Peerless Rockville presents free events in February looking at the history of a city landmark and at Rockville’s place in the history of African-American education.
The latest installment of the Glenview Mansion and Peerless Rockville Speaker Series, Glenview: From Farm to Mansion, is an illustrated presentation on the history of the property that has become one of Rockville’s most romantic sites. Learn about Glenview’s transformation from a working 19th century farm to elite summer retreat and the residents who called it home. Hear about the architectural and landscape changes that came to be today’s Civic Center. Due to ongoing construction at the mansion, this program will be held from 7-9 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 14 at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre, 603 Edmonston Drive.
Rockville’s Role in the Education of African-Americans, is a Black History Month talk by historian Ralph Buglass and co-sponsored by Friends of the Library, Rockville Memorial Chapter, at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24, at Rockville Memorial Library, 21 Maryland Ave.
Until the mid-20th century, schools in Rockville – as well as Montgomery County – were segregated. Rockville has played a major part in ever-increasing educational opportunities for African-American students, from a post-Civil War Freedmen’s Bureau school in a church basement to the only high school for black students in the county. In between, William B. Gibbs, Jr., a Rockville educator, and his then-little-known attorney, Thurgood Marshall, paved the way for equal pay for black teachers in one of the first legal challenges to segregated schooling. Buglass recounts this important chapter in American history. Learn more at http://bit.ly/BlackHistoryMonth2019.