Living Classrooms Foundation

🇺🇸 Happy Flag Day! 🇺🇸

Today we celebrate one of the most enduring symbols of our nation — the Stars and Stripes.

As America prepares to mark its 250th anniversary, Sail250® Maryland & Airshow Baltimore presented by Northrop Grumman is proud to welcome ships, sailors, and visitors from around the world to Baltimore's waterfront in June 2026. Together, we'll honor our nation's history, maritime heritage, and the spirit that continues to unite us.
Raise your flag, celebrate our past, and look ahead to an unforgettable celebration on Baltimore Harbor.

📸 (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class John Suits)

Identity Clinic‼️ June 16, from 9:00am to 1:00pm at 1100 E Fayette St. 21202.

Need help getting your ID, birth certificate, or Social Security card? Come to Living Classrooms FREE Identity Clinic on June 16th!

🚨 LIMITED TO THE FIRST 30 PEOPLE! First come, first served. 🚨

Get help with:
• Birth certificates
• Social Security card applications
• REAL ID documents
• Maryland record expungement

Call 410-591-6710 for info.

Join us on June 13 for a Community Shoreline Clean-Up at Masonville Cove and help remove litter before it can make its way into local waterways. Every bottle, wrapper, and stray piece of trash you pick up helps protect wildlife, improve water quality, and keep our shoreline beautiful.

Need student service learning hours? We've got you covered. One hour + One shoreline = One Happy Trash Wheel! Together, we can show trash who's boss.

Register at https://www.masonvillecove.org/event-info/community-shoreline-clean-up-45

Come visit the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park Museum to learn more! Open Monday-Friday from 9:00am-4:00pm.

We mentioned the Chesapeake Marine Railway and Dry Dock Company - the Black-owned shipyard founded after the 1858 riots.

Here's what that actually looked like.

Fell's Point, Baltimore. A full shipyard with a marine railway for hauling ships out of water, a dry dock, and workshop facilities. Over 300 Black workers at its peak - shipwrights, caulkers, carpenters, blacksmiths. All skilled tradesmen building and repairing vessels.

John W. Locks ran it as president. Isaac Myers, the founder, had been a ship caulker pushed out of white-owned yards. Both knew exactly what they were building: a place where Black workers owned the means of production, set their own wages, controlled hiring, and kept the profits.

This wasn't symbolic. It was a functioning, profitable shipyard that competed directly with white-owned operations.

The work was the same - building ships, repairing damaged vessels, caulking seams to make them watertight. But the power structure was completely different.

The legacy of 612-614 S. Wolfe Street didn't end when the monopoly broke. It evolved. From negotiating with white employers to becoming their competition. From trade association to shipyard ownership.

That's what resilience looks like.

👉 shipcaulkers.org

Source: Sarah Groesbeck. "The Ship Caulkers' Houses: Honoring the Legacy of Baltimore's Black Ship Caulkers". Our History, Our Heritage: The Maryland Historical Trust Blog. February 22, 2023.