Add a bit of history to park

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March 12, 2010

Anonymous The Commercial-News Fri Mar 12, 2010, 09:00 PM CST

Work began last week — city employees removed Union Street between Williams and Seminary streets — on renovations at Carver Park in the center of Danville.

The plans for the renovations include new playing fields, restrooms, parking spaces, better lighting and picnic shelters.

The renovations will be a boost to the neighborhood, one that often is overlooked when it comes to city facilities.

With all the improvements and additions, park planners should be sure to include one critical element — a link to a part of the community’s history.

The area to be served by the park has long been called home by hundreds of African-American families. In the city’s not so distant past, African-American residents owned grocery stores and hotels, trucking companies, taxi firms and many other businesses that served customers of all colors.

A simple mural or kiosk — much like the ones recently installed in Danville to celebrate the city’s connections to Abraham Lincoln — would go a long way toward not only informing today’s young people about the many hard-working people who came before them, but also serve to honor those early entrepreneurs as well.

A fundraising effort among churches in the center city would likely bring in enough money to post a weather-proof display.

The many residents who still remember those days could contribute information to the effort. A little digging at the Vermilion County museum would yield good information as well.

The sign will be a small one, but the message it could send — that the city’s success has been built on so many who worked so hard for so long — would loom large within the community.

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