BALTIMORE — The old black-and-white photo shot sometime in the 1930s depicts dozens of children crammed shoulder to shoulder on top of an outdoor raised platform that served as a public bath.
The youngsters’ arms are raised skyward, and they are getting drenched from five showerheads positioned directly above them. Their clothing — mostly old-style bloomers and smocks — clings to their bodies. Some boys and girls look directly at the camera, while others squinch up their faces. The puddle at the base of the platform is so deep that it almost captures their reflections.
“That’s a wonderful image,” the activist Roxcelanna Redmond (known as Nia) said, almost to herself, as she examined a wall of photos that will be on view in the new East Baltimore Historical Museum. The snapshots are a mixture of images from the late 1930s. Many, like the public bath, originally were published in The News American newspaper.
