
Linda Grace Morris: Baltimore Boomer Tales from the Hood
Baltimore was the place to be in the 1950s and 1960s, bustling with all the industry and social change about to come. For African Americans, it was a jobs magnet with all the major manufacturers. Those living in Turner Station and Sparrows Point, the company town built to host the Bethlehem Steel Company, had the highest per capita income for African Americans in the nation. Cherry Hill, the only planned community built for African Americans by the Federal Government, lifted many Baltimore Boomers into the middle class. This podcast walks down memory lane through the neighborhoods and good times--despite segregation--that those growing up there can never forget.
Episodes
38 episodes
Rita Toy-Carr, Lost and Found Cousin
Rita Toy-Carr is a 2nd cousin gifted to me by Ancestry.com shortly before COVID hit. The reason I can remember is that I am so grateful that she got to speak with the Speaks family historian, in the oral tradition. Leon was the family's greates...
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Season 1
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Episode 36
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26:21

Patricia Pinkney Gaither: Standing Her Ground!
From the moment you hear Patricia introduce herself, you can tell she is a take charge person. Her childhood and adolescence in Cherry Hill prepared her to make her way in the world. And no wonder. As it turns out, she has no-nonsense ancestors...
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Season 1
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Episode 36
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1:00:14

Pastor Donald Jones, Turner Station Servant Leader
Donald Jones did not set out to be a minister. He took a very circuitous route. However, he got there, he's there. His family migrated to Baltimore in the early 1940s like so many black families searching for better lives. They moved to Baltimo...
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Season 1
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Episode 35
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35:17

Cherry Hill's Own Mad (Advertising) Man, Alvin Lee
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 ...
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Season 1
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Episode 34
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50:00

Leon Bailey: Navy's First African American Wrestling Champion in New England
When Leon Bailey won first place for his wrestling division weighing 136 ½ pounds at the Quonset Point Navy Base in Rhode Island in 1964, he became the first African American to win a Navy wrestling championship in New England. Leon had been pr...
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Season 1
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Episode 33
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35:34

Michael P. Burnside: The Rest of the Story
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 ...
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Season 1
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Episode 32
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19:21

Michael P. Burnside: A Story of Faith, Works, and the Good Things that Came Forth
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 w...
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Season 1
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Episode 31
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52:42

Salima "Dolly" Siler Marriott: She put the "A" in Activism!
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 Virgin...
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Season 1
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Episode 30
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40:22

Cherry Hill Sister/Sister with Sidney Rauls Ellis and Deborah Rauls Wallace
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. Ev...
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Season 1
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Episode 29
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31:44

Stephanie Amponsah Dreaming Big
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 Shop...
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Season 1
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Episode 28
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23:33

Ella Gross: A Friend for All Seasons
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. S...
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Season 1
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Episode 27
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15:35

Kenny Abrams: President, Towson University's Black Alumni Alliance
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...
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Season 1
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Episode 26
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33:49

Terry M. Banks, Esq., More Luck Family Values
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 schoo...
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Season 1
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Episode 25
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42:09
Rethia Roach Nickerson: Make New Friends, But Keep the Old!
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 wond...
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Season 1
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Episode 24
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29:21

William H. Murphy, Jr., Esq.--Doing Unto Others!
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....
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Season 1
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Episode 23
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42:15

Nicole Fabricant, Ph.D.: Professor with a Cause--or Two or Three!
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 wi...
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Season 1
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Episode 22
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33:00

The Art of Twinning with Juanita Montez Eberra Guess and Anita June Eberra Nash
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 t...
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Season 1
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Episode 21
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35:56

Rose Backus Davis Hamm: A Reason to Want to Go to the Principal's Office
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 Sc...
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Season 1
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Episode 20
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45:36

Rev. Michael C. Braxton, Sr.--Yes, That Braxton Family!
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...
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Season 1
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Episode 19
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40:37

Speaks Family Matters!
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...
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Season 1
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Episode 18
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49:33

Jacqueline Sewell-Thomas's Tale of Two Loving Mothers
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 f...
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Season 1
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Episode 17
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33:57

Cherry Hill's Top Cop: Former Baltimore City Police Commissioner, Leonard Hamm
"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 blue...
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Season 1
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Episode 16
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34:49
Rick and Jenny Wilson Nelson, Proprietors of the Annapolis Sailing School
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 ...
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Season 1
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Episode 15
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29:43

Marcy Rachamim Jackson and Her Super Power: Special Education Advocacy
There are times when you meet people who are called to do what it is they do. Marcy Rachamim Jackson is one such person. Her paternal grandmother, Martha Anderson, modeled advocacy for people with special needs early in Marcy's life. Marcy shar...
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Season 1
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Episode 14
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38:42

Boomer Thoughts of the Week 06/19/2025
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...
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Season 1
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Episode 13
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25:11
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