The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center's website may be one of the places you check for the latest data on the pandemic. This week Johns Hopkins was in the news for a different reason.

Johns Hopkins (1795-1873) was a wealthy philanthropist whose bequests founded the Baltimore university and hospital which bear his name. [By the way, his first name was truly "Johns," a family name passed down from his great-grandmother, whose maiden name was Johns.]

The Hopkins family were Quakers, and until recently it was believed their slaves had been emancipated by the early 1800s. Johns Hopkins has long been renowned as a staunch abolitionist. Researchers studying census records have found evidence pointing in another direction. As late as 1850, Hopkins was still listed as the owner of four slaves. 

Slave-holding was legal in Maryland until 1864. As offensive as it is to us today, the practice was common in that place and time. What surprises me more than the announcement about Hopkins' slave ownership is that it took this long to make the discovery.

Take a break from tracking COVID-19 and read more about this interesting development here.