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2020
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Person/People
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Rock Howland of Carroll County is a master of Appalachian flatfooting, a mountain dance style that has emerged from a blend of Scots-Irish, African American, and Indigenous solo dance traditions over the past 150 years.
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2020
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Place
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The region now known as Dorchester County is the ancestral home of the Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians, descendants of the Nanticoke Indians who have made their home on the Eastern Shore for centuries.
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2020
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Tradition
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The Blackstorytelling tradition (no space) is influenced on state and national levels by activities in Baltimore City, where organizations such as the National Association of Black Storytellers and the Griots’ Circle of Maryland steward and participate in African and African American oral traditions.
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| 2021 |
Person/People |
Phil Wiggins of Montgomery County is a master harmonica player in the tradition of the Piedmont blues, a delicate, lyrical style of blues originating in Black communities in the eastern United States in the 1920s and 1930s. Phil has taught thousands to both play and value the Piedmont blues and is the recipient of many awards, including the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship, the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
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| 2021 |
Place |
The historic Dentzel carousel has been a fixture in Montgomery County’s Glen Echo Park since 1921. Crafted by the Dentzel Carousel Company, the amusement has for 100 years served as the site of community gathering, including a 1960 civil rights protest to open the park to Black visitors. The desegregation effort was ultimately successful, and the carousel has remained the centerpiece of the park and a cherished attraction for all guests. |
| 2021 |
Tradition |
Arabbing is the name for the Baltimore City tradition of selling fruits and vegetables by horse-drawn cart. Those practicing the tradition, known as arabbers, alert their customers to the availability of fresh food through unique hollers. For 150 years, arabbing has been recognized as a tradition primarily upheld by and for Baltimore’s Black communities, as well as an entrepreneurial economic system serving neighborhoods across the city. |
| 2022 |
Person/People |
Shelley Ensor (Baltimore County) is a singer, musician, and choral director revered within the central Maryland gospel music tradition. Part of a long family lineage in this worship-based tradition, Shelley has sung, performed, and directed gospel music regionally for churches and other institutions in Carroll and Baltimore counties, Baltimore City, and internationally. |
| 2022 |
Person/People |
Husband and wife duo Meki and JoAnn Toalepai (Anne Arundel County) are entertainers, event producers, and cultural ambassadors for Pacific Islander (PI) culture. The pair created spaces in which PI people and others continue to learn about and participate in traditional PI music and dance. These spaces include the multigenerational, family-run ensemble Meki's Tamure Polynesian Arts Group, founded in 1969, and the Pacific Fun Day Festival, founded in 1985. |
| 2022 |
Tradition |
The Waterfowl Festival (Talbot County) is an annual cultural event in Easton that celebrates and educates the public about waterfowling culture and conservation traditions on the Eastern Shore. Founded in 1971, the Festival is among the oldest and largest continuous events of its type, featuring decoy carving, sporting art, and the World Waterfowl Calling Contest. |
| 2023 |
Person/People |
Michael Friend (Montgomery County) is a performer and respected percussionist in a variety of African-American, West African, and Latin American percussion traditions. Since he founded the Soul In Motion Players in 1984, Michael has led the ensemble in presenting African dance and drum performances around the world. |
| 2023 |
Person/People |
Linda Goss (Baltimore City) is a sixth-generation storyteller, educator, poet, and author. A 2019 NEA National Heritage Fellow and acclaimed performer, Mama Linda co-founded the National Association of Black Storytellers in 1983 to support the history, heritage, and culture of African Americans. |
| 2023 |
Person/People |
Gertie Hurley (Prince George’s County) has been making dolls for over 80 years. Nationally recognized in the tradition of Black doll-making, Gertie uses her dolls and the children’s books she writes featuring them as teaching aids to promote personal and community health and wellness. |
| 2023 |
Person/People |
Pianist and fiddler Donna Long (Baltimore County) is a pillar of Irish traditional music in Maryland and around the world. A former member of the internationally-acclaimed ensemble Cherish the Ladies, she is featured on numerous recordings and her piano arrangements are included in the performance curriculum at Ireland’s University of Limerick. |
| 2023 |
Place |
Located on the site of a former segregated school, the Kennard African American Cultural Heritage Center (Queen Anne’s County) now combines a community center and museum, chronicling local African American life and culture through its African American History Museum. A space for community gathering, the Center also offers education, scholarships, and mentoring for Queen Anne’s County residents of all ages. |
| 2023 |
Tradition |
Created in the 1840s, the Baltimore Album Quilts (Baltimore City) tradition continues to thrive in an ever-increasing local and international community of quilters. Taking designs appliqued onto cloth squares, quilters piece together quilts that document the cultural stories of their everyday lives. |
| 2024 |
Person/People |
Donald Owens has been a steward of Baltimore City’s African-American community theater tradition since the 1970s, particularly through his work with the Arena Players, the oldest, continually-operating, historically Black community theater in the country. As the Players’ artistic director since 2007, Owens passes down the tradition through community-grounded acting, directing, writing, and teaching. |
| 2024 |
Person/People |
Angel Rivera of Frederick is a master of the Puerto Rican percussion and dance traditions of bomba and plena, as well as the tradition of distilling pitorro, or moonshine rum. Rivera founded the first and only bomba and plena ensemble in the region and the only pitorro distillery in the continental United States. For more than forty years, Angel’s work has strengthened the sense of community in Maryland’s Puerto Rican diaspora. |
| 2024 |
Place |
The Pocomoke Indian Nation continues their centuries-long relationship with the lands and waters of the Pocomoke Homelands, located on the Lower Eastern Shore in Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester counties. Referenced by English explorer John Smith in 1608 and in 17th and 18th century treaties with the English Maryland Colony, tribal members continue to live on their homelands, where they practice land and water stewardship and educate the public about their tribal history and culture. |
| 2024 |
Tradition |
Founded in 1972, Carroll County’s Deer Creek Fiddlers’ Convention is a supportive space in which musicians, dancers, singers, and songwriters from diverse traditional music backgrounds can connect, learn from one another, and compete. Prizes are awarded for performance on various instruments and in genres including old-time, bluegrass, folk, blues, and Celtic music. |
| 2024 |
Tradition |
The Emerald Isle Club of Baltimore County was formed by Irish immigrants in 1956 to keep Irish traditions alive. Through monthly ceilis, or dances, and other events, the club offers all Marylanders opportunities to experience Irish music, dance, language, literature, and other aspects of Irish culture. |
| 2024 |
Tradition |
On Frostburg Derby Day, children race small, homemade derby cars down Main Street in Allegany County while families and local business sponsors cheer them on. Organized by the Frostburg Elks since 1977, the tradition grew from the soapbox derby craze of the 1930s and 1940s. In some families, derby racing cars have achieved the status of family heirlooms, with as many as three generations of drivers having used the same car. |
