The museum was founded by the railroad itself so it had this long legacy of being sort of inward-looking, and meanwhile, with new leadership there, I think we started looking around, and we were looking and seeing, hey, we have 42 acres in West Baltimore, we're the largest institution in West Baltimore, physically, and we're not seeing the community here. - Jonathan Goldman, B&O Railroad Museum
On September 8, Hard Histories practitioners and their colleagues gathered at Baltimore’s Reginald F. Lewis Museum for a series of roundtable conversations. Here, we bring you the first of those exchanges, one that centered on how the practice of hard history can generate questions about institutional missions and even promote their change.
Listen in here to David O. Fakunle of the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Jonathan Goldman and Anna Kresmer of the B&O Railroad, and Theresa Sotto of the Walters Art Museum, led in conversation by Ron Cassie from Baltimore Magazine.
Next week: Changing Narratives at Baltimore’s Hard Histories.
— MSJ