Talk:History of Czechs in Baltimore

Start class?
Is this article still start class? I am not sure how classification works, so it may or may not be. Could somebody look at the article and see if it needs a new class status? Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 06:28, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I have updated the article to C. Folklore1 (talk) 14:34, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi Folklore1, would you still say that the article is start class or do you think it could use a new status? Thanks. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 04:35, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Screen paintings exhibition
There is an exhibition about screen paintings at the American Visionary Art Museum that features the work of screen painters as well as a documentary. Could somebody please add information about it? Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 14:07, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay, I have added some information myself. If anyone could find and add more information, that would be great. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 03:41, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Screen paintings photographs
I tried to add photos of screen paintings that I took for the article, but they were deleted under copyright laws. If anybody knows how photographs could be properly added could they please add photos of screen paintings to the article? Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 09:34, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Moravians, Silesians, Czech Jews, Czech Romani, etc.
So far, most sources I have looked into about the Baltimore Czechs have mentioned the Bohemians. I have seen very few references to other Czech groups, such as Moravians and Silesians or Jews and Roma from the Czech Republic. If anybody has sources that mention these groups, they'd be a great addition to the article. Thanks. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 07:43, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, the Slovak community of Baltimore is closely linked to the Czech community of Baltimore, with much overlap in terms of Czech communal organizations. Examples: the Bohemian National Cemetery as well as the Czech-Slovak festival and the Baltimore branch of the CSPS include both Czechs and Slovaks, both Czechs and Slovaks shared the same neighborhoods in East Baltimore, St. Wenceslaus Church hosts the Czech & Slovak Heritage Singers on St. Nicholas Day, etc. However, there is much less information that exists specifically about the Baltimore Slovaks. The reasons include the fact that fewer Slovaks immigrated to Baltimore than Czechs, fewer specifically Slovak communal organizations existed, and many Slovaks utilized pre-existing Czech efforts or were involved with joint Czech-Slovak efforts, etc. So unfortunately, there is not enough information on the Baltimore Slovaks to warrant a separate article on the History of the Slovaks in Baltimore. Nonetheless, given the closeness and overlap between the two communities, I have waffled back and forth about whether I should re-title and re-write the article to be about the History of the Czechs and Slovaks in Baltimore...but I am not certain that is the best choose. The Baltimore Czech community was a cohesive, distinct, organized ethnic minority living with a cohesive, distinct, organized Czech enclave. The Slovaks were part of that community, rather than forming much of their own distinct organized community...at least that is my impression of things from what I have read and observed. Perhaps, it is just best to include information on the Slovaks in the Slovak subsection of the article on the Ethnic groups in Baltimore. Just food for thought. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 00:53, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Czechs in Prince George County, Virginia
I have mentioned in the article that the Baltimore Czechs and the Prince George County, Virginia Czechs used to have strong connections, based on one source I found. I could not find other sources, so if anyone could find more info that would be great. Since the Virginia Czechs had an historically important relationship to the Maryland Czechs, I may write an article on, say, the History of the Czechs in Virginia if there are enough sources and when I have time. If anyone else would like to create the Virginia article, that would be enormously appreciated. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 09:02, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: I am aware that there are minor Czech populations in Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania, but I am not sure if any of those communities warrant articles on Wikipedia or if any of those communities relate to the Baltimore community as did the Prince George County community. For now, my focus will be on the Maryland and Virginia communities. Some time way down the line it would be nice to see articles for Czechs in New York City, for Czechs in Cleveland, and especially for Czechs in Chicago, since those are the most historically important settlements for urban Czechs. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 09:17, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, since there is much overlap between the Czech and Slovak communities within Baltimore and because there is overlap between the Baltimore Slovaks and various Slovak communities in Pennsylvania, there is subsequently also overlap between the Czech community in Baltimore and the Pennsylvania Slovak communities. For example, the (predominantly Czech) Czech-Slovak Heritage Festival held in Parkville featured the Pittsburgh Area Slovak Ensemble at it's 2014 event, many past events have featured a Carpatho-Rusyn group called the Slavjane Folk Ensemble that is rooted in the Pittsburgh Slovak and Rusyn communities, etc. I won't be the one to create them, but it would be delightful if someone were to create articles on the Pennsylvania Slovak communities, such as History of the Slovaks in Pittsburgh or History of the Slovaks in Philadelphia, etc. Sources permitting, of course. Articles on various Rusyn communities would also be great, particularly for Pennsylvania and other northeast states. In Baltimore, the Carpatho-Rusyn community seems to be small and not highly organized, with many identifying as Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, etc., instead of only or in addition to identifying as Carpathians. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 01:27, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
 * There's also some overlap between the Czech community and the German and Polish communities as well, at least when it comes to polka music. Examples: the now-defunct Blob's Park was German-American, but Czech and Polish polka musicians would often play there and many Czech and Polish patrons visited; the Joy of Maryland band that played at the 2014 Czech-Slovak festival was co-founded by a Czech-American man but the band often plays Polish polka and often plays at Polish cultural events and gatherings, such as the Polish Home Club. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 23:36, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Dornic family
The Dornic family are important to the Slavic community in Baltimore. They are of Carpatho-Rusyn/Ruthenian descent, with roots in Údol in what is now Slovakia. The patriarch of the family, the Czechoslovakian-born Reverend Ivan Dornic, founded the National Slavic Museum of Baltimore and is head of the board for the Lemko House for senior citizens. His daughter Yvonne founded Ze Mean Bean Cafe. The Dornic's have been very active in advocating for Slavic Americans in Baltimore. Reverend Dornic has been honored by the Ukrainian Education Association of Maryland Inc. for his efforts. He was also active in trying to preserve a Polish Catholic church in Fell's Point. I include mentions to the Slavic museum and the Slavic cafe because one offers information on Czechs and the other offers cuisine from all of Eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic, even though the Dornics are not ethnic Czechs. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 19:46, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Czech and Slovak language services
There seem to be few resources for Czech speakers and Slovak speakers in the Baltimore area. The Czech and Slovak Heritage Association of Baltimore (CSHA) offers ten-week beginning, intermediate, and advanced Czech and Slovak instructions for both adults and children that start in September and January. The classes are held at the R. W. Gribbin Center which is at 9317 Belair Road north of the Baltimore Beltway. The nearest Czech and Slovak classes other than that are in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. - Comenium, the Czech and Slovak Language School for Greater Philadelphia; the Berlitz Language Center, the International Center For Language Studies, LLE - Language Services, and the Graduate School of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington, D.C.

The Greater Baltimore HIV Health Service's website lists the Czech language as one of the "Languages spoken" at the Gay & Lesbian Community Center of Baltimore (GLCCB), so that might be a good resource for Czech-American gays and lesbians in Baltimore.

Other than that, I can't seem to find any other Czech and Slovak language services in the Baltimore area. I'll keep looking though. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 23:29, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Suburbanization of Baltimore's Czechs
For anyone wondering where the Baltimore Czechs dispersed to, here is some information according to the Maryland government. It is relevant to the article, but I am not sure how I can or if I should incorporate the information into the article.

In the year 2000:

- 7,188 Czechs lived in Baltimore County, 0.95% of the population.

- 849 Czechs lived in Carroll County, 0.56% of the population.

- 2,398 Czechs lived in Harford County, 1.10% of the population.

- 3,336 Czechs lived in Anne Arundel County, 0.68% of the population.

- 1,561 Czechs lived in Howard County, 0.63% of the population.

Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 00:19, 26 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I would like to write more about the decline of East Baltimore's Czech community, but the sources are scanty. Aging and assimilation play a role, as does a low white birthrate, combined with suburbanization (much of which has no doubt been racially motivated, a case of "white flight"). From what I can tell the Czech community was still cohesive as late as the 1950s and 1960s (unlikely, but maybe the 1970s too?), but had been dispersed by the early 1990s and probably earlier than that. The book "Behind the Backlash" states that many of the area's Czechs, both working-class and middle-class, were angered when poor and working-class black people from a neighboring black neighborhood started buying homes in the Czech neighborhood, with many Czechs worried that black residents were causing a higher rate of crime and violence. According to the "Evening Sun", Czech anger at new black residents had turned into "fatalistic acceptance" by 1967. I don't have a source, but I'll take an educated guess and say that the Baltimore riot of 1968 was the final nail in the coffin for the Czech community. If anyone else can find sources for the causes of the Czech dispersal, that would be great. Sources on relations between African-Americans and Czech-Americans would be good too, it'd be interesting to add information on Czech racism against the new Black residents. I'm not sure about how the new Black residents felt about their Czech neighbors, I couldn't find any info on their attitudes. I'll keep looking for more sources. Once enough sources are scrounged together, the article will get an update. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 19:41, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I've added a small update about anti-black racism within the white Czech-American community, and hopefully will add more in future. While I'm sure that there are several other factors (general sub-urbanization of post-WWII urban people, assimilation into general whiteness by ethnic white immigrant minorities, fear of increased crime rates from under-served and economically marginalized black residents, etc.), it also seems clear that racial animosity towards black people played a substantial role in the dispersal of the Czech community out of East Baltimore and into the surrounding suburbs. Some of this racial fear and hatred was fanned by Blockbusting real estate developers who spread fears of black people in white working-class immigrant neighborhoods (not just in Baltimore with the Czechs, but in many different cities with many different white sub-groups). Like it or not, racism and racial segregation played a role in destroying the once-thriving white working-class and white ethnic urban neighborhoods that once abounded in Baltimore and many other US cities. I'm aware of similar developments happening in other Northern cities with a heavily white working-class and white ethnic immigrant culture, Detroit and Chicago come to mind. What is clear to me is that, while the Czech-American population started to leave and settle in the suburbs during the 1950s after WWII, the most most dramatic change began in the 1960s. In 1960, Czech-Americans comprised 57.5% of the foreign-born population in Southeast Baltimore's tract 7-3. However, by 1969, the "Baltimore Sun" was describing Little Bohemia as a mixed-race community of black people and ageing white Bohemians. What happened between 1960 and 1969? Well, it is known that Baltimore was only a quarter Black in 1954, the population rising to 54% Black in 1980 and 65% Black in 2000. During that same time, between 1970 and 2000, the city's population plummeted by a third, losing a quarter of a million people. It is also known that during the same time period the city's White population took a nosedive, dropping 70% between 1950 and 2000, from about 76% white in 1950 to 35% white in 2000. Obviously, there's a correlation between the growing Black population and nosediving White population (both in Baltimore as a whole and Little Bohemia in particular). We also know that the Baltimore riot occurred in 1968, a traumatic event for the city and definitely a contributor to "white flight". I've known people who were alive for the riot and remember the police violence and the destroyed storefronts and the streets full of broken glass and the fires that were burning so that billowing pillars of smoke could be seen in the distance all over the city. Major trauma, and a major memory for white Baltimoreans and white ex-Baltimoreans who were/are afraid of black people and want to escape to supposedly safer white suburban communities. It's frustrating that so few sources talk about the way that white racism and white fear of black people, and in particular the white reaction to the 1968 riot played into the decision to move from the city, but there is some documentation and hopefully my sources will crop up over time. Even today, in 2017, I don't believe that the city has fully recovered from the injury of the riots...there are still places in the city, even now, that show scars from the riots and that haven't fully been rebuilt. Neighborhoods that have never recovered. Buildings that are still burnt-out shells, charred from the flames. The events radically and permanently changed the demographics of Baltimore, and that should be documented in Baltimore-related articles pertaining to history and ethnicity.


 * Since the documented sources on anti-black racism within the white Czech-American community of Little Bohemia are scarce, the best I can do is gather the available resources and connect the dots based on what I know from Baltimore's history, American racial and demographic history in general, as well as anecdotal evidence from interacting with white Czechs with roots in Baltimore as well as Black residents of the former Little Bohemia neighborhood. Little Bohemia is now Middle East, roughly speaking, and is a low-income Black neighborhood now. Whites (Czech or otherwise) are less than 5% of the population. There's still some cooperation between whites and blacks in the neighborhood, mostly due to the Roman Catholic church of St. Wenceslaus, and the fact that many dispersed white Czechs still have ties to the old church even though it is now a predominantly Black parish at the moment. But overall, the neighborhood is overwhelmingly Black and poverty-class or working-class and unemployment is rife. The white Czech-American former residents of Little Bohemia were certainly not high-income for the most part (most were low-income and/or working-class immigrants, largely from rural peasant backgrounds), and many had linguistic/cultural barriers to integration into the mainstream Anglo-Protestant culture (for example: my Babička, being a non-Anglophone with Czech as her mother tongue, was held back in school before she become English-fluent) and sometimes had to deal with discrimination (Czechs had separate non-WASP banks, one of which was used by several generations of my family, including my parents as recently as the 1980s), but based on discussions I've had with older white Czechs that used to live in the neighborhood I get the impression that Little Bohemia was not as run-down or economically deprived as it is now. It was certainly a cultural ghetto at one time, and perhaps an economic ghetto as well (at least in compared to the economic status of native-born Americans of Anglo-Protestant background), but even at the time there were worse off Black poor/working-class neighborhoods nearby. I wish I knew the name of the neighborhood, but I remember my Czech-American Aunt telling me that when she would visit her grandmother's home in Little Bohemia, she was only allowed to play in the White areas...there was a Black neighborhood adjacent to Little Bohemia, separated by train-tracks, and white Czech-American children were instructed to never, ever go onto the "wrong side of the tracks" where the population was majority Black. Does anyone know the name of this neighborhood? I would love to know. I would also like to know the name of the train tracks. It could be that my memory fails me and there were no train tracks, that "the other side of the tracks" was metaphorical, but I'm pretty sure I remember her describing a literal train track. Anyone that can help me? [EDIT - It seems that the "tracks" were literal railroad tracks that appear to currently be on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, with the areas of Gay Street, Middle East, Milton-Montford and Madison-Eastend being mostly on the southern side of the tracks, and the neighborhoods of Darley Park, South Clifton Park, Berea, Clifton, Biddle Street and Orangeville being mostly on the northern side of the tracks. Presumably, at one time the area north of the tracks was predominantly African-American and the area south of it was predominantly Czech-American and other white ethnic immigrants. Now, both north and south of the tracks are predominantly Black. A demographic map of Baltimore from 1970 would seem to roughly bear this out, with more southern parts of East Baltimore having more blue dots (White people) and more northern parts of East Baltimore having more red dots (Black people). It appears that the areas around Gay Street, Middle East, Dunbar/Dunbar Broadway and Butchers Hill have a mix of blue and red dots, suggesting that these once mostly White areas had already gained a substantial Black population by 1970. EDIT 2 - It seems that the tracks she was referring to were the Amtrak tracks that cross North Luzerne Avenue in the Madison-Eastend neighborhood (mostly city white folks at that time). North of the tracks is Biddle Street, which was mostly black at the time.]


 * As for explicit racial and ethnic animus among white Czech-Americans, I know from anecdotal evidence that many white Czech-Americans held racist attitudes and that many Black Americans have described this racism from the white Czechs. My Aunt has also talked about the anti-Catholic, anti-Slavic and anti-Eastern European biases that many native-born Anglo-Protestant whites held towards Slavs (who were supposedly inferior). However, she has stated that while Czech-Americans were discriminated against and looked down upon, they were still widely believed to be superior to Polish-Americans. Both many non-Slavs and many non-Polish Slavs (including Czechs) looked down on Poles as stupid, unsophisticated, uneducated, lazy, and so forth, and many Czechs viewed themselves as a "better quality" of Slavs than the Poles. However, both Czechs and Poles (as white Slavs) were commonly considered to be racially superior to Black people. I have also witnessed anti-Romani racism from Czech-Americans in this community (there's a large Romani community in Czechia, Baltimore has a small Roma community which is mostly non-Czech). As for anti-Black racism, a number of my white Czech-American relatives have described the racial segregation of the white Czech community and have talked about the overt racism of relatives, and some relatives themselves have openly made racist statements against Black Americans and referred to them using racial slurs. From the beginning I did have some personal knowledge of the issue of racism as it pertains to Czech-American history in Baltimore, so to see sources that back up what I personally have witnessed to be true comes as no surprise to me. I've also personally talked to older black residents of the former Little Bohemia, that have said that the exodus of white Czechs really began in force during the 1960s and 1970s and was pretty much complete by the 1980s. Anecdotal evidence, but it supports the data that is available. I have also heard some of these older Black residents describe moving into the neighborhood for the first time and personally witnessing the bit-by-bit dispersal of the white Czechs from the neighborhood. Per the accounts of those older Black residents, they wanted to coexist alongside the white Czechs, but the white Czechs largely did not want to have anything to do with Black people. More anecdotal evidence, but it doesn't clash with the available sources. Of course, many Czechs (and many urban/ethnic whites in general) will deny that they fled the city for racist reasons. The most common reason given is fear of crime, particularly violent crime, some of which seems to have been legitimate fear and some of which seems to have been trumped-up racist fear. Generally, the answer I hear from white Czechs (and other formerly urban/ethnic whites) for leaving neighborhoods that are now majority Black is something along the lines of "Well, we wanted to live there, we wanted to live alongside black people, but the crime was too high. It was the crime and the poverty, not race. We only decided to move out after the third felony and the fourth break-in." That sort of thing. So, there is probably a non-racist element that added to the white Czech dispersal, but there still definitely was a racist element - actually, I would suggest that the two elements heavily overlapped and it's hard to always pry the two apart: both legitimate fear of crime and illegitimate racial hatred can coexist within the same person and within the same communities. Naturally and understandably, many Black Americans would dispute the white Czech insistence that "race had nothing to do with it". And it is entirely possible (plausible even) that reports of "black crime" have been inflated by white Czech-American ex-Baltimoreans in order to justify their racist departure from their old neighborhoods: though, on the other hand, different crime rates at different times do suggest that the Black community of Middle East has a higher (violent) crime rate than the White community of Little Bohemia did, so that is something to bear in mind, though various determinations as to the nature and cause of the crime can be offered. I think it is also useful to note that some/many white Czech-Americans hold the view that their old neighborhood was "stolen" from them by violent Black criminals and sleazy White real estate agents, and there is a real resentment there (both towards poor black people and rich white "elites"), and there is a very real nostalgia and longing for the unity and cohesiveness of the old communities that have been abandoned/"stolen". Anyway, this was a bit of a rambling update, I know, but I figured it might be useful for some people who wanted more info and context on the decline of the Czech-American community in Baltimore. Hopefully someone gains something from the contextual knowledge. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 06:18, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

National Bohemian beer
Given that Natty Boh is a Pilsner (Bohemian-style beer with origins in the city of Plzeň), I was hoping that this Baltimore icon would have some sort of connection to the Baltimore Czechs. However, Baltimore's Bohemian-American residents appear to have no connection to the National Bohemian brand. Rather, like most beers and breweries in Baltimore, Natty Boh's roots lie with the German-American community. Oh well. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 01:47, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
 * This article here claims that Natty Boh's name "is a throw back to Baltimore's early Eastern European immigrant culture", but I believe this claim to be inaccurate. Natty Boh was first brewed by the National Brewing Company and all the literature I have seen indicates German-American origins. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 10:59, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

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