(BALTIMORE – May 8, 2026) – Margaret “Betty” Watkins has been doing hair in Turner Station for 53 years. Tomorrow, she gets her flowers.
Watkins is among the honorees at Black Wall Street SPARROWS POINT, the latest stop in the Joe Manns Black Wall Street Awards series, founded by Doni Glover. The event celebrates Black entrepreneurship, legacy, and economic empowerment rooted in community.
Betty’s story is Turner Station through and through.
A native of the historic waterfront community, she graduated from Sollers Point Junior/Senior High School in 1964 before studying at Earn Power Business School, where she trained as an IBM keypunch operator. She later worked for I.C. Isaac’s and Company in Highlandtown for two years before answering a deeper calling.
In 1968, she enrolled at Calvinade Beauty School in Baltimore City, earning her cosmetology credentials and eventually working at Blair’s Beauty Salon. But it was the pull of home — and a friendship — that would define the rest of her professional life.
Back in Turner Station, Betty met Servant Courtney Speed, a fellow community resident whose family operated Speed’s Barber and Beauty Salon. That friendship became a partnership, and that partnership became a legacy.
For the past 53 years, Betty Watkins has served her community as a self-employed beautician and hairstylist at Speed’s — a living institution in Turner Station.
In Black communities, beauty salons are more than businesses. They are cultural spaces. Safe spaces. Networking spaces. Healing spaces. For generations in Turner Station, Betty Watkins has been part of that sacred tradition.
She is a lifetime member of New Shiloh Baptist Church, also rooted in Turner Station, and finds joy in traveling and DIY projects. She is the proud mother of one son, Renaldo Watkins.
Fifty-three years. Same community. Same commitment.
That is Black Wall Street.
Black Wall Street SPARROWS POINT takes place Saturday, May 9, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Pleasant Yacht Club.
RSVP: blackwallstreetsparrowspoint.eventbrite.com
Doni Glover is the founder and publisher of BMORENews.com, now in its 24th year of covering Black Baltimore, and founder of the Joe Manns Black Wall Street Awards, now in its 15th year. He is also the host of the Emmy-nominated Doni Glover podcast and The Doni Glover Show on WMAR-TV 2.
