On Sept. 15, as part of the annual St. Stephens A.M.E Church homecoming festivities beginning at 10:30AM, the Needle’s Eye Academy will be joined by direct descendants of the Unionville Eighteen and diverse literary landscape champions in unveiling a first-of-its kind Little Free Library on the MD Eastern Shore. Representing MD among the Inaugural Read in Color Cohort in 2023, the Education Foundation of Baltimore County Public Schools expanded the program to the 22nd largest American school system. However, this effort will mark the state’s first rural commitment.
From last September to this past February, the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture launched an inaugural statewide book drive and the Academy’s partnership with Talbot County Free Library garnered the largest tally of donations anywhere in the state— eclipsing 200. In keeping with the Read in Color® pledge, this book-sharing box designed by local youth will house the locally contributed titles compiled over the course of the drive. Unionville is an indelible Tidewater community of color, especially considering its legacy as the only village in the United States founded by formerly enslaved soldiers, and this public ceremony aims to connect contemporaries’ sense of place to enduring tools of liberation.
In addition to reflections from congregants and tradition bearers, remarks will be delivered by acclaimed poet, author and professor Carole Boston Weatherford; MD Commission on African American History and Culture Statewide Book Drive Committee Chair Kennedi Wilson; and Southern MD Regional Library Association CEO and Black Caucus of MD Library Association founding member Ashley Teagle.
Unionville was established in 1867 by eighteen United States Colored Troop (USCT) veterans who returned from the United States Civil War. Over 300 enslaved and free Black men left the Wye and Lombardy Plantation to serve in the Union Army—many enlisted, some were sold into the Army and most served in the 4th & 7th Regiment of the Maryland Volunteers. Upon their return, Lombardy Plantation owners Ezekiel & Sarah Cowgill along with their son, John, leased each solider a parcel of land with the stipulation that they build a church for their families and a school for their children. The first church was built in 1871 and St. Stephen’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, located at 9467 Unionville Rd., was built in 1892. All eighteen of the United States Colored Troop soldiers are buried in the cemetery behind the Church with USCT Army headstones as their markers.
Founded in August 2020 to equip Maryland Eastern Shore scholars of color as change agents, the Needle’s Eye Academy partners with school districts and non-profits to provide extracurricular, interdisciplinary literacy programming for socially, culturally and economically diverse high school students. To learn more about the Needle’s Eye Academy, visit https://linktr.ee/the_nea.md. Founders Nicolle, Mika and Jaelon can be reached at [email protected].
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