“At a tiny Annapolis-area park, a group of men is seeking to preserve Black history”

“Browns Woods Park seems too small a rectangle of patchy grass for the symbolism it holds. It is a touchstone of the Black community across the Severn River from Annapolis that once stretched north to Arnold.

When Anne Arundel County placed wooden posts and railings around this small athletic field in November, it had the best intentions. People had held a car show on the field where a youth soccer league practices.

Those people, though, were members of the Annual Father’s Day Foundation, a group of young Black men working to save what is left of Browns Woods and other communities. No one reached out to them or surrounding families with roots dating back to before the Civil War about the guardrails, apparently unaware that they existed.