Montgomery County Planning Board members joined County Councilmember Natali Fani-Gonzalez, Montgomery Planning and Montgomery Parks leadership and staff, and members of the Wheaton Urban District Advisory Committee and the county’s Historic Preservation Commission for the unveiling of the Horad family historic marker at Wheaton Veterans Park. Photo by Montgomery Planning.
The marker at Wheaton Veterans Park sits less than a mile from the Horad family’s original home at 2118 University Boulevard West, which is still standing and is being considered for historic designation. The marker was installed in partnership with the Wheaton Urban District.
“The marker will inspire generations of county residents and visitors as they read about Elsie and Romeo’s fight for fair housing, racial equity, and social justice despite the odds,” said Planning Board Chair Artie Harris. “It gives me great pride that this marker and their story will have a permanent place in the county’s public realm and in our hearts.”
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Beltway March of 1966 Historic Marker
On June 8, 1966, fair-housing activists with the Action Coordinating Committee to End Segregation in the Suburbs (ACCESS) began a 66-mile march around the Capital Beltway . They began at the Georgia Avenue ramp of I-495 and walked on the shoulder of the Beltway for four straight days. The march was part of a broader campaign throughout 1966 and 1967 that targeted segregated apartment complexes and housing developers’ homes and offices in the DC suburbs.
The Montgomery County Council first adopted a fair-housing ordinance on July 20, 1967, and on August 15, 1968, adopted a broad fair housing law to complement the Fair Housing requirements outlined in the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1968. The marker was installed in collaboration with WMATA at the Forest Glen Metro Station, which is just north of the Beltway’s Georgia Avenue exit.
About the Remarkable Montgomery: Untold Stories Program
The Remarkable Montgomery: Untold Stories program is a partnership between Montgomery Planning’s Historic Preservation Office and Montgomery Parks . The program is installing markers throughout the county in a shared effort to bring greater recognition to people, places, and events with significant histories that have been undervalued in the past. The markers offer more flexibility than a formal designation on Montgomery County’s Master Plan for Historic Preservation and tell the often-forgotten stories that shaped our communities, even where physical evidence of those histories may no longer exist.
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The program and the Historic Preservation Office are committed to enacting Montgomery Planning’s Equity Agenda for Planning . In part, this includes acknowledging that the practice of historic preservation has long overlooked histories and historic sites related to non-dominant groups. To begin to address this imbalance, the marker program will bring forward histories tied to county residents’ struggles for racial and social justice and the stories of people who broke the boundaries of their times.
In addition to the Horad Family and the Beltway March of 1966 markers, the program has installed markers honoring local pioneers in women’s rights. One is in Forest Glen Neighborhood Park honoring Lavinia Engle , a leader during the women’s suffrage movement in Montgomery County and the first woman to represent the county as a state delegate. Another historic marker is in Peachwood Neighborhood Park honoring the women of the Commonwealth Farm who proved women in the 1800s did not need men in their lives to be prosperous.
About the Historic Preservation Office
Montgomery Planning’s Historic Preservation Office (HPO) identifies, protects, and explores historically significant built places throughout the county, ultimately preserving the past to enrich the future. The HPO is responsible for administering regulations around designating and maintaining historical sites and for digging into the county’s history to better inform the decision makers planning our future.
The HPO strives to help improve the natural and built environments of Montgomery County. The county’s historic fabric has irrevocably informed every corner of the county, and understanding its role is a critical part of planning. Americans are aware of such public history in ways that they have not been in a generation, and the office aims to share that history as broadly as possible. Though the HPO focuses on the built environment (which distinguishes us from other historic societies), it also has resources for genealogy, tax credits, and more. From restoring and promoting specific sites to painting a more complete picture of the diverse people and places that shaped—and continue to shape—the modern Montgomery County, the HPO helps ensure that future plans are informed by and reflected in a thorough, critical appreciation of what came before. History lives with us in the present.
For updates and link to press release, see here: https://montgomeryplanning.org/?p=56262