The Grove, a section of Laurel thought to be named for stands of large oak trees across the street from what is now St. Mark's United Methodist Church, was a site of community festivals and events by the 1870s. Although records are unclear on when Blacks began to settle there, census records and local directories indicate that after the Civil War African Americans living in Laurel were concentrated in the Grove area. St. Marks, founded in 1890, along with the schools, became the center of Grove community life. Laurel schools were segregated until the 1960s, and the Laurel Colored School (School No. 2), opened in 1884, served Laurel's African American students until 1962 before it was moved to a building on what is now Emancipation Park and renamed the Laurel Grove School. For more than 100 years, the Grove has been home to the community's Emancipation Day celebration, commemorating the freeing of the slaves in the 1860s, and senior residents recalled that crowds from Washington and Baltimore, as well as elsewhere in the county, once came to Laurel for its parades, picnics, baseball, and celebrations. On September 7, 1991, the site of the former Laurel Grove School and oak grove was dedicated and named Emancipation Community Park.