Flag House exhibit spotlights overlooked Black Maryland history

The Star-Spangled Banner Flag House added a new America 250 exhibit that aims to widen Baltimore’s most familiar patriotic story with Black Maryland history that often sits outside the spotlight. Titled Maryland’s America: 250 Years of American History Through Marylanders’ Eyes, the show will feature eight artists from across the state and run from July 2026 through July 2028 at 844 E. Pratt St.

One of the themes tied to the exhibit is African American watermen on the Chesapeake Bay, a subject that reaches beyond Fort McHenry and the anthem story many visitors already know. Maryland Sea Grant describes watermen as generations of independent fishermen who harvest blue crabs, finfish and oysters, and that work has long shaped the economy and culture of the Chesapeake region. Bringing that history into the Flag House gives Baltimore students and families a fuller account of who built, worked and lived in Maryland during the nation’s founding era.

The museum’s setting gives the exhibit added force. The Star-Spangled Banner Flag House is a National Historic Landmark and the former home of Mary Pickersgill, who was contracted in the summer of 1813 to make two flags for Fort McHenry, including the 30-by-42-foot garrison flag that later inspired Francis Scott Key to write the lyrics that became the national anthem. Smithsonian materials say Pickersgill finished the flag in about six weeks with help from her daughter, two nieces, two free women of color and likely her elderly mother. The house remained Pickersgill’s home until her death in 1857, and the City of Baltimore bought the property in 1929 and preserved it as a museum.

Dr. Schroeder Cherry, a Baltimore-based multimedia assemblage artist and puppeteer whose work centers African diaspora life, is among the contributors helping shape the exhibit’s interpretation. His involvement underscores the museum’s push to use art to tell stories that have too often been left out of Maryland’s standard historical script.

For Baltimore, the exhibit extends a well-known site into a broader civic lesson. Families, school groups and heritage tourists who already come for the flag and the War of 1812 story will find a version of Maryland history that includes Black labor, Chesapeake communities and the people who helped sustain the region long before America 250.