Professor Gibson began by saying that he would like to bear witness to the good work of the Archives staff and to give a couple illustrations of the value of that work.  The internet presently may respond to a query on the civil rights movement and specifically "sit-ins" with a description that the important phase of the movement to end discrimination in public accommodation, the sitting-in at restaurants, began in February 1960 at a Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina.  Professor Gibson related how, for twenty years, this description has upset him because the sit-in movement began at least five years earlier at Morgan State.  He was also aware of several other important initial beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement that had occurred in Maryland.  With the backing of the new president of Morgan State University, Dr. David Wilson, Professor Gibson worked with Dr. Papenfuse on an exhibit of ten panels containing images and information relating to Morgan State's involvement in the sit-in movement, which began on the corner of Loch Raven and Cold Spring Lane.  In 1954, Morgan students began sitting-in in a Read's Drug Store on that corner in an effort to desegregate.  By January 1955, because of the actions of these students and another group, all 37 Read's Drug Store lunch counters were desegregated.  Morgan students continued their sit-in actions, desegregating 17 Arundel's Ice Cream Stores.  Professor Gibson had on display for the Commission members four of the 10 panels for the exhibit, the first one depicting five important beginnings, including the first mass demonstration of equal educational opportunities that occurred in 1947 when 600 Morgan students came to Annapolis to push for support for Morgan State.  The school had meager facilities and did not have a gymnasium.  One of the other panels covers the sit-in movement in which Chief Judge Bell participated, and summarizes his court case which went to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Professor Gibson lauded the work of the Archives staff, which assisted in providing images from newspaper accounts from the time.  One of the prime finds was the names of students from the police dockets for the Northeastern District of Baltimore, who were arrested at the Northwood Theater.  The technique of mass arrest was used, with 415 students, mostly from Morgan State, arrested for entering the Northwood Theater.  An unconfirmed story relates that there were so many students to arrest and not enough paddy wagons to transport them to the police station, the police told the students that if they wanted to be arrested they would have to transport themselves to the police station, which they did.  Professor Gibson credited the Archives' staff with the detail evident on the panels.  The images, names, and newspaper clippings are all a result primarily of the work of the Archives staff.  Professor Gibson informed the Commission members that they will receive an invitation to the opening of the exhibit, projected to be in October.

Professor Gibson gave another example of the research ability of the Archives' staff.  During the time of the 'birther' controversy surrounding President Obama, Professor Gibson, who has been working on a book about Thurgood Marshall, thought that he should try to get a copy of Mr. Marshall's birth certificate.  Professor Gibson's book takes place before Mr. Marshall goes to New York to work for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and at the time, Professor Gibson only had the information concerning Mr. Marshall's birth, not the certificate.  In addition, during a trip to the Library of Congress, Professor Gibson came across a letter in which Mr. Marshall asks for a leave of absence from his job as a clinic clerk in the Health Department prior to departing for New York.  With just a brief description of the contents of that letter, Dr. Papenfuse asked Owen Lourie to search both for the birth certificate and any available information pertaining to Mr. Marshall's job as a clinic clerk.  In a relatively short period of time, Mr. Lourie produced a copy of Mr. Marshall's birth certificate and a copy from 1936 of Mr. Marshall's city service commission employment card showing the actual records of when he worked for the city, what his salary was ($50 a month), the vacations that he took, and the cutoff ticket when he departed the job.  Professor Gibson is convinced that this success is directly attributable to the outstanding capabilities of the Archives' staff, Owen Lourie, and the work that the Archives has been able to accomplish in reconstituting the Baltimore City Archives.  Chief Judge Bell commented that, on Mr. Marshall's birth certificate, Mr. Marshall's first name was initially Thoroughgood and that it is stricken through with the corrected spelling of Thurgood written above.  Professor Gibson noted that Mr. Marshall had talked during his life about how he had asked his parents to change his first name, to make it shorter, and that he had changed his own first name.  Professor Gibson mentioned that finding the documentation behind the changing of Mr. Marshall's first name could become another research project.

Professor Gibson then expanded on the description of Mr. Greaves' involvement in the Sister City relationship between Baltimore and Gbarnga, Liberia, established in 1972.  The relationship was elevated to the Maryland - Liberia Sister State relationship approximately two years later.  There are many places in Liberia with Maryland names, the Maryland County of Liberia for instance, because the colonization movement that established Liberia was very active in Maryland.  There was even a former president of Liberia whose name is Gibson.

Chief Judge Bell thanked Professor Gibson for his presentation, after which Professor Gibson and Mr. Greaves departed for another meeting.

Archiving of audio files presents a number of difficulties.  We will be working with other archival institutions, including the Washington State Archives, to develop the ability to convert, index and preserve audio files.  A bill last year to establish the Joint Committee on Transparency and Openness allowed public bodies to post streaming audio and video on the internet of open meetings, in lieu of written minutes of the meeting.  The Archives wants to ensure that we can successfully harvest and archive what, for many municipal and state agencies, would be considered permanent record material.  See SB 664 (http://www.msa.md.gov/megafile/msa/stagsere/se1/se14/000000/000033/pdf/ch_508_sb0644e.pdf) and HB 766 (http://www.msa.md.gov/megafile/msa/stagsere/se1/se14/000000/000033/pdf/ch_509_hb0766e.pdf).  Another aspect of this is that there is no easy way to take the voices on the recordings and convert them to searchable text.  Dr. Papenfuse explained that the Washington State Archives included the Maryland State Archives in their partnership with Microsoft to test a new set of software programs, which Microsoft believes will be able to take recorded voices, identify the voices, and provide searchable text.  Dr. Papenfuse promised to keep the Commission members informed of the progress of this project.

Mr. Baker described a collaboration between the Maryland State Archives and the Washington State Archives, as well as other regional Archives.  The Washington State Archives initiated a grant application for these Archives to partner and store electronic data in a regional archive approach, each state storing a back-up copy of another of the states' electronic archival data.

Mr. Baker recognized Mimi Calver as the representative of the Friends of the Maryland State Archives.  Ms. Calver described that one of the functions of the Friends, aside from helping with acquisitions, is to help fund publications about Maryland history and culture..  Ms. Calver brought to the attention of the Commission members their complimentary issue of Maryland's Art Collection:  A Treasure of Paintings, Sculpture & Decorative Arts.  While not a comprehensive look at the collection, it highlights some of the works in the collection.  Ms. Calver commented on the coincidence that the image on the front of the publication is the same image used today to highlight Flag Day, the portrait Washington, Lafayette and Tilghman.  The publication was partially funded by a grant from the Four Rivers Heritage Area, and will be sold for a modest amount to offset the amount of money that the Friends invested in the project.  In addition to a book on the Willard Hackerman print collection, the Friends will be working on a beautiful, high quality publication of the thesis on the James Brice House written by Orlando Ridout IV for his Master's at the University of Maryland.  The James Brice House is one of the best documented Colonial houses in America and the publication will include James Brice's account book containing great detail of all of the expenses of the house.  Dr. Papenfuse clarified that, while the state helps with some of the technical side, the bulk of the cost to publish these books is done through the support of the Friends of the Maryland State Archives.

The first image was of a daguerrotype that was listed for sale on eBay for a very short while.  Dr. Papenfuse had captured the image, but the original has disappeared.  It is unknown if there is a Baltimore connection, but it is clear that there is a Civil War connection.  The image shows a little girl in a plaid dress holding a carte de visit of a Civil War soldier.

In the second image are two young African American women wearing plaid; these are the Edmondson sisters.  The Edmondson sisters were two young women who were slaves working in households in Washington D.C.  They were enticed to run away to the ship Pearl, which, when escaping down the Potomac, lost wind allowing the slaves onboard to be recaptured.  The Edmondson sisters were subsequently sold into prostitution in New Orleans.  Harriett Beecher Stowe's brother, Henry Ward Beecher, raised money to buy the Edmondson sisters out of slavery, and they were taken to Dr. Papenfuse's hometown of Macedon, a small town outside of Rochester, New York.  In Macedon, the Edmondson sisters learned to read and write.  The man in the center of the displayed image is Frederick Douglass, who was instrumental in providing for their education.  Unfortunately, the younger Edmondson sister died shortly, but the older sister went on to teach in the free black school that Ms. Miner created in Washington, DC.

The third image shows a little girl in a plaid dress and is one of the most poignant, saddest images for Dr. Papenfuse.  A book that Dr. Papenfuse encouraged others to read, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, tells the story of a woman who died at Hopkins Hospital from a huge range of diseases, including cancer.  Henrietta Lacks' cells proved to be the most remarkable, resilient cells ever created in a human being, and they are still being used today for cancer research.  They are the only human cells that scientists have been able to constantly and perpetually reproduce and use for scientific purposes.  The young lady in the displayed image is the daughter of Henrietta Lacks, named Elsie.  Elsie died an "idiot" in Crownsville Hospital, which was pretty close to a prison.  She looks like any normal, sweet little girl, but she was far more than that, carrying the same genes as her mother.

 Dr. Papenfuse described to the Commission members his participation in the archaeological work at the Notley Plantation on the Wicomico River, just off the Potomac River, which is what his blog "Follow the Yellow Brick" is all about.  It is an extraordinary story of 17th century Maryland.  Julia King is doing a remarkable job with the archaeology and has discovered a settlement of people who were quite entrepreneurial and wealthy, acquiring 50,000 yellow bricks from the person who brought them from Sweden and distributing them among their houses up and down the Wicomico River.  The residents were able to acquire the bricks through the establishment of an Admiralty Court and the ground rules of the British non-importation laws, laws regulating trade in that particular time.  It has become clear that the families along the Wicomico River, prosperous planters of the 17th century, benefited from those 50,000 yellow bricks, as they can be found all over the place.