Enolia Pettigen McMillan was an educator, visionary, civil rights pioneer and champion for Morgan State University. Now she has her name on a building associated with that institution.
At a topping-off ceremony for a 473-bed apartment building in Hamilton-Lauraville last week, developers joined with university leaders to announce that it will be called The Enolia, in recognition of McMillan and her contributions as the first and only woman to serve as chair of the university’s Board of Regents.
When complete in the summer of 2025, the five-story, $58 million project will help address a housing shortage at the university, which has seen record enrollment in recent years.
With nearly 10,000 students currently enrolled and more than 50 percent of new students coming from out of state, Morgan has been renting apartments and hotel rooms as far from its campus as downtown Baltimore and Baltimore County to keep up with demand.
“This project is going to serve an incredible need at Morgan,” said University President David Wilson. “Morgan is one of the fastest, if not the fastest-growing institution right now in our state. We cannot accept any more students. We have reached capacity. We expect that this fall of 2024, we will have somewhere between 10,400 and 10,600 students. That is 3,000 students more than we had five years ago.”
Wilson noted that Morgan is 157 years old and to his knowledge, The Enolia is “the first off-campus housing development that has ever been built with Morgan in mind…We look forward to this development’s positive impact on our students and the broader community.”
Meaningful name
MCB Real Estate is the developer of the project at 4529 Harford Road, with Amy Bonitz, vice president for community development, leading its team. Alexander Design Studio is the architect. Construction began last year and is scheduled to be complete in time for the 2025-2026 school year.
Approximately one mile from Morgan’s campus, The Enolia will contain 151 units, primarily four-bedroom “quads” designed for students, with a one bedroom-to-one bathroom ratio and washers and dryers in every unit. Amenities include study rooms, student collaboration spaces, a fitness center, a game room, secure bike and package storage and a large courtyard in the center.
The building’s “working name” was Flats at The Markley, because it’s next to a historic building called The Markley. But given its association with Morgan, the development team wanted a name that will be meaningful to the Morgan State students who will live there while reinforcing the project’s ties to the institution and paying tribute one of its leaders.
“We knew we needed a name that will match their spirit,” said P. David Bramble, managing partner and co-founder of MCB.
McMillan’s name “carries an enormous amount of respect not just in Baltimore but as one of America’s most revered civil rights trailblazers,” Bramble said. “Given her tremendous role in advocating and progressing Morgan’s status as a premier learning institution, it’s only fitting that her name be associated with a project that will help alleviate the housing shortage that has become a significant barrier to the university’s growth.”
This building “will bring hundreds of students to the area who will support local businesses, solidify Morgan’s presence on this wonderful Main Street, and provide Morgan students with the same type of Class A off-campus housing that’s available at other Tier 1 universities,” he said. “It’s our hope that The Enolia will be a home to the next path finders, record setters and change makers that come out of Morgan State University.”
“Living in history’
McMillan was born in 1904, the daughter of a former slave, and passed away in 2006 at age 102. Besides serving as chair of Morgan’s Board of Regents, she was president of the Maryland State Colored Teachers Association, the first woman elected president of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP, and the first and only woman to serve as national president of the NAACP, among other positions.
Wilson called the name “a fitting honor” for McMillan, adding that “her life and legacy are simply inseparable from Morgan State’s history.”
She lived “an exemplary life of service,” he said. “Her exploits are simply legendary — the pioneering strides she made on behalf of black educators in the city and the state, the national leadership she provided for the NAACP. I could go on and on.”
Morgan was incorporated in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Baltimore. In 1890, its name was changed to Morgan College in honor of Rev. Lyttleton F. Morgan, a board member who gave it a large endowment. It acquired the authority to grant college degrees the same year.
McMillan was appointed the first chair of Morgan’s Board of Regents in 1975 and in that role steered the institution through its transformation from a college to a university. Wilson said it was a critical time in Morgan’s history, when not everyone supported its plans for growth and it needed bold leadership.
“She fearlessly led Morgan from its evolution as Morgan State College to Morgan State University, when there was a sitting governor at the time who wanted Morgan to simply, in the vernacular, die in childbirth,” he said at the topping-off ceremony.
“I want you to sit back and imagine, if you will, a black woman in the 1970s standing firmly in opposition to a sitting governor. But she did not give in, she did not waver in her commitment that Morgan would continue on its mission undeterred, and it did. We must never forget that there were multitudes at the time who were determined that Morgan State University would not survive, let along thrive. Understand that here in our glorious state of Maryland, in the 1970s, yes, there were those who thought graduate school, and professional degrees, were a bit presumptuous and unnecessary for African Americans. But Mrs. McMillan was…absolutely determined that this vision of a Morgan State University would not die. It would not simply live, but it would thrive, and she would be so pleased to see this today with her name on it.”
McMillan was a leader who “pushed forward continually and was unfazed in the face of blatant racism and sexism,” Wilson continued “She was a fearless advocate for the disenfranchised, a woman who spoke truth to power when one could almost lose their life by doing so. And so Morgan State College was elevated on her watch, and then she passed on that torch to each and every one of us. As our students take residence here at The Enolia, I want them to understand every single day that they are living in history under the name of a servant-leader who devoted her life to service, and we will be hell-bent on ensuring that they keep that in front of them.”
Breaking down barriers
McMillan “committed her life to helping young people find a clear path to knowledge and fighting injustice wherever she saw it happening,” said Tiffany Mfume, McMillan’s granddaughter and an associate vice provost for student success and retention initiatives at Johns Hopkins University.
“My grandmother originally wanted to become a physician, but realizing the significant obstacles in her path, she focused her energy on becoming a teacher in Baltimore,” Mfume said. “After that, she just broke down barrier after barrier: first black teacher at an all-white high school; first black principal at an all-white high school, first woman to be Maryland State Colored Teachers Association president, and would even go on to work with Thurgood Marshall on court cases leading up to the historic Brown v. Board of Education case.”
Other achievements, according to Mfume and others: She was the first African American woman to be appointed principal of a high school in Maryland, in 1928. The first woman to serve as Trustee to the Executive Committee of the Baltimore Public School Teachers Association. The first African American to become an administrator in a former all-white school in Baltimore, Clifton Park Junior High School. The first woman to chair the Trustee Board of Calgary Baptist Church. For several years she served as secretary and Executive Board member of the Baltimore Urban League.
“Enolia was a hard worker, a builder,” Mfume said. “Some people don’t know that she actually poured the concrete basement herself and literally laid the foundation of her church, Calgary Baptist Church. She was a roll up her sleeves and go to work kind of leader…She drove people who did not have cars. She actually drove the yellow school bus for one of the schools she served as principal…She had a name for her yellow bus – Amos.”
In her various roles, “she broke a lot of glass ceilings,” Mfume said. “She loved nothing more than to see young people become educated and empowered. She would be so immensely proud of the accomplishments of our students at Morgan State University and the expansion that the university has seen.”
Boost to revitalization efforts
MCB has collaborated with Morgan State before. Several years ago, with MLR Partners and Morgan State, it transformed the former Northwood Plaza Shopping Center into Northwood Commons, a mixed-use development anchored by a LIDL grocery store, a Barnes and Noble bookstore and the university’s new Public Safety Building.
One of the key partners in The Enolia is WesBanco, which provided financing for it. In addition, the Wells Fargo Foundation gave $1 million to the Morgan State University Foundation for the project. Additional support came from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development; the Goldseker Foundation; Harbor Bank; the Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund; Hamilton-Lauraville Main Street and others.
Besides helping address Morgan State’s student housing needs, the building represents a boost to revitalization efforts along the Harford Road corridor because it will bring in hundreds of residents who will patronize area shops and businesses. Its construction also removed one of the largest blighted properties in the area, a former car dealership that was a missing tooth in the streetscape.
MCB partnered with the Hamilton-Lauraville Main Street organization, which secured a $1 million SEED Community Development Anchor Institution grant from Morgan and the State of Maryland to demolish vacant buildings on the 3.3-acre site. A second phase of the project will include a $7.5 million restorationand upgrading of the Markley building for use as a Center for Entrepreneurship and Small Business.
“The Enolia represents a transformative addition to both Morgan State University and the broader Baltimore community,” said Stacy Spann, head of Housing Access and Affordability Philanthropy at the Wells Fargo Foundation. “We are committed to supporting efforts that recognize the importance of housing as a foundation for success and community revitalization.”
“The Enolia perfectly showcases MCB’s dedication to positive community impact,” Bramble said. “Our projects are much more than just a sound real estate venture, but an investment in the future of Baltimore.”
“As the community grows, it is imperative that the community we are a part of also flourishes,” Wilson said.
Making their mark
More than 100 people attended the topping-off ceremony last Thursday. Guests were invited to sign their names on a structural column, symbolically making their mark on the building as the development team celebrated completion of “vertical construction” on the project. Contractors are now finishing the interiors in preparation for their first occupants. Members of the McMillan family — including her only son, Betha, 83 — were among the first to sign the column.
A Morgan State graduate who served in a variety of leadership roles there for nearly 25 years and has been married to U. S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume since 2012, Mfume said at the topping-off event that she agrees with Wilson that her grandmother would be pleased with the building’s new name.
She told the audience that her grandmother didn’t like to be the subject of attention. “She did not like a lot of fuss made over her. She was a humble woman who was interested in results and didn’t want to take credit for them.”
But “this would be something that she would not mind us doing to honor her,” she said, “because it will result in…students getting an opportunity to pursue higher education in the best possible living and learning environment.”
Mfume told a story showing why she thought it was particularly fitting that her grandmother’s name would be on a building that provides housing for people. She said her grandmother always shared “the perks of her leadership” in organizations such as the NAACP, and that sometimes included giving people a place to stay.
“When I traveled with her and she was assigned to a luxurious suite in a hotel with more than one guest room, she always, one hundred percent, invited random people to stay with us,” Mfume said. “It’s only fitting now that a housing complex bear her name. So many people have lived with her, stayed with her, in her home and in hotels over the years, this would truly bring a smile to her face.”
