October 31, 2025 • 13 mins
Host Vanessa Tyler talks about the history of the Crownsville Hospital Center - formerly known as the Hospital For The Negro Insane of Maryland. In 1911, this segregated facility was constructed to treat the mentally ill, but patients were often subjected to medical experimentation, abuse and neglect. Vanessa speaks to Janice Hayes Williams about her mission to create a permanent memorial dedicated to those that died at Crownsville, and were buried in unnamed graves.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It was one of the most frightening things to say
to a black child growing up in Maryland, and black
parents would use it as a very effective threat.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You're told by their family that if you don't behave
you're going to Crownsville. This was a place you didn't
want to go.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Crownsville the official name the hospital for the Nigro insane
at Crownsville.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
It was a farm colony. It was self sufficient.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They raised their own food, they made their own.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Clothes, and they worked with the contractors to build the hospital.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
That's Jennis Hayes Williams, and she'll tell us why she's
on a mission to name the dead at Crownsville in
Blackland and now as a Brown person, you just feel
so invisible where we're from. Brothers and sisters are welcome
you to this joyful day and they celebrate freedom.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Where we are.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
If someone heard something and where we're going, We the
people means all the people.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
The Black Information Network presents Blackland with your host Vanessa Tyler.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
No one really cares about the dead, especially people you
don't even know who died so long ago. But Jenie
Hayes Williams cares about the souls at Crownsville. This jenis welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
First, let's step back a bit to nineteen twelve in
the psychiatric segregated facility that was Crownsville. Describe Crownsville for us,
which was Maryland's only mental asylum for black patients.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So the hospital actually started nineteen eleven in a willow plant.
The State of Maryland bought three properties. One had a
wollo plant production, you know, making baskets and chairs and
(02:05):
wicked things. So when they bought the land, there was
nothing there but the willow plant, and the first twelve
patients lived there. And guess what continued willow production with
red of the news going to the state that yes,
(02:28):
they were the labor and the patients actually built the
whole hospital were contractors. This is the only mental hospital
that we have found in the whole country where the
patients built their own hospital. So picture that from the
(02:51):
woods to this phenomenal campus, great buildings of all and
this is the Maryland legacy that people want to forget
or where he got going to wow.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
When it was founded in nineteen eleven, it was called
the Hospital of the Negro Insane, Crownsville. Was it a
dangerous place? What was the care like there for the people.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So consider nineteen eleven. The people who are coming have
been in jailss houses not having any care. So this
place was a place to get some care. But all
of the doctors and nurses were white. There was a
(03:44):
barrier there and from nineteen eleven, believe this or not,
most of the people who came there had tuberclosis. Nobody
was really mentally ill until it was time to build.
That's when you see the convicts being released from jails.
(04:07):
They needed their.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Bodies, needed their bodies in more ways than one, not
just for labor. Jenie Hayes Williams says what was done
to black people then was in a way why some
black people have a sense of doctor distrust to this day.
She says the bodies were also needed for medical experiments,
including illnesses like syphilis. Black patients were human guinea pigs
(04:30):
at Crownsville.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So from a quiet place to building by their thirties
and forties, it's a place of experimentation of all kinds.
Everything you can think about, electroshock therapy, cold water therapy.
(04:52):
And I happened to know because I wanted the nameless
to have a name. So I have seen every death
certificate at Crownsville State House since nineteen eleven.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
The nameless buried only by number, so many graves. Well,
the asylum closed, I guess was two thousand and four.
So from all those years, like you said, nine and
eleven guessing to two thousand and four, black people who
died were buried on the premise if no family claimed
(05:30):
the body. These people were buried with just a number.
What was it about that that made you move into action?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Children? Imagine a war of children unwanted that never went home.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Then there were the elderly thrown in as well.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
You have to remember anybody in your family that deformed
or can be cared for and home. They went there
elder care. Somebody called me, oh, miss Janice, I'm looking
for my grandmother. They said she went to a nurdsing
(06:13):
home in Crownsville. I said, sweetheart, that was not a
nursing home. So the story is are coming through. We
got a story of a farmer slave when she was
no longer able to work. You know, slavery is over.
(06:36):
She's taking care of the family and they put her
in Crownsville.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Early on, many of the doctors and nurses were white,
but Jenna says that changed. Black nurses came in around
the nineteen sixties, and she says patient care got much better.
Some really needed Crownsville to help with their mental care.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
It was hard.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I was confused, didn't know if I could continue on.
Reverend Sonya King was institutionalized in Crownsville as a teen
for depression. She tells NBC she made it through and
got the help she needed. Life is better now. She's
even answered her calling.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Just because you go through something doesn't mean that's the end.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
It is not the end, even for those buried on
the grounds. Because Janets Hayes Williams is on a mission
to put a name to those numbers. It's personal to her.
Respect of the ancestors is in her DNA.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I come from a family that always respected the pharaoh
basis of our family. So with that in mind, seeing
that for the first time was nothing ahead ever seen before,
a number, no legacy. Whose grandma is this, whose cousin
(07:58):
is this, whose wife is this? And I went with
my uncle, who used to care for Rural Hill Cemetery
in Annapolis. We were there together stuned and all we
thought about was that these people had been brought there
(08:18):
and were disposed of.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
How did you go about getting the names from the
numbers from those who were buried from nineteen eleven until
nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
So when we asked for the records, the state of
Maryland told us that there was no record. So there's
only one way to find out who died, and that
is to scour the best certificates for your particular county.
(08:58):
So I corral volunteers here and there. I said, let's
go do this. So think about this. Every year has
twelve months. Every month has a record for that county,
so you have to go through all of the records
(09:21):
for that county for that month. So there's a record
for every month for every year. And we started with
nineteen ten and stopped in nineteen seventy to make sure
we got all of the records.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
So they have the names. And now for celebration, same
my name, Looud, the same my name Claire, same my name.
So well, every year they have a say my Name ceremony.
But the the big plan is turning this hospital ground
(10:03):
into a memorial.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
We decided to ask the state of Maryland to help
fund a memorial with all the names we found one thousand,
seven hundred and twenty seven names from twenty six states.
Somebody is looking for somebody in their family that just disappeared.
(10:30):
They're at Crownsville, So the state prepared a bomb bill
to erect this memorial.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
If you want to help, go to the Friendsfcrownsville Hospital
dot org and for a complete history of the place,
read the book Madness, my author, journalist Antonia Hilton. What
exactly will the memorial look like?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
The memorial is a wall.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Is black granite, sixteen tons with one thousand, seven hundred
plus names on that memorial is the year of.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Death, the age, and the state that you came from.
We do have some people from Santa Domingo, from France,
different countries as well. This has been a long road
and there's so many hands in this before the legacy.
(11:35):
I feel like this is the beginning of healing in
a very very bad place.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
The healing is not yet complete because there are others
who need to be recognized too.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
I feel like this is restorative justice. So I feel better.
I can relax, but I have another memorial coming. But
nessa once this one is put down. There's another memorial
to those who became cadaversed for medical science, and that
(12:17):
is going to be happening in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
The bodies that have been sacrificed for science. Do you
know whether any of those bodies led to any medical breakthroughs?
How would you find that information? Or we just know
that they were used by medical students.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I believe that JOHNS. Hopkins has that information. Think about this,
all those experiments led to the medicine that we take.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Janie Hayes Williams, historian and organizer behind the When they
say my name memorial, their souls are thinking you and
so a week, thank you, thank you. Will they have
a no that I was here?
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Will I have a show that I was here.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
I'd love to hear what you think. Reach out at
Vanessa Tyler one on Instagram. I'm Vanessa Tyler. Join me
next time on black Land
It was one of the most frightening things to say
to a black child growing up in Maryland, and black
parents would use it as a very effective threat.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You're told by their family that if you don't behave
you're going to Crownsville. This was a place you didn't
want to go.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Crownsville the official name the hospital for the Nigro insane
at Crownsville.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
It was a farm colony. It was self sufficient.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They raised their own food, they made their own.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Clothes, and they worked with the contractors to build the hospital.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
That's Jennis Hayes Williams, and she'll tell us why she's
on a mission to name the dead at Crownsville in
Blackland and now as a Brown person, you just feel
so invisible where we're from. Brothers and sisters are welcome
you to this joyful day and they celebrate freedom.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Where we are.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
If someone heard something and where we're going, We the
people means all the people.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
The Black Information Network presents Blackland with your host Vanessa Tyler.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
No one really cares about the dead, especially people you
don't even know who died so long ago. But Jenie
Hayes Williams cares about the souls at Crownsville. This jenis welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
First, let's step back a bit to nineteen twelve in
the psychiatric segregated facility that was Crownsville. Describe Crownsville for us,
which was Maryland's only mental asylum for black patients.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So the hospital actually started nineteen eleven in a willow plant.
The State of Maryland bought three properties. One had a
wollo plant production, you know, making baskets and chairs and
(02:05):
wicked things. So when they bought the land, there was
nothing there but the willow plant, and the first twelve
patients lived there. And guess what continued willow production with
red of the news going to the state that yes,
(02:28):
they were the labor and the patients actually built the
whole hospital were contractors. This is the only mental hospital
that we have found in the whole country where the
patients built their own hospital. So picture that from the
(02:51):
woods to this phenomenal campus, great buildings of all and
this is the Maryland legacy that people want to forget
or where he got going to wow.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
When it was founded in nineteen eleven, it was called
the Hospital of the Negro Insane, Crownsville. Was it a
dangerous place? What was the care like there for the people.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So consider nineteen eleven. The people who are coming have
been in jailss houses not having any care. So this
place was a place to get some care. But all
of the doctors and nurses were white. There was a
(03:44):
barrier there and from nineteen eleven, believe this or not,
most of the people who came there had tuberclosis. Nobody
was really mentally ill until it was time to build.
That's when you see the convicts being released from jails.
(04:07):
They needed their.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Bodies, needed their bodies in more ways than one, not
just for labor. Jenie Hayes Williams says what was done
to black people then was in a way why some
black people have a sense of doctor distrust to this day.
She says the bodies were also needed for medical experiments,
including illnesses like syphilis. Black patients were human guinea pigs
(04:30):
at Crownsville.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So from a quiet place to building by their thirties
and forties, it's a place of experimentation of all kinds.
Everything you can think about, electroshock therapy, cold water therapy.
(04:52):
And I happened to know because I wanted the nameless
to have a name. So I have seen every death
certificate at Crownsville State House since nineteen eleven.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
The nameless buried only by number, so many graves. Well,
the asylum closed, I guess was two thousand and four.
So from all those years, like you said, nine and
eleven guessing to two thousand and four, black people who
died were buried on the premise if no family claimed
(05:30):
the body. These people were buried with just a number.
What was it about that that made you move into action?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Children? Imagine a war of children unwanted that never went home.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Then there were the elderly thrown in as well.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
You have to remember anybody in your family that deformed
or can be cared for and home. They went there
elder care. Somebody called me, oh, miss Janice, I'm looking
for my grandmother. They said she went to a nurdsing
(06:13):
home in Crownsville. I said, sweetheart, that was not a
nursing home. So the story is are coming through. We
got a story of a farmer slave when she was
no longer able to work. You know, slavery is over.
(06:36):
She's taking care of the family and they put her
in Crownsville.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Early on, many of the doctors and nurses were white,
but Jenna says that changed. Black nurses came in around
the nineteen sixties, and she says patient care got much better.
Some really needed Crownsville to help with their mental care.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
It was hard.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I was confused, didn't know if I could continue on.
Reverend Sonya King was institutionalized in Crownsville as a teen
for depression. She tells NBC she made it through and
got the help she needed. Life is better now. She's
even answered her calling.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Just because you go through something doesn't mean that's the end.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
It is not the end, even for those buried on
the grounds. Because Janets Hayes Williams is on a mission
to put a name to those numbers. It's personal to her.
Respect of the ancestors is in her DNA.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I come from a family that always respected the pharaoh
basis of our family. So with that in mind, seeing
that for the first time was nothing ahead ever seen before,
a number, no legacy. Whose grandma is this, whose cousin
(07:58):
is this, whose wife is this? And I went with
my uncle, who used to care for Rural Hill Cemetery
in Annapolis. We were there together stuned and all we
thought about was that these people had been brought there
(08:18):
and were disposed of.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
How did you go about getting the names from the
numbers from those who were buried from nineteen eleven until
nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
So when we asked for the records, the state of
Maryland told us that there was no record. So there's
only one way to find out who died, and that
is to scour the best certificates for your particular county.
(08:58):
So I corral volunteers here and there. I said, let's
go do this. So think about this. Every year has
twelve months. Every month has a record for that county,
so you have to go through all of the records
(09:21):
for that county for that month. So there's a record
for every month for every year. And we started with
nineteen ten and stopped in nineteen seventy to make sure
we got all of the records.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
So they have the names. And now for celebration, same
my name, Looud, the same my name Claire, same my name.
So well, every year they have a say my Name ceremony.
But the the big plan is turning this hospital ground
(10:03):
into a memorial.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
We decided to ask the state of Maryland to help
fund a memorial with all the names we found one thousand,
seven hundred and twenty seven names from twenty six states.
Somebody is looking for somebody in their family that just disappeared.
(10:30):
They're at Crownsville, So the state prepared a bomb bill
to erect this memorial.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
If you want to help, go to the Friendsfcrownsville Hospital
dot org and for a complete history of the place,
read the book Madness, my author, journalist Antonia Hilton. What
exactly will the memorial look like?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
The memorial is a wall.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Is black granite, sixteen tons with one thousand, seven hundred
plus names on that memorial is the year of.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Death, the age, and the state that you came from.
We do have some people from Santa Domingo, from France,
different countries as well. This has been a long road
and there's so many hands in this before the legacy.
(11:35):
I feel like this is the beginning of healing in
a very very bad place.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
The healing is not yet complete because there are others
who need to be recognized too.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
I feel like this is restorative justice. So I feel better.
I can relax, but I have another memorial coming. But
nessa once this one is put down. There's another memorial
to those who became cadaversed for medical science, and that
(12:17):
is going to be happening in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
The bodies that have been sacrificed for science. Do you
know whether any of those bodies led to any medical breakthroughs?
How would you find that information? Or we just know
that they were used by medical students.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I believe that JOHNS. Hopkins has that information. Think about this,
all those experiments led to the medicine that we take.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Janie Hayes Williams, historian and organizer behind the When they
say my name memorial, their souls are thinking you and
so a week, thank you, thank you. Will they have
a no that I was here?
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Will I have a show that I was here.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
I'd love to hear what you think. Reach out at
Vanessa Tyler one on Instagram. I'm Vanessa Tyler. Join me
next time on black Land
Host
Vanessa Tyler
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