Greater DC Cares Servathon 2007

On May 5, for the fourth year in a row, BU alumni joined thousands of volunteers across the region in the DC Cares Servathon.

This year’s project was Walter Pierce Community Park Clean Up at 2630 Adams Mill Rd.- a five minute walk from Woodley Park Metro on the Red Line.

Walter Pierce Park is a multi-use park located in the heart of Adams Morgan, one of Washington, D.C.'s most diverse neighborhoods.  The park reflects that diversity and serves as meeting place for the entire community.  The park features a large multi-purpose playing field, basketball court, community garden, children's play area, chess tables, a picnic area and D.C.'s first fenced in dog exercise area.  Like many inner-city parks, Walter Pierce is overused and under-maintained; it relies heavily on volunteers for care.  The hillside leading down from Walter Pierce to Rock Creek is littered with trash.

Walter Pierce Park also has historical connections to Massachusetts and its contributions to the abolition of slavery.  The land where Walter Pierce Park now sits was owned from 1823 to 1870 by President John Quincy Adams and his heirs - a family whose political influence helped end slavery in the United States.  Walter Pierce was the site of D.C.'s most active African American cemetery following the Civil War and is the resting place of many former enslaved people who died free.  There are no headstones left in the park, which was also the site of Washington's first Quaker burial ground, founded in 1807.

Howard University Professor Mark Mack is leading a team of students this year in a non-invasive archeological survey of the historic Colored Union Benevolent Association Cemetery to determine where graves might still exist in Walter Pierce Park, and to make recommendations about how best to protect them.  Professor Mack, who was science director of the now-completed New York African Burial Ground project in Lower Manhattan, also is working with the Adams Morgan community to raise public awareness of the cemetery, so that it will be remembered and cared for by future generations of Washingtonians.