Last week, the Silver Spring Historical Society (Silver Spring, Maryland) invited its Facebook audience to share stories about a donut shop. The society (which really isn’t a society; it’s four boomer building huggers) is short on history and steeped in nostalgia that celebrates the white supremacists who “built” Silver Spring and erases Black history. This post accepts the historical society’s request for “specific memories” of the site.
In 1966, Mrs. Geraldine Howard was living in Washington, D.C.’s Petworth neighborhood about three miles south of the District’s border with Silver Spring. According to a letter written on her behalf by Leonard D. Jackson Jr., First Vice-President of the Montgomery County Citizens Committee on Human Relations, to the American Civil Liberties Union, Mrs. Howard had a distinctly memorable experience at a Georgia Avenue donut shop near the District line. The typewritten letter, which found its way into the personal papers of civil rights activists David and Elizabeth Scull only identifies the business as “the Doughnut Shop, Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring.”
Dollars to doughnuts (sorry, I couldn’t resist), I’m willing to bet it’s the same establishment pictured in the historical society’s Facebook post. So, Silver Spring Historical Society, here is one specific memory. There’s a lot to unpack in this episode, including racially biased policing and the pervasive racism that made Silver Spring a sundown suburb — all topics ripe for discussion in 2022, more than half a century later. But I’ll leave those discussions to the current residents of Silver Spring. In the meantime, here is the complete letter with links to images of the original pages.
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Dear Gentlemen:
Through contact with Mrs. Spellman, of Kensington, Maryland, I have been asked to write this letter to inform you of an incident which occurred in Montgomery County on July 2, 1966. I am writing not only as a citizen of Montgomery County, but I have been instructed by the Chairman, Montgomery County Citizens Committee, on Human Relations, to use my position as First Vice President to pursue this matter to its entirety.
On Saturday, July 2, p.m., Mrs. Geraldine Howard, a citizen Georgia Avenue, went into the Doughnut Shop, Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland to pick up some doughnuts. Upon leaving the location, she placed the box of doughnuts on a car while she checked her pocketbook to see if she had replaced her wallet in the pocketbook. When she placed the box on the car, one Ralph Anderson came out of the shop, cursing at Mrs. Howard, demanding that she remove the box. Mrs. Howard removed the box and started toward her car with Anderson still in pursuit and cursing her. As she reached her car, Anderson called her a “black-son-of-a-bitch” Mrs. Howard slapped Anderson with her open hand in the face.
She got in her car and immediately headed toward home, 4040-8th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. As she approached Walter Reed Hospital on Georgia Avenue, she saw a Metropolitan Policeman parked along the curb, she thought about stopping and telling him about what happened in Montgomery County, Maryland, but she didn’t stop. When she reached Piney Branch and Georgia Avenue, she was pulled to the curb by a Metropolitan Police. He approached her car, demanding with profane language that she get out of the car. When she got out of her car, the officer ordered her hands to be placed on top of her car, and he patted her from head to foot. He then searched her pocketbook, supposedly for a razor. The officer then handcuffed Mrs. Howard with her hands behind her. Enroute to the Sixth Precinct the Officer told Mrs. Howard that he had received a call from Montgomery County Police to apprehend her for assault. This arrest was climaxed by five officers, of which one is guilty of police brutality.
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This officer told Mrs. Howard of her arrest in police language, not the language of an ordinary citizen, or terms that one could understand. During the course of arrest one of the five officers told Mrs. Howard, in disgust, to be calm, as she was crying. At the station she was still handcuffed, as she and the officer approached the desk the officer was still harassing and cursing her, a Lieutenant. was sitting near the desk, he just dropped his head as if nothing was going on.
At the station, Mrs. Howard agreed to return to Montgomery County on her on free will and clear the matter up. How much discussion between she and the Metropolitan police describing her rights is not certain to me at this time.
The police escorted Mrs. Howard to the District Line, before leaving the station, they confiscated her license and instructed her to drive to the District Line, where the County police would meet her. Enroute to the District Line this same officer mentioned to Mrs. Howard that she would more than likely get some people together and demonstrate because of this incident, “that’s why so many people are getting killed in the streets nowadays.”
They were met by the County police, at the Silver Spring station and she explained what had happened at the doughnut shop. She asked if Anderson was there, and she was told that he was. She said that she would like to talk with him and he refused to.
At that time she was presented with a warrant for assault, and placed under $500.00 bond. Mrs. Howard contacted her cousin and other friends in D. C. to go her bond, but because of the State laws no one in the District could provide her bond. She later contacted a County bondsman, Mr. Charlie Barnes and he refused to go the bond because he did not know her. She then called an ex coworker, Mrs. Martha Cook. Mrs. Cook was told that she could not go the bond because she did not own her home, but was just purchasing it. Mr. Barnes found out about Mrs. Cook’s efforts and he came to the Silver Spring station to go the bond, but Mrs. Howard had been removed to the Rockville Retention On July 5, Mrs. Howard was arraigned in the Silver Spring People’s Court on charges of assault, and was found guilty and the sentence was suspended.
I have been informed by Mrs. Howard, she has no complaints against the treatment by Montgomery County Police, but her complaints are against the Metropolitan Police.
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Now, gentlemen, I ask you, is this justice? How much longer will citizens of this Democratic Country prevail with bigotry, hate and no regards to a person, because of the color of skin? Such an incident could have happened to a member of my family or even to yours. This is why I have put myself and the Citizens Committee on Human Relations in this position to challenge the actions of the Metropolitan Police, the Montgomery County Police and Mr. Anderson.
Because of the fact that I am not a lawyer, I put these questions to you: Under what laws and regulations did the County Police act in apprehending Mrs. Howard? What the charges at the time she was stopped, had she robbed a bank, committed a murder, and had the complainer secured a warrant within that short time? (From the Doughnut Shop to Piney Branch Road and Georgia Avenue is less than a ten minute ride). Why didn’t the District policeman reveal his identity to Mrs. Howard. Why didn’t the Metropolitan police inform Mrs. Howard of her rights as far as arrest was concerned? Why did the Montgomery County police destroy the medicine that Mrs. Howard had in her purse? As a matter of fact »he was sick the three days that she was in jail and and didn’t eat a meal) (The medicine was prescription medicine). Why did the County police repay Mrs. Howard with a check of $40.00 for the cash that they took from when she was arrested? Finally, the most important question that I pose, Why, why did this happen in the first place? It’s my own personal conviction that the aforementioned question has to be answered, not only because it happened to a member of my race, because it happen to a human being, an American citizen. The Humane Society treats animals better than this.
I shall always remember that what touches Ralph Anderson also touches me. Therefore gentlemen, I seek your help in this endeavor. As Mr. Roy Wilkins so plainly put it “We seek, as we have sought these many years, for the inclusion of American Negroes in the Nation’s life, not their exclusion, Thank you for your consideration and help.
Sincerely Yours,
Leonard D. Jackson, Sr.
The 2023 iteration of whitewashed doughnut history:
© 2022-2023 D.S. Rotenstein
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