Art, cyanotypes and a school that integrated in 1952: a Delaware grant program

The Claymont Community Center in Claymont, Delaware, received a National Park Foundation ParkVentures grant to run a multi-generational art program called "A Walk in the Park: Discovering the First State through Nature and Art." The center is an affiliated area of Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park because of its role in the desegregation of Delaware schools in the early 1950s.

What the program did

The program aimed to increase residents’ knowledge of Delaware and to introduce them to recreational and educational opportunities at First State National Historical Park. Through the summer, participants aged 11 to 85 took field trips to park sites and other historic places around Wilmington, Claymont and Hockessin, then shared what they learned through nature, art, technology and storytelling.

• Seniors and cell-phone photography. Members of the center’s Brandywine Senior Center worked with a professional photographer to learn to take creative pictures with their phones at First State NHP in Historic New Castle and at the historically segregated Hockessin School #107C, another affiliated area of Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park.
• Cyanotypes. Students from the Empowered Youth Program Summer Camp went to the park’s Brandywine Valley unit and made Prussian blue cyanotype images from natural elements, paper and iron salts.
• Collages. Students also made collages about local civil rights pioneers and the movement to integrate Claymont High School in 1952.

An exhibition of all three kinds of work opened at the center on September 16, 2024, with the young and senior artists on hand and guest speakers who had experienced the struggle for racial equality in Delaware first-hand. On September 19, 2024, the center also hosted participants in a National Park Service symposium for Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park, who came from Topeka, Kansas, and affiliated sites in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Virginia and South Carolina. The exhibits were on display, and former Claymont High School students told stories about the school’s integration in 1952.

The place behind it

The center was founded by community leaders in 1975 to support the needs of children and families in Claymont. It operates from the historic Claymont High School, where in September 1952 twelve African American students were legally allowed to attend the formerly whites-only school. That case, Belton v. Gebhart, was combined with other cases on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court under Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the 1954 decision that declared legal segregation of public educational facilities unconstitutional.

First State National Historical Park was established as a national monument in 2013 and designated a national historical park by Congress in 2015, to preserve Delaware’s role in establishing the nation and the triumphs and struggles of its people. It has six park site locations across Delaware, reaching into southeastern Pennsylvania. The Brandywine Valley site and the Sheriff’s House in Historic New Castle are owned and operated by the National Park Service; the Brandywine Valley unit has more than 27 miles of trails.

Sources

• National Park Service, "Claymont Community Center Receives a National Park Foundation ParkVentures Grant" (https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/claymont-community-center-receives-a-national-park-foundation-parkventures-grant.htm). Participants, the photographer and quoted staff are left unnamed, and the page’s pictures (participants’ artwork, an exhibit poster and a group photo of people) are left out; rewritten in hubnx's own words.