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In 1999, the former Mt. Moriah AME Church, now known as the Banneker-Douglass Museum, celebrated 125 years of the African Methodist Episcopal movement in Maryland and 15 years as the repository for African-American information in the state.

Banneker-Douglass, with its arching windows and pitched Victorian Gothic roof is the first black institution in the city to be preserved for its historic value. It was named for Benjamin Banneker, the Maryland-born mathematician who helped survey and lay out the District of Columbia, and Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery to become a leader of the abolition movement.

Built by free blacks in 1874, the church was purchased by the county in 1970 for $123,000 to make room for courthouse parking and expansion. The congregation moved from Franklin Street to a new church on Forest Hills Avenue in 1972.

Their building, however, would have been razed or at least relocated if it hadn't been for the work of preservationists like Yevola Peters, who in 1972 was an organizer with the Community Action Agency. Mrs. Peters helped raise awareness of the building's history, which eventually led to its designation on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

A hot legal battle ensued, pitting the city of Annapolis, which wanted to preserve the building as part of its urban renewal efforts, against the county, which wanted the entire block to be cleared. The battle ended up in the Court of Appeals, which ruled in 1974 that the county could not tear down the building without approval of the Historic District Commission, which refused to OK the demolition.

Eventually, the state's Commission on Afro-American History and Culture stepped in and leased the property from the county for $1 a year for 99 years. The commission continues to run the museum under the auspices of the Department of Housing and Community Development.

Work on the museum's expansion is slated to begin in the year 2002, with a $2.4 million state allocation. Those plans coincide with city efforts to renovate the Stanton Community Center on West Washington Street, once an all-black elementary school, and county plans to turn the abandoned Bates High School on Smithville Street, once an all-black high school, into a senior citizens center.

For more information on exhibits and programs at the Banneker-Douglass Museum, call (410) 216-6180.

Portions published 02/21/99, by Mary Grace Gallagher, The Capital, Annapolis, Md. Copyright 2000 The Capital, Annapolis, Md.

Banneker-Douglass Museum The Barracks Charles Carroll House Circuit Court for A.A. Co. The City Dock City Hall Hammond-Harwood House Maryland Government House Maynard-Burgess House Middleton Tavern The Naval Academy

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