Ending Segregation at Harford Memorial Hospital

Harford Community College is undertaking a project focused on increasing understanding of the Civil Rights Movement in Harford County.  This three-year investigation funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), is designed to involve students as they do original research, complete interviews, analyze secondary sources, and develop scholarly narratives that provide a stronger understanding of the local Civil Rights Movement.

“Harford County grappled with issues of national importance as there was a drawn-out period of school desegregation” during the 1950s and 1960s, according to the project plan.  Freedom Riders targeted U.S. Route 40, prevailing Jim Crow Laws strengthened social norms, and Civil Rights were debated.  “This project is designed to fill the gap in local knowledge of the era by having students directly engage in research, incorporating narratives of local civil rights history into the curriculum, engaging students in hands-on humanities-based learning activities, promoting broader public engagement in the humanities through the digital exhibition, mobile applications, and traditional learning.”

As part of this multi-year NEH initiative, Willie Stamps visited the campus for a public talk and a student interview on September 26, 2019.  Born in rural Mississippi in 1939, Mr. Stamps moved to Detroit as a teenager.  In 1959 while attending mortuary school, he met his future wife, Patricia Taylor, who was also enrolled. After they married, the newlyweds moved to Port Deposit, Patricia’s hometown.  She was pregnant and while he attempted to find work with a funeral home he took a job at Harford Memorial Hospital.

Then, tragedy struck as medical complications appeared.  A hasty delivery was required, so Harford Memorial Admitted Patricia to the segregated ward.  On arrival, Baby Carlos was in acute distress.  A modern, state-of-the-art incubator, a piece of medical equipment that provides an oxygen-enriched environment for newborns, was not available in this hospital ward.  With the baby struggling to breathe, a white nurse soon grabbed the newborn, rushing to an upper floor to the white maternity ward where the special equipment was located.  But it was too late as Baby Carlos passed away. 

George Thomas Stansbury, M.D. (1922 – 1996), an African-American physician, practiced medicine in Havre de Grace.  He spent the night with Patricia, doing what he could to save her, but she passed away on the same day, November 10, 1960.  “She died of a broken heart,” after hearing of the baby’s death, Mr. Stamps recalled. “I wanted to thank the nurse for taking a risk to help us, but I never did find out who she was,” he told a group of over 100 people, including students, faculty, members of the community, and hospital management.((Obituary, Patricia Ann Taylor Stamps, Havre de Grace Record, Nov. 13, 1960))

While dealing with his grief, Mr. Stamps made an important decision. He decided that the thing to do was to seek to end segregation at Harford Memorial Hospital.  In 1963, a year before federal laws caught up, the Havre de Grace Memorial Hospital agreed and integrated.  In 2018, the Upper Chesapeake Medical Center acknowledged the 1960 family tragedy with a ceremony and mounted a plaque on a wall in the Havre de Grace Hospital lobby. 

Part II — Segregated Hospitals in Maryland and the Nation

Part II is being written and will be available in a few days.

Mr. Stamps, thank you for talking about ending segregation at Harford Memorial Hospital and your experiences throughout life.  Your narratives helped everyone understand an undocumented Civil Rights era.   

Also See — Segregation at Harford Memorial Hospital

From Havre de Grace Stories a fascinating podcast, an interview with Me. Leon Grimes.

University of Maryland, Upper Chesapeake Health System Facebook Post about honoring the memory of Patricia Taylor Stamps and baby Carlos