Mount Vernon Literary Tour: John H. Murphy

Be Here Stories

The Mount Vernon Literary Tour is created by The Baltimore National Heritage Area (BNHA), which promotes, preserves, and enhances Baltimore's historic and cultural legacy and natural resources for current and future generations. A site-by-site walking tour of this and other destinations is available at www.https://bnha.visit.zone/ Located at Corner of Charles and Hamilton Streets (Looking down East Hamilton) Transcript: Looking down East Hamilton Street, you will see the only remaining structures from a thriving Black neighborhood destroyed in the 1910s to make way for Preston Gardens. It was in this neighborhood that John Murphy (b. 1840, d. 1922), a formerly enslaved man, chose to locate the Afro-American newspaper in 1899. Murphy had acquired the paper two years earlier, and its new home at 307 St. Paul Street, surrounded by the Black professional class, reflected ambitious plans. He soon developed the Afro into the most widely circulated Black newspaper on the East Coast and a leading voice for Black advancement. It moved to northwest Baltimore in the early 20th century. After Murphy’s death, his son Carl brought the newspaper to national prominence. Poet Langston Hughes, artist Romare Bearden, and legendary sportswriter Sam Lacy (a key figure in integrating professional sports) appeared in its pages. The Afro remains the nation’s oldest family-owned Black newspaper.