Vincent Leggett, a champion of Black heritage on the Chesapeake Bay, stands on the Annapolis waterfront in 2018. Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Journal.
By Jeremy Cox
Chesapeake Bay Journal
Vincent Leggett, a historian who championed the preservation of Black stories and places associated with the Chesapeake Bay, died Nov. 23. He was 71 years old.
Leggett spent years documenting the lives of others and led a storied life of his own. In 1984, he launched the Blacks of the Chesapeake, a project dedicated to collecting stories and artifacts of African American maritime life on the Bay. A decade later, he coalesced the effort into a nonprofit organization that frequently interacted with schools, museums and community groups.
Leggett gathered his research into a pair of influential books, 1997’s “Blacks of the Chesapeake” and 1999’s “The Chesapeake Bay Through Ebony Eyes.” Although he didn’t own a boat, he was named an “Admiral of the Bay,” an honorary title given to Maryland environmental leaders. The Chesapeake Conservancy named him a “Champion of the Chesapeake” in 2022.
News of his death brought tributes from across the Bay region.
“Vince leaves behind a legacy of a more complete and vivid telling of the history of the Bay and its people,” said Chesapeake Bay Foundation President and CEO Hilary Harp Falk. “We are all better for his leadership in celebrating the region’s rich Black history. We will miss his partnership and friendship.”
For many young Black environmental leaders in the Mid-Atlantic region, Leggett was a trailblazer.
“Vince Leggett was not only a mentor, but a friend,” said Carmera Thomas-Wilhite, the Bay Foundation’s vice president for diversity, equity, inclusion and justice. “He was always an advocate for the next generation. It was an honor to learn from him. We will celebrate his legacy by continuing to share stories from all communities around the Bay.”
Joel Dunn, head of the Chesapeake Conservancy, said that one of Leggett’s signature achievements was his crusade to preserve a slice of waterfront land that is now known as Elktonia-Carr’s Beach Heritage Park in Annapolis. In the 1950s and ’60s, the area attracted African American crowds by the thousand with its sandy beaches and entertainment from some of the top Black performers of the day, such as Little Richard and Aretha Franklin.
Leggett pieced together a coalition of partners to acquire the land, culminating with the $6.4 million purchase in 2022.
“It was like putting together a million-piece jigsaw puzzle,” he told the Bay Journal at the time. “No one entity was strong enough to do it on its own.”
“Vince’s work,” Dunn said, “transcended the archives and pages of history books — he built bridges connecting people and communities, fostered understanding and inspired a collective commitment to justice and equity. As a mentor and friend to so many, he shared his wisdom generously, guiding others to take up the mantle of preserving and celebrating Black history.”
Leggett was born in 1953 to Charlie Leggett, a labor representative, and Willie Mae Leggett, an elementary and special education teacher. Growing up in Baltimore, he gained a lifelong appreciation for the outdoors during fishing and hunting trips with his father.
His early career revolved around education, serving as an education planner for Baltimore City Public Schools and a supervisor of educational planning and student demographics for the public school system in Anne Arundel County. He later worked as campus planner and academic adviser for Anne Arundel Community College. And he served for a time as president of the county’s Board of Education.
Leggett said his research demonstrated that the Chesapeake Bay’s culture would be greatly diminished without its Black contributions. That, he noted, applies to modern environmental stewardship as well.
He founded an Annapolis-based government relations consulting firm, lobbying for environmental causes, equitable education funding, clean energy and historical preservation. And he co-founded another nonprofit, the Chesapeake Ecology Center, which created native landscape demonstration gardens at the J. Albert Adams Academy, an alternative education middle school in Annapolis.
In 2000, the Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation was designated a Local Legacy Project by the Library of Congress and the U.S. Congress. Its collection grew to more than 40,000 images portraying Black water workers and the equivalent of more than 400 linear feet of material records, broadsides, research papers, books, magazines, journals and articles.
“We need to shatter the myth that people of color are not interested in environmental issues that affect their communities.” Leggett told the Bay Journal in 2006.
“If you ask, ‘Do people want good water, clean air, clean playgrounds?’ they’ll say ‘yes’ every time,” he said. “That’s the essence of environmental issues, though they get dressed up in a lot of ways.”
In later years, Leggett and his group partnered with the organization Blacks in Marine Science to promote their shared goals of increasing diversity and amplifying Black history in the seafood sector. Imani Black, who founded Blacks in Marine Science, said she immediately called her group’s leadership after learning of Leggett’s death.
“We’ve all just been like, ‘Now, our work is 10 times more important,’” Black said. “We just want to carry on Vince’s legacy and his work.”