2008 Woodie Awards
Lakeland Community preserves roots
Chidinma Okparanta
Issue date: 2/28/08 Section: News
For a group of Lakeland residents, preserving the neighborhood's roots has become a race against time.
Because of urban renewal and a trend of longtime residents seeking educational and employment options elsewhere, the rich history of the community is slowly shrinking along with the population. As a black community in the then-predominantly white Prince George's county, Lakeland played a unique role in the county's overall black history, especially in the northern part of the county - a role community members hope to preserve in the Lakeland Community Heritage Project.
"We've had a lot of dedicated support from students and faculty at the university," said Maxine Gross, a 40-year resident of Lakeland who chairs the project's committee of residents and nonresidents with fellow member Diane Ligon.
Lakeland was settled around 1900 by blacks from various parts of Prince George's and surrounding counties, said Gross, whose ancestors came from Calvert County and plantations in the Muirkirk area of Laurel.
Although there has been speculation about historical links between Lakeland residents and slaves owned by Charles Calvert, Gross said actual evidence of that is tenuous at best, adding that settlers of Lakeland came from all over the region. And despite the speculation of these ties, the heritage project says their goal isn't to investigate slavery, but to preserve a culture they fear is quickly disappearing.
"One of the reasons people stayed in the community in the past was because you couldn't live in other places up until the 1970s," Gross said. "But after that, there were more opportunities for blacks regarding where to go to school and where to work so they were no longer forced to remain in Lakeland." Gross also pointed to urban renewal, which she said, "destroyed two-thirds of the community," literally shrinking it's land area and population.
"Lakeland had one of the first black high schools in the area," Ligon said. "Until 1928, black students went to the District or they didn't get a high school education at all."
Because of urban renewal and a trend of longtime residents seeking educational and employment options elsewhere, the rich history of the community is slowly shrinking along with the population. As a black community in the then-predominantly white Prince George's county, Lakeland played a unique role in the county's overall black history, especially in the northern part of the county - a role community members hope to preserve in the Lakeland Community Heritage Project.
"We've had a lot of dedicated support from students and faculty at the university," said Maxine Gross, a 40-year resident of Lakeland who chairs the project's committee of residents and nonresidents with fellow member Diane Ligon.
Lakeland was settled around 1900 by blacks from various parts of Prince George's and surrounding counties, said Gross, whose ancestors came from Calvert County and plantations in the Muirkirk area of Laurel.
Although there has been speculation about historical links between Lakeland residents and slaves owned by Charles Calvert, Gross said actual evidence of that is tenuous at best, adding that settlers of Lakeland came from all over the region. And despite the speculation of these ties, the heritage project says their goal isn't to investigate slavery, but to preserve a culture they fear is quickly disappearing.
"One of the reasons people stayed in the community in the past was because you couldn't live in other places up until the 1970s," Gross said. "But after that, there were more opportunities for blacks regarding where to go to school and where to work so they were no longer forced to remain in Lakeland." Gross also pointed to urban renewal, which she said, "destroyed two-thirds of the community," literally shrinking it's land area and population.
"Lakeland had one of the first black high schools in the area," Ligon said. "Until 1928, black students went to the District or they didn't get a high school education at all."
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M. S. Dennis
posted 3/02/08 @ 3:32 PM EST
Thanks DIAMONDBACK!!
In my opinion this project is a story "waiting to be told". Articles such as this, and those from other local media outlets, will sustain and provide further encoragement and impetus for the core-group of LCHP members, and for those community and extended-community associates. (Continued…)
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