
Ethel Ennis is a legendary jazz singer who made her home in the Parkway community. She was born and raised in West Baltimore, where she started her musical career singing and playing piano in church. After attending Booker T. Washington Middle School and Frederick Douglass High School, Ennis began performing at clubs along Pennsylvania Avenue and released her first single in 1956. Ethel continued to perform and record for the next sixty years, often alongside other jazz greats like Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway, Miles Davis, and fellow Baltimorean Billie Holliday. However, unlike those artists, she took a more relaxed approach to recording and performing to focus on her community work in Baltimore, centered around her modest rowhome just west of the Mondawmin Mall.
In 1957, Ennis married Jacques Leeds, a lawyer and fellow Douglass graduate from West Baltimore. Leeds was one of the first Black graduates of the University of Maryland Law School, which had previously denied admission to Thurgood Marshall due to its segregationist policies. During their marriage, he operated a law office in Mondawmin Mall and went on to become Maryland’s first Black Assistant Attorney General. Following his divorce from Ennis, he ran for State Senate, but eventually withdrew his candidacy to support fellow Greater Mondawmin resident Verda F. Welcome, who became the first Black woman elected to the position. In 1967, Ennis married Earl Arnett, whom she would live with in their Parkway rowhome until her death in 2019. Ennis and Arnett had to be married in Colorado, as their mixed-race marriage was not legal in Maryland at the time. Arnett worked alongside Ennis in Baltimore community work, serving twice as the president of the Greater Mondawmin Coordinating Council.
In Baltimore, Ennis devoted significant time to her community. She held fundraisers to support causes across the city, helped establish the City Fair and Artscape festivals, and established a community space and performance center with Earl Arnett called Ethel’s Place. Ennis also performed the National Anthem at the 1973 inauguration of Richard Nixon (pictured above). Despite being a Democrat, Ennis accepted the invitation after being invited by fellow Baltimorean and then Vice President Spiro Agnew. Ennis also acted as Baltimore’s international ambassador, performing in Baltimore’s sister city of Xiamen, China. Ennis passed away at her Parkway home in 2019 at the age of 86.