10-13-2024 W2W - Flipbook - Page 44
Siblings Bruce Harlee and Evelyn“Winnie”Harlee stand outside of Baltimore Polytechnic High School in Baltimore City. PHOTO BY KARL MERTON FERRON
a golf shirt and wear it down to my knees.”
In hindsight, blazing a trail for women “wasn’t
the easiest thing to do,” said Spearman, a 1978
graduate who now manages a Baltimore jewelry
store. “We set the groundwork for other young
ladies who’ve attended Poly; it was a great experience, but I hope they realize a lot of blood, sweat
and tears went into laying that path.”
Harlee, for one, met the challenge head-on.
No wallflower, she joined Poly’s all-male color
guard and performed during pep rallies and football games, spinning her rifle with a prowess that
earned her the team’s captaincy in her senior year.
She held her own in shop, making anvils in
woodworking, and nuts and bolts in hot metals
class.
“Welding was cool,” said Harlee, who likely
evoked images of Rosie the Riveter. “At first, guys
asked if I needed help, but they saw that I didn’t.
My brother was fumbumbly in shop, so I also
helped him.”
She attended her senior prom, but not with the
first boy who asked. He was white; Harlee is Black.
“My dad wasn’t having any of that, because it
44 | 2024 | WOMEN TO WATCH
was 1978,” she said, “and I wasn’t having it because
the guy rode a motorcycle. Think I was going to
get on a motorcycle wearing a long gown? No
way.”
Graduation that spring was all she’d imagined.
“The boys wore white tuxedos, the [six] girls
wore white gowns, and [soul artist] Lou Rawls
sang the national anthem. We felt so important,”
Harlee said.
Now 63, with degrees from Morgan State
University and Sojourner-Douglass College, she
lives on the Alameda and works as a case manager
for the Maryland Department of Social Services.
Harlee’s high school diploma is pressed between
the pages of a well-worn yearbook; her color guard
uniform hangs in the closet of her parents’ home.
Attending Poly, she said, was “a brilliant experience; the fears [about the admission of females]
didn’t work. I feel blessed to have gone there
because the instructors’ teaching ‘antics’ disciplined your mind.
“It was like being part of a fraternal order. Fifty
years later, Poly men and women, we’re all there
for each other.”
“We set the groundwork
for other young ladies
who’ve attended Poly;
it was a great experience,
but I hope they realize
a lot of blood, sweat
and tears went into
laying that path.”
— Shirley Spearman,
1978 Poly graduate
