The impetus for posts this week are historic images from black Baltimore. One image in a Baltimore archive I came across was on the 200 block of North Caroline Street which was home to Collin’s Restaurant in 1935. The image of this restaurant in Great Depression era black Baltimore made me think of Father Divine (aka the Reverend General Jealous Divine and aka George Baker) who once worked as a gardener in Baltimore and returned to the city later where he preached a series of sermons in the 1920s. What is often forgotten about Father Divine is that he operated budget cutting integrated restaurants in his Peace Center and Nazareth Missions that fed people for very little during the depression. In contrast to most African-American urban clergy who avoided such sermons, Father Divine talked about conversion, but he also denounced racism and the inability of a country blessed with material abundance to feed its citizens. I interviewed Dorothy M. Evelyn who was born in Harlem in 1924. She went to Divine’s Peace Centers for meals on many occasions. Evelyn remembers that for “ten cents and fifteen cents you get fried chicken, corn bread, macaroni and cheese . . . It was southern cuisine. Most of them must have been southerners because that’s what they cooked.” Going to a Peace Center for something to eat became a regular night out on the town for Evelyn and her friends. “Yes sir, for fifteen cents you could go get fried fish, all you could eat.”
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