Kweisi Mfume

BALTIMORE, Md. – In a time of turmoil on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers scrambled to reach a deal in what’s become the longest government shutdown in U.S. History, a different kind of mission called 7th District Representative Kweisi Mfume back home to the heart of West Baltimore. A place he called both historic and personal.

“So every time I come in, I try to imagine what it may have looked like then,” said Congressman Kweisi Mfume.

He pointed to the rooms around him as he walked through the newly renovated Thurgood Marshall Amenity Center.

The center – was formerly the historic PS-103 Henry Highland Garnet School. A school not only attended by Mfume’s father, but also, legends like entertainer Cab Calloway and even Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall himself.

For Congressman Mfume, the space is sacred ground. Not just for who walked the halls but for how they shaped a nation —and his own life.

“When he called me to his chamber shortly after I got elected the first time and I had a chance to sit down and talk with him. I said, ‘why, why out of all the freshmen, why did you call me over here?’” Said Mfume, recalling his first meeting with Thurgood Marshall. “He said, ‘because you’re the only one from Baltimore and that means something to me.’”

Mfume grew up in West Baltimore on Division Street – just steps from the former school – and faced hardship early.

“My mother contracted cancer when I was 15,” said Mfume.

She died a year later, in his arms. And that’s when the Upton community stepped in.

“I remember people imbuing in me the ability to believe in myself,” said Mfume. “So I learned how to fight here as much as I learned how to believe in myself.”

It was perhaps the same fight that burned inside Thurgood Marshall too.

“I remember him telling me and really shocking me once about how he would travel with other attorneys down south,” said Mfume. “He said we would get in the car and we would open all the doors before we turned on the engine because if there was a bomb, the blast would blow us out of the car and we knew that we would probably survive that. But if the doors were closed we would just be disintegrated.”

They’re stories of courage that defined the civil rights era and ones that Dr. Al Hathaway and his Beloved Community Services Corporation hoped to preserve at the Thurgood Marshall Amenity Center.

Justice Thurgood Marshall should be to Baltimore as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King is to Atlanta,” said Dr. Hathaway. “And one of the things and one of the strategies in Atlanta was that they were able to push and make his home, his place, a National Historic Site. And that brought tourism, that brought economic development.”

Dr. Hathaway had already accomplished the first step –through restoration.

He’s now teaming up with Congressman Mfume, who fired off a letter to the Secretary of Interior, Deb Haaland, and is also pushing legislation in the upcoming session -- aiming for a special historic designation for the Thurgood Marshall Amenity Center.

“There was and still is a mystique about this community because it has birthed so many different people who've gone on to do great, great things,” said Congressman Mfume. “So I want to make sure that in my time I use every moment, every breath, every effort to continue to highlight the significance of this school and this very historic community.”

Dr. Hathaway had plans to take that even a step further. A legacy wall outside the center in the works – was set to be unveiled come spring.

“I want this to have the kind of impact on the community that the Harriet Tubman wall has on the Eastern Shore where there is a sense of opportunity that I'm reaching back to grab your hand and now bring you into a future and you have a future of possibilities that is unlimited,” said Dr. Hathaway.

Because both Hathaway and Congressman Mfume agreed -- the story of PS-103 —from the students to the teachers – is the story of resilience.

“You keep pressing on, that you keep overcoming, that you can overcome, that these are just temporary situations, but the contributions that you make are that, which is permanent,” said Dr. Hathaway.

He is calling on other alumni, or anyone connected to PS-103 to submit their photos to be included on the legacy wall.