Northwood Theater Protest

Hooded Protester in front of Northwood Theatre, photograph by Richard Childress (1939–1984), 1960s, Maryland Center for History and Culture, H. Furlong Baldwin Library, Childress Collection, PP177.102.

In 1955, students from Morgan State College began a protest of the Northwood Shopping Center. While many of the stores dropped their segregated policies by 1963, the Northwood Theatre refused. Peaceful protests of the theater’s policy occurred sporadically over eight years. On February 18, 1963, Morgan students, supported by the NAACP, and influenced by tactics from the southern civil rights movement, escalated their tactics to include mass arrest. That same night, 150 students out of 300 who picketed were arrested. Over six days, police arrested over 340 students. Six days after the activists escalated their tactics, the Northwood Theatre integrated.