Read's Drug Store- Havre de Grace, Maryland
Site of a Successful Sit-In
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Read's was a popular chain of drug stores/luncheonettes in the 20th century with approximately 39 outlets around Baltimore, scattered around central Maryland; It was the Walgreens of its day, with lunch spots.
Like many establishments of a similar nature (such as Woolworth's) across the South, Read's segregated its lunch counters by race. This all changed in 1955 after a successful sit-in campaign in Baltimore led by Morgan State University students and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
In downtown Havre de Grace, Maryland, the local Read's also faced a protest, led by a woman named Sarah Davis around this same time. The Harford Civil Rights Project documented her story in an oral history interview with Havre de Grace native Lenora Robinson in 2019.