Baltimore museum seeks to uplift voices of immigrants affected by Key Bridge collapse

With a $25,000 grant, the Baltimore Museum of Industry is seeking to capture the stories of those most impacted by the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in their own words.

“That funding will enable us to launch an oral history initiative to collect the stories of people whose livelihoods have been impacted by the bridge collapse,” said Anita Kassof, executive director of the Baltimore Museum of Industry (BMI). “We are going to start that initiative by focusing on members of Spanish-speaking immigrant communities, but hope to expand the initiative well beyond those communities in the future.”

Kassof said the collapse put a spotlight on the precarious position many immigrants are in while working industrial jobs in Baltimore, which is why they’re a starting point for the BMI. 

And immigrants have long been a part of the Port of Baltimore’s story, said Glenn T. Johnston, an adjunct history faculty member at Stevenson University who studies the defense of Baltimore during the War of 1812. He’s also the director of the recently formed Stevenson University Center for the Study of the Port of Baltimore. 

“When we defended the port in 1814, everybody knows that Fort McHenry was involved. Most people don’t know that upwards of … 37% of the people defending that fort were recent immigrants,” Johnston said. “Immigrants have been a very, very important part of our city’s history, the port’s history.” 

The BMI received its grant from the Baltimore Community Foundation’s Maryland Tough Baltimore Strong Key Bridge Fund, which has raised over $15.5 million. The donated funds have been collected for several goals, including memorializing the tragic moment the cargo ship Dali slammed into the Key Bridge on March 26, collapsing the steel structure and sending six construction workers to their deaths. 

The foundation is distributing grants to organizations that can offer a credible response to a need presented by the collapse, including historical documentation efforts, said Becky Eisen, associate vice president of marketing and public affairs for BCF. 

To date, the foundation has dispersed nearly $5.7 million in grants, according to an email from a spokesperson. In addition to the BMI, those funds have gone to support efforts such as mental health counseling and food deliveries to impacted port workers and first responders, Eisen said. The foundation is still accepting grant applications. 

6 workers presumed dead; Baltimore’s Key Bridge collapses after container ship hits support column

Eisen said that although some might be surprised there are already efforts underway to memorialize the tragedy, it is critical to start capturing “living history” immediately since people move and memories fade. 

“Really being able to get into the community of impacted people and hear from them firsthand about the experience is really critical to capture the perspective of people who have often been written out of history,” Eisen said. “The bulk of historians and history writers are still not people of color. … A lot of the folks who are impacted by this are living at or below the poverty line and that’s not who the historians are, right? So it’s really important to invest in ensuring that their stories are part of the narrative.” 

The money the Baltimore Community Foundation has raised is separate from the Key Bridge Emergency Response Fund, which is being overseen by the Baltimore Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MIMA) and the Baltimore Civic Fund. That fund has raised almost $800,000 as of May 3 and is exclusively focused on helping the families of the six collapse victims, which frees up the Baltimore Community Foundation to meet broader and more long-term needs. 

The BMI is in the early stages of its oral history project, Kassof said, and has been meeting with institutional partners to map out next steps. The museum has already met with city and county immigration officials including Catalina Rodriguez Lima, director of MIMA. 

That initial meeting was about “understanding the ecosystem of immigrants,” Rodriguez Lima said, adding that her office suggested the museum reach out to community organizations such as CASA, the Esperanza Center, Comité Latino and the Latino Racial Justice Circle, which are working with members of the Spanish-speaking immigrant community in Baltimore. 

Rodriguez Lima said the project’s leaders, which include Kassof and the museum’s Curator of Collections and Exhibitions Rachel Donaldson, want it to be “community focused and community centered,” which she thinks will be good for community members who see themselves in the six victims, their families and the journeys they made to the U.S. 

“I think this process will humanize these six men and hopefully … people will get to see them as individuals who were parents, brothers, sons who came from Central America in search of a better life and not necessarily forgetting about the immigrant component in this tragedy,” Rodriguez Lima said. “For the greater community, the community at large, I guess this could serve as a way of healing from this tragedy.” 

The oral history collection is part of a broader BMI effort to collect materials that demonstrate the importance of the Key Bridge and the Port of Baltimore, which was severely impacted by the bridge’s collapse. 

In its call for materials specifically related to working class and immigrant communities with ties to the bridge and port, the museum asked for permanent donations of tools, clothing, personal items, photos and videos, among other items. So far, the museum has only received offers for photos, including a digital 3D scan of the bridge, and a painting of the bridge. The BMI hopes to acquire a piece of steel from the collapsed structure. 

Eisen said what the Baltimore Community Foundation loved about the BMI’s proposal is that it’s “focusing on how these events impact and are driven by working people,” a role that came into clear focus for the BMI shortly after the collapse as the museum “preserves and tells the story of work and workers,” Kassof said.

The museum isn’t sure what form an installation will take, but Kassof thinks an exhibit could come in 2025.

“It’s important to give these things some time to breathe,” she said, “and for the community to express to us how they want their stories told and preserved.”