A wall separating Morgan State University from a white neighborhood has been torn down.
The wall, known as the “spite wall, was erected nearly a century ago to divide the historically Black college from its white neighbors.
“It feels great to get rid of hatred,” Morgan State University President David K. Wilson said to The Washington Post in an interview. “To tear down that wall is the first step in removing a physical sign every single day of what our students and larger community had to go through — had to endure from an all-White neighborhood.”
Morgan State was founded in 1867 next to the white neighborhood. White neighbors protested the move during a meeting attended by 257 people. During the meeting, angry whites said they were intent on “fighting [the] invasion of their pure white community by an [N]egro institution, colony or settlement of any kind,” the Baltimore Sun reported, according to The Washington Post. The report also noted that one neighbor said he’d rather live with ignorant Blacks than educated Blacks.
The Washington Post reported that a lawsuit was filed, attempting to block the construction of Morgan State. The lawsuit alleged that the mostly-Black school would bring down property value in the white neighborhood. However, a judge ruled in favor of Morgan State.
“It is clear that the improvement of land as a colored residential neighborhood is not of itself a public nuisance,” a judge concluded in 1918,” The Washington Post wrote.
Morgan State University’s Associate Vice President of Facilities, Kim McCalla, told The Washington Post that another border would be added but would not divide the two communities.
“All feelings of what the wall meant to many people are being relieved now,” McCalla added. “They’re being replaced with something thinking toward the future with openness.”
As a reminder of the history of Morgan State, parts of the spite wall will remain, Wilson said to the outlet.