ON THE FOURTH of July, 1963, most Baltimore residents were relaxing and having fun. But not everybody was taking a holiday. Some people were busy working to help the struggle for human rights in Baltimore.
Around noon that day, about 400 people gathered at the Metropolitan United Methodist Church at 1121 W. Lanvale St. Among those assembled were some of the most respected and widely known clergymen, both local and national, of several faiths, including: the Rev. Joseph Connolly, Monsignor Austin L. Healy, Rabbi Morris Lieberman, the Rev. Chester Wickwire, now chaplain emeritus of the Johns Hopkins University, and the Rev. Marion C. Bascom Sr., then chairman of the local ministerial alliance.
They came together to lead a protest march on Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in Woodlawn, the popular privately owned Baltimore facility that had been picketed by demonstrators many times because of its "whites only" admissions policy.
(Many of Maryland's restaurants, swimming pools and movies also kept blacks out.)
The protest, which was organized by the Congress of Racial Equality, was designed to be a nonviolent one and participants agreed that they were willing to go to jail.
At 1:30 p.m. the participants -- which included blacks and whites, adults and children, labor leaders and laborers, and many others -- left the church singing "We Shall Overcome."
It was about 3 p.m. when the demonstrators arrived by bus at the main gate of the 65-acre park which had opened in 1895 and was touted as a prime place for family fun.
The demonstrators were met at the park's gate by Chief Robert Lally of the Baltimore County Police, and in back of him, 50 policemen.
(Chief Lally would reveal later that police dogs, though not present, were kept on call, along with several hundred additional policemen.)
Chief Lally ordered the demonstrators arrested; they went peacefully -- 283 of them.
They boarded the county school buses Chief Lally had ready for them and were taken to the Woodlawn Police Station. (Two young lawyers -- Robert Watts and Elsbeth Bothe -- who later became judges, represented the demonstrators.)
The demonstrators reported that they were fingerprinted and held in jail for about five hours for their roles in the protest.
The entire protest was peaceful -- in the picket line, at the gate, on the buses, in the police station.
In wake of the protest, the park's owners still refused to allow black people to enter. A second protest was held the next Sunday, July 7, with some 300 people involved; more arrests were made and demonstrators jailed.
After the subsequent protest, Spiro Agnew, who was then the Baltimore County executive, persuaded the county council to create a Human Relations Commission, which brought some of the demonstrators together with the park's owners. An agreement was reached that opened Gwynn Oak to all.
In 1974, after years of losing money, the park's owners surrendered it to the savings and loan which held the mortgage. Later, the county would purchase the park.
The protests against the segregated park were among the biggest local civil rights demonstrations ever. And they would influence the local civil rights struggle for years to come.