Paint Branch Bridge Mural: A Path Forward

Completed in August 2018, "A Path Forward" honors and celebrates Lakeland, the historic African-American community within the City of College Park. Formed around 1890 on the doorstep of the Maryland Agricultural College, now the University of Maryland, Lakeland was established, flourished, and thrived within a segregated society, developing its own institutions and traditions until the federal government's urban renewal program displaced families and undermined its self-contained uniqueness. Many of today's Lakeland families have lived in the community for generations and, with the help of legacy families throughout the region, sustain its cultural history. Lake Artemesia, initially dug in the mid-nineteenth century, became a center of recreation, and about a third of the community once lived in the area that was forcibly redeveloped in the 1970s. Lakeland's institutions included First Baptist Church of Lakeland, founded in 1891, and Embry Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded in 1903, both still on Lakeland Road, as well as Cub Scout Pack 1025, Boy Scout Troop 1025, Lakeland Elementary, and Lakeland High School, two Rosenwald schools. The University employed Lakeland residents but did not admit black students until 1954. Community leaders included Dervey A. Lomax, elected mayor of College Park in 1973, Rev. Milton A. Covington, who led First Baptist Church of Lakeland for 47 years, Dessie Randall Thomas, an early Lakelander to seek post-secondary education who served as superintendent at Embry A.M.E. Church for 32 years, and Edgar A. Smith, principal from 1928 to 1966 who also taught in the classroom and completed a master's degree at Temple University. The project was completed by a team of artists including lead artists Sierra Sigmone, David Silva, and Bonnie Simonds.

College Park, Maryland · United States