Purnell, Baltimore
Purnell is a neighborhood in west Baltimore.
Geography
Purnell is bounded by the Forest Park Golf Course to the north, West Forest Park Avenue to the east, Purnell Drive to the south, and the Baltimore City limits to the west. The neighborhood consists of two residential streets connected to West Forest Park Avenue, Gatehouse Drive, which terminates at a dead end within the neighborhood, and Purnell Drive, which extends beyond the city limits into Baltimore County. Adjacent neighborhoods include Howard Park, West Forest Park, and Dickeyville. To the west, in Baltimore County, it borders the unincorporated Gwynn Oak area in the census-designated place of Woodlawn. The triangular area of Baltimore County bounded by the city line, Gwynn Oak Avenue, and Windsor Mill Road, which the western portion of Purnell Drive extends into, has been referred to by multiple names, including Old Woodlawn, Powhatan Hill, Gwynn Oak, and Larchmont.Demographics
As of the 2020 United States Census, the population of Purnell was 596, a change of -253 from the 2010 United States census count of 849.History
Annexation
The land Purnell lies on, along with other areas along the periphery of Baltimore's present-day city limits, was annexed to Baltimore City in 1918 following the passage of the Greater Baltimore Bill by the Maryland General Assembly.Establishment of Purnell Drive
Purnell is named for Lyttleton Bowen Purnell, a businessman who came to Baltimore from Snow Hill, Worcester County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in the 1850s. He worked at the John E. Hurst Company, which sold large wholesale dry goods, and went on to become a business partner of Hurst; the company was subsequently renamed Hurst, Purnell, & Co. Purnell Drive was created in 1930 by the city at the request of Purnell's grandson, Lyttleton B. P. Gould, president of the Ashland Manufacturing Company, the milling firm which owned nearby Dickeyville.Village of Purnell civil rights demonstrations
In 1966, a garden apartment complex named the Village of Purnell was developed at the 5000 block of Forest Park Avenue, the block which encompasses the width of the Purnell neighborhood as it extends to the west from Forest Park Avenue. The complex covered an area equivalent to about 24 city blocks spread across Gatehouse Drive, which branches off of Forest Park Avenue. The apartments opened amidst civil rights movement demonstrations in Baltimore and across the United States which protested racial segregation. Towards the beginning of August 1966, prior to their opening, a group of African-Americans who had been refused rental at Purnell formed the committee to Integrate Purnell, and demonstrated at the site of the apartments alongside members of the Congress of Racial Equality. On August 12, 1966, the Congress of Racial Equality staged a "lie-in" demonstration to halt construction which was ongoing at the nearly completed apartments. The Congress of Racial Equality called off demonstrations later that day when Mayor Theodore McKeldin agreed to mediate the dispute in a meeting with the management of the apartment development.In a three-hour meeting on August 15, 1966, the following week, Mayor McKeldin and two members of his administration attempted to persuade brothers Samuel and Morton Gorn, the owners of the Purnell apartments, to racially integrate the residences. The Mayor was unsuccessful in convincing the owners of C.O.R.E's case. Following the failed meeting, Mayor McKeldin stated his intention to request help from real estate associations to prevent the "escalation" of civil rights demonstrations at Purnell. Activists following the status of the development were undereterred, and demonstrations against segregation at the Purnell Village apartments resumed. C.O.R.E. backed subsequent mass demonstrations in September which aimed to achieve integration without going through the mayor.
Following the assassination of Reverend Martin [Luther King Jr.] on April 4, 1968, civil unrest broke out in Baltimore on the night of April 6 and continued for days afterwards. White residents of the completed Village of Purnell who opposed segregation wrote to owners Samuel and Morton Gorn criticizing them for refusing to fly the American flag at half-staff after King's death, and requesting that the apartments be racially integrated as a testimony to King's principles. On April 16, 1968, Samuel and Morton Gorn announced that in accordance with the Civil Rights Act of 1968 passed by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, the apartments at Purnell were now open to residents of all races. They notified the Baltimore NAACP and Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro Jr. of this change. However, efforts to integrate the Village of Purnell did not end with the property owners' 1968 announcement. In August 1969, a federal judge stopped rentals at Purnell until a racial bias case was cleared. An African-American couple filed a lawsuit against the Gorn Management Company after they were refused a rental of a two-bedroom apartment on the 2700 block of Gatehouse Drive within the Village of Purnell. They had initially applied for an apartment months in advance of their anticipated move-in date, and were told they would have to apply later. When they did apply later, they were told it was too late to apply. They were told no apartments were available on all subsequent attempts to contact management. In order to assist in proving racial bias for the case, Baltimore Neighborhoods, Inc., sent two white men and a black man to visit the Purnell rental office and request an apartment. Both white men were offered an apartment in the near-term, while the black man was told there would not be any availability until later, and that he should check later. This case was one of multiple cases seen by a federal judge in 1969 after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of the previous year, as property owners attempted discrimination tactics which were less overt in order to evade consequences. A total of 19 people who had complaints of racial discrimination against the Gorn Management Company became involved in the case, which came to a close in November 1972, when the management company was ordered to pay a combined $10,600 in attorney fees and damages to each of the plaintiffs.