CUMBERLAND — The Allegany County NAACP held an annual Juneteenth celebration Saturday at its recently revitalized Pine Avenue Playground.
The event was a community cookout, complete with food trucks, bouncy houses, a couple of stalls for small, local businesses and a DJ to commemorate the end of slavery in the country.
“We need to remember our heritage and what we went through,” City Council member Eugene Frazier said. “We need to remember it.”
Although the event was a scaled down version of its usual Juneteenth celebration, which has taken place at Canal Place in previous years, holding the event at the playground gave it more meaning, Simeon Younger, the political chairperson for the NAACP branch, said.
“The ability to have the event here is more symbolic because it has more ties to the Black community,” Younger said. “A lot of the Black community here in Cumberland doesn’t understand the significance of it, and I think that’s what we’re trying to do, to reconnect and tell our real story.”
The playground’s origins date to 1933 when members of the Black community who worked on building Constitution Park decided to hand dig a swimming pool on Pine Avenue since the other playground was off limits to their children, Tifani Fisher, the president of the NAACP branch, said.
“This playground is just a symbol of a group of people that weren’t satisfied and decided to do something about it,” Younger said.
The playground became a community staple for the Black community, often providing the space for similar events to the cookout, Fisher said.
“They had gardens, they had a basketball court, they had a pavilion and they did talent contests,” Fisher said. “They did all sorts of summer programs.”
The late Jean Etta Beckward was at the forefront of the summer programs, serving as the supervisor of the playground for about 20 years.
“She looked out for us,” Frazier said. “One of the greatest ladies I’ve ever known.”
Her contributions to the community reached well beyond the playground, Frazier said.
“Most of the people I grew up with grew up pretty well,” Frazier said. ”It’s because things like that.”
After the Constitution Park pool opened to the Black community, the Pine Avenue pool was filled in, and the rest of the playground eventually fell into disarray.
In May, the NAACP completed its renovations to recreate the positive influence of the playground for younger generations.
“We want to make sure that we keep the kids our top priority,” Younger said. “It’s not even about the older generation, but mainly the kids and that they’ll be able to connect and have a safe place to go.”
The renovations include a full-sized basketball court and a community garden of which all food will be donated to local churches and the Community Cafe.
The leadership of the NAACP hopes to recreate the summer programming for kids, Fisher said.
“The goal is to have this return back into a community hub where we can do some programming with the kids, where people, we say, can learn about the roots,” Fisher said.
Using the newly renovated playground for events like the cookout is a good reflection of the spirit of the playground, Frazier, who grew up swimming and attending events there, said.
“I’d like to see a lot more events up here, and listen, not just for the Black community,” Frazier said. “Everybody’s invited. The more you get to know people, the better off you are.”