Lillie Carroll Jackson Civil Rights Museum tells stories of triumph, tragedy

Lynching is a little-known part of Maryland history that a new museum in Baltimore portrays in its exhibits.Inside the Lillie Carroll Jackson Civil Rights Museum, you'll find galleries full of history, pictures and stories showing triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement in Baltimore, as well as the tragedies of Maryland's past."A lot of people don't realize or think lynchings took place in Maryland," said Iris Leigh Barnes, the museum's associate director and curator. "They think about the deep south, but they took place all over."A few steps into the museum hangs a banner that reads: "A man was lynched yesterday." It serves as a reminder that the last recorded lynching in Maryland was less than a century ago."This is 1933 in Princess Anne and the lynching of George Armwood," Barnes said. "George Armwood's lynching was brutal. Not only did they cut off his ear and pluck out his gold teeth, but they set him ablaze."The aftermath of that brutal moment was documented, written in ink and published for the world to see by a man named Clarence Mitchell Jr."Clarence was a reporter for the Afro-American newspaper, and so he, along with the photographer, Paul Henderson, went down under the cover of darkness," Barnes said. "Initially, he was looking for a different path for his career, but this changed him. Some things you can't unsee." Mitchell went on to be a civil rights activist and a leader within the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, but the story that sparked it all. Armwood's story still lives on.While it may be hard to look at and hard to read, museum leaders said it's worth knowing."We need to know the truth," Barnes said. "There's so much history here that people say, 'I didn't know this happened,' and it changes them."