
Verda Freeman Welcome was an influential politician and community leader in the Mondawmin community. Welcome was born and raised in North Carolina and moved to Baltimore in 1929 to attend Coppin State, which was then a teachers college. After continuing to Morgan State and later New York University for her master’s degree, Welcome taught in Baltimore City Public Schools from 1934 to 1945. Welcome moved to Holmes Avenue in the Mondawmin area near the time of the mall’s opening and, in 1954, created the Mondawmin Neighborhood Improvement Association, the oldest neighborhood association in the Greater Mondawmin Coordinating Council network.
Building off her local community work, Welcome successfully ran for the Maryland House of Delegates in 1958, becoming one of the very first Black Women to be elected as a delegate. After one term in the house, Welcome was then elected to the State Senate as the first Black female State Senator in Maryland history in 1962. Welcome would go on to serve in the Senate for 20 years, surviving an assassination attempt, fighting for desegregation, and advocating against the death penalty. She passed away in Baltimore in 1990.