--where are th...

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Jerry Luck, Sr., was another iconic member of the Cherry Hill community. Rain or shine, night or day, he was there for us and only charged $ 3 per visit into the late 1960s. According to his daughter-in-law, Kathy Kyper Luck, Dr. and Mrs. Gertrude Luck lived in public housing when they first moved to Cherry Hill in 1945 because the houses on Swale Avenue were not completed yet...

Send us Fan Mail Each week on Wednesday as I publish new episodes, I will give you some thoughts that I have collected since the previous week. These thoughts can pertain to something that happened over the course of the week, or they could be totally random. This week I am discussing feedback I have received from friends about the podcast. It would probably be helpful for you to listen to Boomer...