Maryland is confronting a brutal chapter in its history.

Officials have now marked a massive unmarked grave at the former House of Reformation for Colored Boys; the segregation-era institution had a long history of abusing Black children and burying them on the site.​

The existence of the burial ground was publicly announced in July 2025, though the facility’s violent past was an open secret for decades.

​The site, now part of the Cheltenham Youth Detention Facility in Prince George’s County, is believed to hold the remains of at least 230 boys, some as young as 5 years old, according to WTOP. The state acknowledged the graves in a first-of-its-kind ceremony on Wednesday.

"It was privately run, state-supported, and a segregated institution," Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said at the ceremony on Wednesday, per WTOP. "The boys were contracted out of labor here. They were whipped and beaten. Their humanity taken away from them. Boys died (from) disease and exhaustion here. And, more than 230 of them lie buried in unmarked graves, not even acknowledging their humanity while here on Earth."

Maryland leaders said the new marker is only the beginning, with a new commission expected to dig deeper through forensic analysis, genealogical research, and archival records.

The House of Reformation opened in 1870 as the first reform school for Black children in the South, but the institution became known for harsh punishment, forced labor, and neglect. Black Boys were often sent there for minor offenses, then made to work on nearby farms and in factories, while records and later investigations pointed to disease, exhaustion, and abuse as the leading causes of death.

For decades, the burials were largely ignored. Recent research by state officials and journalists helped confirm the burial ground and document the scale of the loss.

“What we uncovered near this facility surprised even us: an overgrown potter’s field where dozens of Black boys who had died in the House of Reformation from the late 1800s to 1939 were buried,” said Vincent Schiraldi to the Marshall Project in 2025.

Schiraldi worked for two years as secretary of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services.  “Some of the graves had headstones, but most were marked by unnamed, deteriorating cinder blocks,” he continued. “The way these children were treated in death has disturbing implications for current-day practices.”

The site reflects more than a forgotten graveyard; it is a grim and heartbreaking reminder of how Black children were treated inside a system built on segregation and control.

Maryland now says it will keep searching for burial sites and preserve what remains of the record.

"The state of Maryland cannot run away from its past. We must confront the contradictions of a justice denied and a justice promise and a freedom denied," said Crystal Foreita, a researcher, WBALT reports.