Black Baltimore Families Denied Phone Services

Baltimore's C&P Telephone Company denied Black residents, including Vivien Thomas and his family, the services given to whites. In 1945, Dr. Alfred Blalock wrote C&P this letter to intervene on the Thomases’ behalf.

Photo Credit: The Chesney Archives of Johns Hopkins Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health

Black Baltimore Families Denied Phone Services — Photo Credit: The Chesney Archives of Johns Hopkins Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health

In Baltimore, Black families were not allowed to have private telephone lines. They either had to share a party line with other families or go without any phone service at all. When Dr. Blalock needed to talk privately to Mr. Thomas outside work hours, he would have to drive to his house to see him. Finally, in 1945, Blalock sent the letter shown here, to the local Chesapeake and Potomac (C&P) telephone company asking for a special exemption so that Thomas could have a private line. Then, every time the Thomases moved, Blalock would again have to request phone service for them because Black people in Baltimore could not obtain it for themselves.