Johns Hopkins Hospital’s relationship with East Baltimore has been troubled from the very beginning.

In 1870, when the philanthropist Johns Hopkins announced that he would create the city’s first hospital that treated indigents “without regard to sex, age or color,” irate white neighbors tried to stop his plan.

A city councilman told a protest meeting that his constituents did not want “a hospital of any kind and particularly one for the use of colored persons.”

Until the 1950s, the immediate hospital vicinity was largely white, consisting of some 10,000 politically powerful Czechs who lived on both sides of Broadway in “Little Bohemia.” They thrived and had ample job opportunities within walking distance.

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