West Street:
Annapolis's Black
Culture Corridor

They called it the Annapolis Black Wall Street. The heyday was 1920–1950. The culture never left. At the intersection of West Street and West Washington Street in Annapolis, there is a historical marker that reads: "Its distinctive identity sparkled in its heyday of 1920–1950 when Black and white people gathered here to enjoy a common interest in great music and entertainment."

In the 19th century, African Americans comprised one-third of Annapolis's total population. By the Civil War, Maryland had more free African-American citizens than any other state — approximately 43% of the Black population. In Annapolis, about 400 of the city's 4,000 inhabitants were free Black citizens, and forty owned real property. Those forty property owners planted the economic and social roots of what would become the West Street corridor.

The Old Fourth Ward wasn't just a residential neighborhood — it was a self-contained economy: Black-owned businesses serving the entire community, entertainment venues hosting world-class Black entertainers, professional offices, schools, churches, and social organizations. Black and white Annapolitans both came to the Fourth Ward — not because of racial harmony mandated by law, but because the music was that good and the culture was that magnetic.

Starting in 1937, the city of Annapolis embarked on urban renewal that surveyed the city's housing stock. What they found: 38% of housing was uninhabitable. Of that, 86% of the people living there were Black. The city's response was demolition. More Black families and businesses were then displaced for state office buildings. When the renewal campaign ended in the mid-1970s, 33 businesses and 237 families — nearly all Black — had been displaced.

In May 2021, the City of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County officially memorialized May 30 as Black Wall Street Day — acknowledging that what happened to the Old Fourth Ward was not random urban decay. It was the result of deliberate policy decisions.