In this second post about Lakeland, the historical African American community of College Park, Maxine Gross shares her personal insights on Lakelanders’ commitment to education and their efforts to see their children educated in their own community.
Education & Lakeland: The Key to Success
Lakeland’s elders said education was the key to success – so they worked and fought to see their children educated in their community. Schools for African Americans were not a priority for local governments. If they were to have schools, African American communities had to build their own.
Lakeland’s First Elementary School
Lakelanders built the community’s first school – a one room elementary school – in 1903. The building was replaced with a two-room structure in 1917.
Students of Lakeland Elementary School, a Rosenwald School 1949 on Winnipeg Street, the site of Lake Artemesia Natural Site
Lakeland & The Rosenwald Fund
Julius Rosenwald – a Sears Roebuck partner – learned about the poor state of schools for African Americans from educator and activist Booker T. Washington. Rosenwald was convinced that schooling was the way to give African Americans the tools to help themselves. Through Washington’s encouragement, he set up a fund which helped build about 5,000 schools throughout the southern United States.
Lakeland Elementary School Students
The fund required contributions for each building from both the African American community it would serve and local governments. Two of those schools were in Lakeland: Lakeland Elementary and Lakeland High School.
New Lakeland Elementary School
In 1925, a new modern Lakeland Elementary School was built by Lakelanders’ and the County with help from the Rosenwald Fund.
Lakeland Elementary Rosenwald School
These buildings were all on the site of Lake Artemesia Natural Area.
Lakeland Community High School
In 1928, through the work of Lakelanders, members of neighboring communities and the Rosenwald Fund, Lakeland High School was built on 54th Avenue.
Lakeland High School, now the site of Washington Brazilian SDA Church. Photo by Route One Fun.
It served the children of Lakeland and teens from northern Prince Georges County until 1950. The building was later used as an elementary/ junior high, elementary school and special education center.
Young Women of Lakeland High School.
That building is now home to the Washington Brazilian Seventh Day Adventist congregation.
Segregation & College Park
Excerpt from Lakeland, African Americans in College Park: “For most of a century, only African American students attended school in Lakeland. In 1956, two years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional, the Prince George’s County Board of Education enacted a plan to impede the integration of schools.
Lakeland Elementary School’s first-grade class with their teacher.
The first white students did not attend Lakeland Elementary School until the late 1960s. They were few in number.
Lakeland Elementary Schoo’s 4th & 5th grade class with their teacher.
Nevertheless, desegregation progressed intermittently until court-ordered programs began in 1973.
Lakeland Homes Lost with the Redrawing of School Boundaries
In the 1970s, Lakelanders proved how important schools were to them. When the County [redrew school boundaries and] decided to close Lakeland Elementary school, Lakelanders fought to have the new, fully integrated school in Lakeland. They stuck to that commitment even when the school board told them the only good place to build was where Lakelanders’ homes stood. One of those homes belonged to my grandparents. When she talked about it my grandmother said she could build another house. Children should be educated in their own community.
Paint Branch Elementary School
Excerpt from Lakeland, African Americans in College Park: “Paint Branch Elementary School opened in 1972 as an integrated elementary school with students from Lakeland and neighboring communities, the result of activism of Lakelanders and other local residents.”
Paint Branch Elementary School.
Lakeland Community Heritage Project
A great deal was lost but we still have the stories of Lakelanders through images and oral histories. Lakeland Community Heritage Project is working to see their legacy is ensured by saving their stories for their families, our community and scholars – and by sharing these stories with respected community outlets like Route One Fun.
About the author:
Maxine is a member of Lakeland Community Heritage Project, whose mission is to preserve and share the history and heritage of Lakeland, the historic African American community of College Park. She says “My roots are in Lakeland. My father was born in the family home which once stood on the site of College Park Community Center on Pierce Avenue. His great grandmother and many other relatives lived in the community.” She is a former College Park City Council member and graduate of University of Maryland College Park (B.A.) and Bowie State University (M.A.).
Share the Good Word
If you enjoyed reading this story about Lakeland, won’t you please share this post with a friend or neighbor? Maxine shared her words with us all because so many do not know the history of this significant African American community – and it’s important that we do. So if you’re so inclined, please share this post, comment below to let Maxine know your thoughts and be on the lookout for the next post in this series, focusing on Lakeland and the University of Maryland.
* Unless otherwise note, all photos courtesy of Maxine Gross and the Lakeland Community Heritage Project.
Learn More About Lakeland
Read our first post about Lakeland: Historic African American Community of College Park.
Buy a copy of Lakeland: African Americans in College Park.
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nice
I attended Berwyn Elementary in College Park from the late 1950’s to early 1960’s. From there I attended Greenbelt Junior High and then High Point High School graduating in 1969. I also attended the University of Maryland but married and completed undergraduate school at Madison College and followed with a Masters degree at James Madison University.
I remember being told that we didn’t have blacks at Berwyn because they went to Lakeland. ( Could you show a map where it’s located?). I’m not sure I ever saw it. I think we might have had African American students at Greenbelt. I really don’t remember. I definitely remember that integration had taken place by my high school years. Berwyn is mostly gone sadly. I wish it would have been preserved. I’m glad the Lakeland school still stands. I would love to see it. I wonder how it compared to Berwyn? Was it really “Separate but equal”?
I can’t wait to read the previous article. I’d love to know more. I became a high school teacher for 34 years . I live in Harrisonburg, VA. Never left the area after college. My students were always stunned to know that I had attended segregated schools in my youth, among other things from that era.
I’m so glad you’re preserving your history. I sense I’m my limited and aging memories that we somehow feared something about Lakeland. I don’t know if it was the school or the ares. I have so idea why since I don’t remember being there or where it was. I don’t believe my parents were the root of the fear. I don’t recall them ever saying anything negative about the community or any people of color. My Mom was raised in rural Virginia and my Father in rural (but less so)South Carolina. I certainly saw a different picture traveling to South Carolina back during that time.
I’m curious to know more about discrimination that was going on in my own city during that time I must have been totally oblivious. I had wonderful teachers at High Point that really helped make me more aware of civil rights issues in the country, but I never learned about anything local. I know it had to exist.
Keep the info coming! I would love when this virus abated to come back to College Park and learn. I had me 60th reunion last year. We had photos from the feeder junior high schools and elementary schools. There was nothing for Lakeland that I recall, though I can ask committee members to find out. Certainly some of those students ended up at High Point?
Sorry I go on so much. Pardon any typos. It’s quite late but I just saw this on Facebook. Blessings for the work you do you do to preserve this information. I look forward to learning more.
Mary Elizabeth Monts
Thanks so much for taking the time to write and share some insight into your upbringing in the area, Mary! And good idea about sharing a map re. Lakeland. I’ll try to do that in the next post. I’ll also share a copy of your meaningful comment Maxine Gross, the voice behind this series on Lakeland. I’m both fascinated and heartbroken by some of the history and stories, as it sounds like you are, too. Thanks again, Mary!
Mary,
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and memories.
To find out more about the Lakeland story please explore our website, LakelandCHP.com or take a look at our book, Lakeland; African Americans in College Park. Both contain maps. To give you an idea of Lakeland’s location, we would be connected by Rhode Island Avenue but of course like similar historically African American and European communities there is no road connection. The road stops.
The story of desegregation of Prince Georges County Public Schools is a long and twisted one. There are way to many twists and turns to explain here. I will try to give simple answers to your inquires. In the late 1960s a students from Lakeland made up the vast majority of the African American population of Greenbelt Middle School and Parkdale High School. We numbered about thirty in each school. That did meet the definition of integration. During that same period a children from Berwyn the neighboring white community were assigned to Lakeland Elementary School. A few did attend but most moved over the summer, choose Holy Redeemer Catholic School or the new Berwyn Baptist School.
As always, thank you, Maxine, for taking the time to share your insights and personal history. We appreciate it!