Brownsville: A Forgotten Community

On Friday, Sept. 15, Professor Lynn Bowman a professor of English at Allegany College of Maryland and Hines a senior at FSU gave students a tour of what Brownsville used to be. Professor Bowman also has a book  “Being Black in Brownsville: Echoes of a ‘forgotten’ Frostburg,” where she gave great detail of how the Brownsville community use to look. Brownsville was an African American community bought in 1866 by Tamar Brown a freed slave. She purchased the first lot for $150. The community was located where students now known as the Upper Quad of the campus. In 1868 the Brownsville community build a school for the children. The community had about 240 people living in it. Tamer Brown shared her home with eight other family members. All the people of Brownsville stayed together through love, dreams of equality and a better life. Eventually late in the 1920’s the state of Maryland bought their homes for just $10 to expand the Normal school.

As the state began to expand they started to replaces Brownsville with education buildings Old main being the first to be built. Sooner than later the whole Brownsville community was bought out of their houses with little say in it. After the state had purchased all their land many families left the area and headed to main large cities like Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Washington. Vertically all of Brownsville has been consumed by the college the place is no longer recognizable. This tour is held every year during the Appalachian festival it is a very informing tour that was very enlightening.