Hundreds of Black Children Buried in Unmarked Graves at Maryland Juvenile Detention Center

The Maryland Department of Juvenile Services recently uncovered a burial site within a mile of the Cheltenham Youth Detention Center in Prince George’s County, according to the governor’s office. It is believed to be the final resting place for more than 230 children who died in state custody.

In a wooded area near the facility, the burial site is comprised of headstones that are hidden under leaves and debris from many decades ago. However, only a few of these headstones have been engraved with names in addition to dates of birth and death. Instead, most of the graves are marked only by scattered, unmarked cinder blocks. Those abandoned graves are believed to belong to Black children who died, beginning 150 years ago and were forgotten. 

A commission formed to study how hundreds of Black boys died at a former state-run juvenile detention facility in Prince George's County held its first meeting just over two weeks ago.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown chairs this commission.

“They were beaten … forced to labor,” he said at the commission’s first meeting. “They were denied an education. They were malnourished and medically neglected.”

The Maryland General Assembly also passed legislation this year creating the House of Reformation Commission to study how boys who were in state care died and were buried in unmarked graves at the former Boys Village site in Cheltenham.

Between the 1870s and 1941, hundreds of Black children – some as young as five years old – died while confined at the House of Reformation. It became the South’s first juvenile “reformatory” for Black boys.

Before the center was formed, Black boys facing charges would be locked up in adult prisons as juvenile detention centers were for white children only.

Years later, the House of Reformation was established, pulling 400 Black children out of adult prisons – the youngest being 5 years old. This institution operated for decades and children were forced into unpaid labor while experiencing severe neglect as well as physical abuse.

Commissioner Phyllis Hammond learned in April that her uncle, Amos Hammond, was buried at the age of 18 in the long-forgotten graveyard where a cinderblock marked his grave.

“It's heart-wrenching,” she said. “They didn't grow up easy. I think that’s why my father never talked about his family.”

“I'm grateful to be on this journey,” Hammond said. “It’s not going to be an easy journey. It hasn’t been. I’m still grieving; all the families are still grieving. But I’m just so thankful that this has been revealed.”

She wrote a poem that was inspired by the discovery entitled “If These Woods Could Talk.”

“I just wonder sometimes, if those woods could talk, how many lives could have been saved?”

Recently, the state of Maryland honored the memory of the hundreds of Black children buried at the House of Reformation. In May, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore unveiled a roadside historical marker.

“Loving our state does not mean lying about its history. It means telling the truth—even when the truth is hard,” he said.

“What happened on these grounds was state-sanctioned harm, and acknowledging that is only the first step. My administration, in partnership with the Legislative Black Caucus, is dedicated to the work ahead — to find these children, learn their stories, and ensure they have eternal peace.”

The commission expects to release an initial report by the end of next year.