UPTON'S HISTORIC MARBLE HILL
The Marble Hill Community is located in the Historic Old West Baltimore Neighborhood of Upton. Marble Hill is important as one of Baltimore's earlist African American middle class communities and for the well preserved architectural detailof it's housing stock. The lengthy list of historically prominent residents includes Harry S. Cummings, Sr., one of the first two African Americans admitted to the University of Maryland Law School (1887, and the first African American Baltimore City Councilman, T. Willis Lansey, who founded the Ideal Federal Savings and Loan (1920). Others were Henery Hall, a prominent engineer and educator, John Murphy, Sr., founder of the Afro-American newspaper, and Violet Hill White, Baltimore's first African American female police officer.
With a proud history of African American cultural distinction, linked to historic Upton, the Marble Hill area was a point of destination for many of the "Who,s Who" among African Americans in the early to mid-twentyth Century.
This ingathering of many of the best minds in the the nation of African Ameican religious, educational, social and civic leadership produced an incubator for political thought. In numerous meetings held in churches and civic buildings in this community key aspects of the African American strategic struggle for human dignity and civil rights were fostered.
With the victories and advantages of the civil rights movement many middle class residents fled from this community to the suburbs. This mass exodus, experienced in most major cities, left in it's wake an unchecked blight of poverty, a creeping scourge of drugs and a raising epedemic of crime.
Now after many years of neglect by politicians, redlinning by banks and steering by realitors change is on the horizion. With the new urban renaisance taking place in Baltimore and thanks to the cooperative spirit of a dedicated core of community residents, Marble Hill is poised for social and policitcal transformation.
Marble Hill is once again emerging as a point of destintination and a community of choice not only for African Americans but for anyone interested in city living. There are plenty opportunities for real development in this National Historic District.
A MASTER PLAN FOR RENEWAL, REVITALIZATION AND RESTORATION
In 2003, after a series of meetings with representatives of the Upton Planning Committee in 2002, the Bethel Outreach Center recieved funds from the City of Baltimore's Community Development Block Grant program and joined forces with the Upton Planning Committee to create the Upton Master Planning Committee.
With a focus on RENEWAL, REVITALIZATION & RESTORATION and the slogan WE HAVE THE POWER TO LIFT UP UPTON; this group oversaw the creation of a strategic Plan designed to be implimented in phases.
The implimentation of phase(I)of the plan began with the acquistion of 72 properties and the selection of a developer to undertake rehabilitation in the Upton West Community adjacent to the Heritage Crossing complex. Phase(II) of the plan is a Homesteading Program offering 16 homes in the MARBLE HILL COMMUNITY.
THE HOMESTEADING PROJECT
As phase (II) of the Master Plan the Community of Marble Hill under the auspicious of the Upton Planning Committee and in partnership with the Baltimore City office of Housing and Community Development is launching a communtiy initiative to offer 16 properties through a Homesteading Program.
More details will be forthcoming.
=>If you are interested in more information about The Marble Hill Community, please contact the President/CEO of the Marble Hill Community Association Atiba Nkrumah at 410-383-9997 or by
E-Mail ankrumah@douglaschurch.org
Upton's Marble Hill Community Home Page
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