Glen Echo Park Celebrates Black History By Sharing Art With Community

GLEN ECHO, MD — The Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture is celebrating Black History Month by sharing the works of Black artists with the local community.

Currently on exhibit in Glen Echo Park’s Park View Gallery is "Stitch by Stitch," a collection of colorful collages of acrylic-painted canvas scraps and ceramic work created by boys from Washington, D.C.’s Wards 7 and 8. The boys are participants in the D.C.-based youth arts program Life Pieces To Masterpieces.

The show will be on display through Saturday, Feb. 17. Park View Gallery is open to the public Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Glen Echo Park, at 7300 MacArthur Blvd., is owned by the National Park Service, but is funded through grants and donations. The park is managed by the Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture in partnership with the National Park Service and Montgomery County.

The park was the site of a pivotal moment in the D.C. area’s civil rights history. After fighting to desegregate lunch counters in Virginia, many activists turned their attention to the segregated Glen Echo Amusement Park. In June 1960, a group of Black college students took a ride on the carousel at Glen Echo Park and refused to get off.

Five students were arrested on the first day of the protests against segregation at the park, which was privately owned at the time. The protests continued outside the park for weeks after the initial day of civil disobedience.

Glen Echo Park’s owners agreed to desegregate the park in March 1961 after Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy threatened to pull the federal government’s lease on the land where the amusement park ran a trolley.

As part of its celebration of this year’s Black History Month, Photoworks, one of the Glen Echo Park’s 13 resident arts programs, is presenting "Building a Mixed Race Community," featuring photographs by Marvin Tupper Jones, an acclaimed photojournalist.

Jones has spent his life documenting his home of Hertford County, North Carolina, and the history covered in this exhibition spans from 1851 to 1973 and takes the viewer from the antebellum era through the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the modern Civil Rights era.

It tells the stories of more than 30 people along with photographs and text. Four women are featured, as well as business people, farmers, carpenters, educators, church leaders, soldiers (Civil War and WWII), and Civil Rights activists and organizations.

An opening reception will be held on Feb. 11 at 2 p.m., and the show runs through March 31. Photoworks Gallery is open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Also, Washington Conservatory of Music’s Casual Concerts series will feature Black violinist and Conservatory faculty member Cleveland Chandler, who will perform works by often-overlooked Black composer William Grant Still. The concert will take place in the Washington Conservatory Recital Room at Glen Echo Park on Feb. 24 at 5 p.m.

Visit the Glen Echo Park website to learn more about all the park's events during Black History Month.

RELATED: Juneteenth Festival To Commemorate Desegregation Of Glen Echo Park