User:Wilford Nusser/Lincoln Park (Rockville)

Lincoln Park
Neighborhood
Country	United States
State	Maryland
County	Montgomery
City	Rockville
Established	3 February 1891
Incorporated	July 1949
Founded by	William Wallace Welsh
Named for	Abraham Lincoln
Area
• Total	0.128 sq mi (0.33 km2)
Population  (2000)
• Total	900
• Density	7,000/sq mi (2,700/km2)
Ethnicity
• Black	622 (69.1%)
• Hispanic	195 (21.7%)
• White	37 (4.1%)
• Asian	15 (1.7%)
• other	31 (3.4%)

Lincoln Park is a historic African American residential neighborhood in the city of Rockville, Maryland, situated on 82 acres of land east of the B&O Railroad tracks. It was established by Civil War veteran William Wallace Welsh in 1891, and was one of the first development projects in Montgomery County intended for sale to African Americans.

Many of today's residents are descendants of the original landowners, and have taken an active role in preserving the historic character of the community.

Establishment and growth

Expansion of Lincoln Park

  1891: Lincoln Park.

  1892: First Addition to Lincoln Park.

  1906: Griffith Tract.

  1923: England's Second Addition to Lincoln Park.

Prior to the establishment of the Lincoln Park subdivision, there were already several African American families living within its current boundaries. An 1878 map of the county shows five homesteads owned by black families — several sharing surnames with early residents — in the immediate vicinity.

The history of Lincoln Park as a subdivision began on 3 February 1891 with the purchase of 8.06 acres for about $800 by Rockville businessman and Civil War veteran William Wallace Welsh. Unlike other black communities in the area, this development was one of the first real estate projects intended for sale to African Americans, and several of the earliest buyers were employees of Welsh's general store. The following year, Welsh acquired an adjacent 7.1 acres, which became the First Addition to Lincoln Park on 27 June 1892, and the subdivision continued to grow with the addition of the Griffith Tract on 17 November 1906. Land sales were brisk, and by the time of Welsh's death during the "Spanish flu" pandemic in 1917, much of the original land had been sold. His widow disposed of the remainder by 1926.

In October 1926, Lincoln Park more than doubled in area when Harrison England — through his real estate company Suburban Properties — added about 45 acres between the growing community and the B&O Railroad tracks to the west, known as England's Second Addition. With this addition, the neighborhood had reached its present boundaries. Like Welsh, England initially sold vacant lots, but beginning in about the 1930s he began building and selling houses as well.

Lincoln Park was incorporated into the City of Rockville in July, 1949.

Community services

Churches

With the growth of the community came an increased demand for services. The earliest residents of Lincoln Park were served by two Rockville churches: the Jerusalem Methodist Episcopal Church on Wood Lane and the Clinton African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church on East Middle Lane, which had formed in 1867 from a separatist faction of the Jerusalem M.E. Church. Although Clinton A.M.E. Zion eventually relocated to Lincoln Park in 1956, early in the community's history both of these churches were located a significant distance away.

Around 1900, Baptist residents formed a new congregation called the First Montgomery Colored Baptist Church, initially meeting under an oak tree on Beantown Road (now Southlawn Lane). In 1902, they built a one-room frame building on Horner's Lane. The church was renamed to Mount Calvary Baptist Church in 1910. The original structure was demolished in the 1950s to make way for a larger building to meet the needs of the expanding congregation. The new church was completed in 1961.

The Crusader Baptist Church, the third church in Lincoln Park, was established in 1985. It meets in the Lincoln High School building.

Cemetery

Another important need of the community was met when the Rockville chapter of the Order of the Galilean Fishermen, a black fraternal organaziation, purchased land in Lincoln Park for use as a cemetery on 12 June 1917. It was transferred to Mount Calvary Baptist Church in the late 1970s, and remains in use today as one of the oldest active historically black cemeteries in Montgomery County.

Education

Since 1876, Rockville's African American students had been served by the Rockville Colored Elementary School, but this school only instructed students up to seventh grade. In 1927, Montgomery County finally constructed its first high school for blacks, the Rockville Colored High School, adjacent to the elementary school.

Former Lincoln High School building.

The student population quickly outgrew the two-room building, and in 1934 the school board purchased an 8½-acre lot at the southwest corner of Lincoln Park. An abandoned building from Takoma Park was dismantled and moved to the site, and in September 1935 opened as Lincoln High School, offering three curricula — academic, general, and vocational — to black students in grades 8 through 11, adding 12th grade education in 1943. To meet its growing needs, the school purchased surplus Quonset huts from the Navy in the late 1940s. These were employed for various purposes, including an gymnasium, an auditorium, and additional classroom space.

Sixteen years after Lincoln High opened, the fully-modern George Washington Carver High School and Junior College was constructed, offering post-secondary education to Montgomery County blacks for the first time. From 1951, Lincoln served the black community as a junior high school, and as part of desegregation following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, the school closed in 1958. It was designated a Rockville Historic District in 1989.

Since the completion of integration and the closure of Carver in 1960, students in Lincoln Park have generally attended Richard Montgomery High School.

Utilities

Homes built by Suburban Properties in the 1940s were among the first in Lincoln Park to have indoor plumbing, but there was no sewage system in Lincoln Park at all, and outhouses — locally known as "privies" — were still common. Despite frequent protests, Montgomery County had failed to provide these much-needed services to the community. Because of this perceived apathy on the part of the county, on 6 January 1949, residents petitioned the mayor and council of Rockville, requesting incorporation into the town. This petition was granted, and in July 1949, Lincoln Park was part of a larger annex to the town of Rockville.

Following incorporation, improvements were still slow in coming. In 1953, Dickran Hovsepian helped found the non-partisan activist group Citizens for Good Government (CGG). Candidates representing the CGG, including Hovsepian as mayoral candidate, swept many incumbents from office in the municipal elections of 1954, running in part on a platform of modernizing city services such as water and sewerage. Under Hovesepian's government, a modern water and sewerage system finally came to Lincoln Park, roads were resurfaced with crushed stone and later paved, and street lighting greatly improved.

Civil rights movement

Gibbs v. Broome

Although Montgomery County claimed to have a "separate but equal" approach to education for its black and white students, there were obvious inequities in the system. In the 1930s, issues regarding disproportional teachers’ salaries came to a head. At that time, black and white teachers had to meet the same standards for hiring, yet white teachers received on average double the salary of equally qualified black teachers.

With support from the NAACP and the Maryland Teachers’ Association, William B. Gibbs, teacher and principal of Rockville Colored Elementary School, took on the task of demanding equal pay. In December 1936, he petitioned the Montgomery County Board of Education to pay all teachers equally, regardless of race. The Board denied the petition, so with representation from NAACP attorneys Thurgood Marshall (later a Supreme Court Justice), Charles Houston (Vice Dean of Howard University Law School) and others, Gibbs sued the Board of Education in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

Rather than fight what would surely be a losing battle, the Board settled the case out of court through School Superintendent Edwin Broome. The Board agreed to increase the salaries of its African American teachers to equal those of white teachers by phasing in a salary increase over two years. The battle for equal pay, however, was not without its casualties. Although not plainly stated to be a result of the lawsuit, Gibbs was fired the year following his case against the Board of Education on a technicality.

Forty-two years later in 1979, Gibbs was honored in a ceremony in Lincoln Park for his struggle for equal pay.

Boycotts and sit-ins

A 1954 survey by the Montgomery County Civil Liberties Committee found that despite a universal policy of segregation in Rockville restaurants, most owners were not strongly opposed to serving black customers. By 1958, most served patrons without discrimination, but there were a few holdouts. In the fall of 1959, Mary Williams — a Lincoln Park resident and newly elected president of the Montgomery County NAACP — and her two young daughters were refused dining room service at the Hi-Boy cafe that had recently opened in Rockville.

In response, activists distributed thousands of flyers to Rockville residents, urging them to boycott the restaurant. On 10 July 1960, Rockville citizens participated in an anti-segregation sit-in protest at Hi-Boy. Twenty-five of the protestors were arrested, most of whom were from Lincoln Park. For the next two weeks, the cafe was the site of daily picketing protests. On July 25 in a unanimous resolution, the city council recommended Hi-Boy open counter service to persons of all races.

On 16 January 1962, after similar protests around the county (including Glen Echo Amusement Park), the county council passed a public accommodations ordinance requiring desegregation of all businesses serving the public, the first of its kind in the state of Maryland.

Neighborhood preservation

Unity Pedestrian Bridge

Substandard/Public housing struggle — Industrial encroachments — Metro road closures — Mount Calvary disputes — Neighborhood Conservation Plan

In the early 2000s, many residents of Lincoln Park and East Rockville organized a campaign against the planned expansion of Mount Calvary Baptist Church, which sought to redevelop residential lots for off-street parking. Many of these lots were not connected to the church property and would have disrupted the character of the neighborhood. After a two-year struggle, the church's expansion plans were curtailed to include only lots immediately adjacent to their property. Due in part to the community reaction, the city amended its zoning ordinance to restrict institutional expansion in residential areas.

Despite positive strides, industrial encroachment continues to be a concern among residents. A draft zoning proposal put forth by the city in late 2007 suggested heavy industrial use along nearby Southlawn and Gude drives, which would further isolate the community and prohibit future residential expansion.

Notable residents

• Mary Williams Betters (c.1940–), former Montgomery County NAACP president.
• Charles Clarence "Pint" Isreal (1918–1987), Negro League baseball player.
• William Joppy (1970–), former WBA middleweight champion.
• Lorenzo Dow Turner (1890–1972), linguist who pioneered studies connecting African American dialects to African roots.

Timeline

• 1891 - William Wallace Welsh purchases 8.06 acres and plats the subdivision as Lincoln Park.
• 1892 - Welsh designates "The First Addition to Lincoln Park" from land purchased from the estate of Mary Dodd.
• 1902 - The congregation of the First Montgomery Colored Baptist Church builds what will become Mount Calvary Baptist Church.
• 1906 - The Griffith Tract is added to the north side of Lincoln Park.
• 1912 - Eureka Tabernacle no. 29 of the Order of Galilean Fishermen established in Rockville.
• 1917 - The Galilean Fishermen purchase land for a cemetery in Lincoln Park.
• 1918 - Welsh dies during the influenza epidemic.
• 1926 - Harrison L. England adds 45 acres to Lincoln Park, more than doubling its area and establishing its present boundaries.
• 1935 - Lincoln High School opens.
• 1937 - After Gibbs v. Broome settlement, black teachers get a pay raise phased in over two years to match the pay scale of whites.
• 1949 - After long disputes with Montgomery County over the lack of public services, Lincoln Park petitions for incorporation into the town of Rockville.
• 1953 - Morris Stern begins developing multi-family housing along Lenmor Avenue.
• 1958 - As part of educational desegregation, Lincoln Junior High School closes.
• 1959 - The 65-unit Lincoln Terrace public housing project opens.
• 1959 - HiBoy restaurant in Rockville refuses service to Mary Williams Betters (Lincoln Park resident and president of Montgomery County NAACP) and her two daughters; a general boycott of segregated businesses follows.
• 1960 - 25 people arrested during a sit-in protest at HiBoy.
• 1962 - Montgomery County passes anti-segregation public accommodations law.
• 1980 - Metrorail construction closes Frederick Avenue railroad crossing, largely isolating Lincoln Park from the rest of the city.
• 1982 - North Rockville Pedestrian Bridge opens.
• 1984 - Rockville and Shady Grove Metro Stations open.
• 1989 - Lincoln High School designated a Rockville Historic District.
• 1999 - North Rockville Pedestrian Bridge is renovated and renamed Unity Bridge.
• 2000 - Lincoln Park Community Center renovated and expanded.
• 2005 - Lincoln Terrace demolished to make way for the mixed-income Legacy development.
• 2007 - Rockville Planning Commission adopts the Lincoln Park Neighborhood Conservation District Plan; Legacy development opens.