Caroline Ramsay interview

Description

Caroline Ramsay (1904-1992) was a civil rights activist and a Republican candidate for Congress in 1962. From 1947 to 1951, she was the president of the Baltimore League of Women Voters and in 1964 she served on the Baltimore City Charter Revision Commission. In this oral history interview, Ramsay discusses her initial involvement in politics and her time as the Vice President of the Baltimore Urban League. She describes the efforts to end segregation in public spaces, such as the Ford and Lyric theaters, restaurants, and the department stores Hutzler’s and Hochschild Kohn. As a member of the Citizens Planning and Housing Association (CPHA), Ramsay discusses her work to combat blockbusting, a practice in which real estate agents and developers would convince white residents to sell their homes at below-market prices, so that they could in turn sell the properties to the Black community at inflated prices.