Sewell and Evelyn Horad, May 2017.
Sewell D. Horad died April 13, 2019. He was 97 years old. A few days before, his wife Evelyn called to tell me that the end was near. My wife and I were able to visit with Mr. Horad and Evelyn the day before he passed. When Evelyn called to let me know that her husband had died, she invited me to speak at his April 24, 2019 memorial service. I told her that I would be honored. Here are the remarks that I prepared.
I am honored that Evelyn asked me to say a few words about Sewell. I met Sewell two years ago when I first interviewed him for my research. I am a historian and most of my work involves Black history, real estate, and gentrification.
I arrived on the Horads’ doorstep because Sewell Horad grew up in a family that made important strides in civil rights history in Washington, Montgomery County, and the nation. Sewell Horad was a living connection to, and active participant in, events that helped break down Jim Crow’s stranglehold on real estate and in communities throughout North America.
Former Horad home, Wheaton, Maryland.
In 1938, Sewell’s father, Romeo Horad Sr., left his job in the D.C. Recorder of Deeds and went into the real estate business. A Howard-trained lawyer, Sewell’s father had devised the District’s land recording system still in use today. Also in 1938, the Horads began building a modern brick colonial home on land in Wheaton that had been in Sewell’s mother’s family for decades.
“We were the only blacks on University Boulevard,” Sewell said in 2017. Romeo Horad was a candidate for the Montgomery County Council in 1948 — think about that date for a moment — when a Washington newspaper reporter asked him about his accomplishments. Sewell’s father told the reporter that the stately decade-old home symbolized African-American achievement.
Back in Washington, Romeo Horad embarked on intentionally breaking racial housing barriers by helping Black families buy homes in neighborhoods rigidly segregated by racially restrictive deed covenants. That work led to a lawsuit that ultimately ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1948, the court ruled that racially restrictive deed covenants were unenforceable in U.S. courts.
Sewell remembered the case: “It started when he was in Washington in the house that went to the Supreme Court involving the restrictive covenants, came out of our office,” he told me.
Real estate was the family business. Sewell said that he also got a real estate license and worked in the family firm after the Army. He did this while also teaching at Sharpe Health School. “I had a real estate license but I still taught school,” he said. The firm also included Sewell’s mother and brother. “Our name was well known as real estate people,” Sewell proudly recalled.
In Montgomery County, Romeo Horad led a grassroots civil rights organization: the “Citizens Council for Mutual Improvement.” They wanted better schools, paved roads, and water and sewers in Montgomery County’s Black communities. In its 1948 plea to the Montgomery County Council, Romeo Horad and his partners also called for the removal of Jim Crow signs in county office buildings.
“He was in politics and he was well respected, too,” Sewell said of his father.
Throughout this pivotal period in American history, Sewell taught physically challenged students in Washington. He told me about teaching the children of diplomats and embassy workers afflicted by exposure to Thalidomide.
Sewell also became an active member in some of Washington’s most storied African-American social clubs. When we spoke, Sewell smiled when he told me about the group he called “the best male group in Washington,” the “Whats” or “What Good Are We.” The Whats and Sewell’s golf group, The Pro Duffers, were among the many Black institutions that made Washington the nation’s quintessential Chocolate City.
I wish that I had met Sewell Horad much earlier in my life and career. Even as he approached his final months, Sewell was a teacher. I will always value what he taught me about his family’s history and the indelible marks he and they made on our nation’s history.
© 2019 D.S. Rotenstein
If I were mounting an exhibition to tell the story about Montgomery County, Maryland, in the 1950s, there would be lots of material from which to choose: the Cold War, suburbanization, and civil rights would certainly be in the mix. But how would I choose to tell the story about the Black experience in Montgomery County during that eventful decade?
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