Read's Drug Store

Read's Drug Store

Company type	Private
Industry	Retail pharmacy
Founded	1899
Founder	William Read
Fate	Acquired by Rite Aid in 1983
Headquarters	Baltimore , United States
Products	Pharmacy, retail goods

Read's Drug Store Overview

Read's Drug Store was a retail chain headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. The business was originally established by William Read, who later sold it to the Nattans family in 1899. The flagship downtown location was designed and built in 1934 by Baltimore architects Smith & May, who also created the Bank of America building at 10 Light Street. In 1929, the company promoted itself with the slogan "Run Right to Reads." Ownership changed hands again when Rite Aid acquired Read's from the Nattans family in 1983.Template:Fix/category

In 2023, Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to multiple opioid-related lawsuits and declining revenue. Even though Read's Drug Store had ceased operations roughly four decades earlier, it remained listed within Rite Aid’s bankruptcy documentation.

On May 5, 2025, Rite Aid initiated a second Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing within two years, reporting assets and liabilities ranging between $1 billion and $10 billion. As part of this restructuring process, Rite Aid plans to liquidate all its assets, including those associated with Read's Drug Store, as it contends with financial pressures such as mounting debt, intensified competition, and inflation.

The downtown Baltimore Read's store holds historical significance as the location of an early sit-in during the Civil Rights Movement. Although this site has since closed and stands vacant, debate continues over whether the building should be demolished for new development or preserved and transformed into a civil rights museum. Notably, the 1955 sit-in at Read's occurred five years prior to the more widely known student-led 1960 Greensboro sit-ins.

Desegregation

Located at the intersection of Lexington Street and Howard Street in downtown Baltimore, Read's store became the venue for one of the earliest anti-segregation sit-ins in the nation. On January 20, 1955, students from Morgan State University collaborated with a local branch of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) to stage a peaceful demonstration lasting approximately thirty minutes. Dr. Helena Hicks, who took part in the protest and now serves on the Baltimore City Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation, recalled that seven individuals, acting largely on impulse, entered the drugstore as part of the demonstration. The NAACP verified that this sit-in was unprecedented in its nature.

Just two days following this event, Read's officially ended its segregation policy.</ref> Arthur Nattans, Sr., then serving as Read's President, published a statement in the Baltimore Afro-American declaring: “We will serve all customers throughout our entire stores, including the fountains, and this becomes effective immediately.”</ref>

The interaction between the demonstrators and the store management was notably cooperative rather than purely adversarial. Ben Everinghim, CORE's vice chairman responsible for negotiating with Read's, expressed appreciation by stating: "We feel that Read's management has been understanding and cooperative and we wish especially to compliment them and congratulate them at this time when they have been instrumental in the elimination of discrimination in such wide areas of the city."</ref>

Although also organized by students using comparable methods, the Read's sit-in did not attain the widespread recognition that later accompanied the Greensboro sit-ins five years afterward.</ref>

Historic Preservation Dispute

In 2011, the Baltimore Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation decided to grant temporary landmark designation to the downtown store. This ruling halted the $150 million development project proposed by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Lexington Square Partners for the location. Originally, the developers intended to demolish the building entirely but later agreed to retain two of its walls; however, preservation advocates contended that neither approach was adequate.

Community activists are advocating for the structure's conservation and its conversion into a civil rights museum. They have accused city officials of engaging in "demolition by neglect," alleging that minor maintenance has been deliberately overlooked, leading to the building's deterioration to clear space for new construction.

Backing the preservation efforts are organizations such as Baltimore Heritage, a non-profit dedicated to historical conservation, and the Jewish Museum of Maryland, which honors the Nattans' early commitment to desegregation.

See also

• Sit-in movement
• 1957 Royal Ice Cream Sit-in, Durham, North Carolina
• 1958 Dockum Drug Store sit-in, Wichita, Kansas
• 1958 Oklahoma City sit-ins, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
• 1960 Greensboro sit-ins, Greensboro, North Carolina
• 1960 Nashville sit-ins, Nashville, Tennessee