I spent this chilly Saturday at home and reading my book, which is so, so good, and intense. It makes me angry that I was never taught about Jim Crow in a real way, and Isabel Wilkerson is teaching it in such a real way. This book should be required reading, by everybody. But anyway. It was finally time to peel myself out of bed and get on the bike, so I headed down to the museum to check out some Maryland-specific Jim Crow history–this here kid knows how to spend a Saturday! I only had the energy to tour their special exhibit and one section of the permanent display, but I have to say, that’s an impressive place, and their small, contained presentation about lynching was devastating, as it should be. Go visit. I meant to pedal around town afterward, but I got trapped in the Fells Point Fun Fest, where I saw this massive ship parked where just two days ago there was nothing but the wee water taxi. The John W. Brown Liberty Ship was open for tours, though I was just about living-historied out. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have time for a teensy bit of interwebz research. John W. Brown was a union organizer, with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, then the United Mine Workers, and finally with the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America. Unions aren’t history, though, and something‘s a-comin.