A new series of historical markers at Montgomery Hall Park in Staunton memorialize the property's significance to the local Black community. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
Inside the hundred-year-old Montgomery Hall on Friday morning, about 75 people recited the pledge of allegiance together. Susie King, the president of the Staunton-Augusta County African American Research Society, led the group in song.
CROWD: … with liberty and justice for all. [Susie King begins singing "God Bless America"]
The park's history is recorded in a series of newly-unveiled historical markers produced by the research society and the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation's "Long Road to Freedom" project. Research society member Bertie Pannell said the building where we gathered was built in the 1820's by enslaved men, women, and children. The city bought the estate in 1946.
BERTIE PANNELL: For years, white residents enjoyed access to Gypsy Hill Park, while Black residents were allowed there only one day each year. But change came, thanks to the persistence and leadership of Staunton's Black community … and so, Montgomery Hall Park was born, officially opening on July 4th, 1947
She worked at the park in 1965 as a pool cashier.
PANNELL: These historical markers will remind future generations that freedom's path has been long and that justice often arrives only through persistence and sacrifice.
In attendance was 96-year-old James A. Becks, a lifelong Staunton resident who served in the European theater during World War II.
JAMES A. BECKS: And I'm the last living member of the Wildcats baseball team. … I was a pitcher, then I played shortstop and first base.
The Wildcats were Staunton's traveling Black baseball team during segregation. Becks played from 1948-50, and coached little league baseball and tennis in the park.
BECKS: We needed something for ourselves.
This is the eleventh historical marker the research society has installed in the area.
