As AIM celebrates 25 years of organizing, we look back with pride on one of our most powerful victories: the rebuilding of four long-neglected community centers in Montgomery County’s historic African-American neighborhoods.

These centers—Ross Boddy in Sandy Spring, Good Hope in Burtonsville, Scotland in Potomac, and Plum Gar in Germantown—represented communities’ histories but also injustice. For decades, while Montgomery County built state-of-the-art new recreation centers in wealthier, mostly white neighborhoods, these historic centers were left to crumble. Residents contended with flooding, rats, broken windows, and concrete floors that hurt seniors’ joints.

In response, AIM did what we do best: built power across race, class, and religion. Leaders from the four historic African-American communities and AIM leaders from other congregations formed relationships and committed to taking on a campaign to rebuild the community centers.

The team met with County Councilmembers and County Executive Ike Leggett to ask for the funding. As Chuck Williams of Scotland AME Zion recalls, “We showed our county politicians a presentation of several community centers in more affluent areas of the county, and their chests were lifted with pride. And then we showed them the Scotland community center. There was flooding all around the building, it was in shambles. And all of a sudden, we saw the look on the politicians’ faces change; it just dropped.”

In 2006, AIM included the renovation of the community centers in our priorities for candidates running for county office. AIM received commitments from all the candidates for County Executive and County Council for the $30 million. However, during the tight 2007 budget season, the newly elected County Executive did not include the funding in his budget.

After this setback, AIM turned up the heat. AIM leaders and community members consistently showed up at County Council meetings, carrying tennis balls, softballs, and bats. AIM held four actions in six weeks, with nearly every Councilmember attending at least one. The first three actions were held in community centers with 250 people attending each one.

The campaign reached its peak when AIM organized a fourth, 1,000-person action at the University of Maryland Shady Grove, including hundreds of people from the affected communities. African-American leaders taught the crowd about the history of racism in Montgomery County—from the denial of 12th grade education to Black students, to generations of segregated facilities—and connected it directly to the injustice of the neglected community centers. County Councilmembers sat onstage as residents of all races from across the county demanded funding to right this wrong. 

As Rev. Pearl Selby remembers, “The support from everyone who came that night was awesome. The politicians had to be choked up as they saw the crowd that turned out that night.”

It worked. A majority of the Councilmembers publicly committed to fund the renovations—and this time, they followed through. The Council not only included the $30 million in the budget but, for the first time ever, dedicated the funding specifically for the community centers.

Over the next ten years, each of the four centers was completely renovated or rebuilt with expanded, state-of-the-art facilities and community programs. The new Scotland center was renamed after beloved leader Bette Thompson, who spearheaded the campaign. At the Good Hope center, the Department of Recreation established a special partnership with the premier arts center Strathmore. As Rev. Selby later put it: “The renovations of Ross Boddy, Good Hope, Scotland and Plum Gar finally gave these centers the dignity they deserve.”

Looking back, this campaign represented a fight for recognition, for equity, and for honoring the legacy of communities founded by freed people after slavery. It showed AIM at our most powerful—uniting people across differences to right a historic wrong.

Read this news article about the opening of the new community centers.