Two virtues often overlooked in our contemporary world are longevity and legacy. The 2nd Annual African Americans of Excellence (AAOE) Exhibit 2024 invites us to refocus and reconsider how we truly build community and create change. Several of 2024’s awardees are either teachers or preservationists—people who understand that each of us exists in context between the future and the past. We honor, understand and process where we’ve been in order to make way for a better tomorrow, and then we invest in those who will carry forward our work. Brick by brick, and through a deepening of the roots, lasting change emerges from a solid foundation. We honor these men and women for their commitment to a greater vision.
Mary Harris
Mary Harris has been an educator all her life, but her first major chapter as a teacher took her a bit by surprise. After finishing college at Bowie State, she held teaching positions from the Eastern Shore to Urbana, until she was offered an opportunity at Maryland School for the Deaf. “From the very first day I fell in love with it,” Harris says.
Through a serendipitous connection, she first began at MSD as a teacher’s aide, and was later offered a full-time teaching position. Though Harris hears, she immediately knew that teaching deaf students was part of her calling. She taught early elementary classes after receiving training in deaf education.
Harris stayed at MSD for 28 years, only retiring in order to care for her aging mother. Even as she was caring for her mother, she looked for ways to stay active and involved.
She began a relationship with the Frederick County Historical Society by first volunteering to help care for their downtown garden. Eventually, she joined the Society, and served two terms on the board of directors.
She quickly realized that there was a dearth of research and resources on Frederick’s African American history. Few had endeavored over the years to compile what information was available and organize it so that the community could reflect and learn. Harris set about to begin this process herself—and eventually became the primary researcher and presenter of African American history in Frederick. She has created over 50 lectures and displays for local events and occasions. She has worked closely with members of AARCH Society, such as Rose Chaney and Melva King, to compile the information that will eventually be housed for everyone to view in AARCH’s African American Heritage Center.
Harris still lives in Adamstown on her family’s farm—both her father and grandfather rented and owned land in the same area beginning in 1940. The farmhouse was built in 1955, updated a few times, but always in Harris family hands. She’s happy to hold on to the land at a time when many farms are being sold and developed. It’s another piece of black history she preserves.
Bernard Brown
At 94 years old, Bernard Brown looks all of 75. His secret? Staying busy, and always being involved in a multitude of organizations that keep him active and engaged. Brown was born and raised in Hope Hill, a small community near Urbana. He moved to Frederick City after his Army service during the Korean War. Before he left for the war he exchanged 10-cent rings with the woman who would become his wife, Ruth. Ruth was the love of his life, and as he tells it, would provide much of the impetus for getting and keeping him locally involved. She encouraged him to participate in activities at church, to coach sports teams at schools and, in particular, to focus on providing mentorship for young people. A teacher, “she was always interested in the kids,” Brown says.
Of course, Brown developed his own impressive slate of engagements, all of which he undertook because of his genuine interest in people. He likes to simply talk to people and get to know them, to understand what the community needs. Brown has been an Elks Club Member for 58 years, and served as the Exalted Ruler of Mountain City Elks Lodge #382 for 51 years. He’s been the President of the Fairview Cemetery Association for 32 years. He’s also served (among other positions) as the Chairman of the Board of the Housing Authority, a board member of the Frederick Community Action Agency and a Salvation Army volunteer.
Nevertheless, he always returns to his love for his wife and family. As their daughter was interested in dance, Ruth helped found a local troupe called “Young, Gifted and Black,” which would perform at In the Streets and the Kris Kringle Parade. He and Ruth lost their daughter Bernetta—their only child—when she was just 19. With characteristic determination, the troupe was renamed in their daughter’s honor, and Brown continued to drive the children to performances and activities. “It was important to Ruth that the dancers be visible,” he says.
Gary Rollins
Many who make an impact in the community start by following passions and interests, but Gary Rollins set out to satisfy a community need. What is now the Rollins Life Celebration Center began because Rollins saw, growing up, that there wasn’t a standalone funeral home in Frederick primarily serving African Americans. Rollins spent eight years in the military, and afterward went to mortuary school in Baltimore. It took him several years to save money and buy equipment to open his own funeral home.
Asbury United Methodist Church allowed him to begin his first operations in their building across the street beginning in 1993. After 1996, he expanded, opening the Gary L. Rollins Funeral Home at 110 W. South Street. Recently, he transitioned to 330 Catoctin Avenue, constructing his own space inspired by a modernist Swedish church, and changing the business name to “Life Celebration Center.” His goal is to do something new in the funeral home industry, by focusing on redemptive and uplifting experiences.
The Life Celebration Center is also unique in that it houses the practice of his wife, Dr. Denise Hall Brown Rollins. She is the Executive Director of Whole Heart Grief & Life Resource Center, which provides grief counseling and support to those affected by loss. Together, Rollins says, they seek to support clients beyond the funeral service, with a place to heal that looks and operates a bit differently than a traditional funeral home.
Born and raised in Frederick, Rollins was first provided an example of serving the community through his mother, who helped to raise money and lobby to build playground equipment near their family’s home at Carver Apartments. He appreciates the changes that have taken place in Frederick, mostly for the better; and through furnishings and memorabilia at the Life Celebration Center, he seeks to keep parts of the past alive in a room dedicated to honoring Frederick’s first black mortician.
Seaven Gordon
Seaven Gordon had a profession—building materials lab tech—but throughout all his years in Frederick, he maintained another set of full-time responsibilities as a community activist. Born and raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, he ended up in Frederick a few years after high school via a military assignment at Fort Detrick. Once he left the military, in the mid-1960s, he was approached by Sam Hamilton of Frederick’s NAACP. He joined the organization and eventually rose to be President and then Vice President throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Gordon and his NAACP colleagues focused on providing housing, public accommodation and jobs for Frederick’s African American community. They successfully lobbied to have a major dilapidated housing project condemned, convinced Frederick City and County to declare Martin Luther King Day a holiday and sponsored interracial dialogue following Dr. King’s assassination. Gordon was involved in additional housing-related work through the former Frederick Organization for Rehabilitation and Habitat for Humanity. He helped Habitat to build its first Frederick home.
He also founded and participated in organizations for youth programming and other community service. A founder of Friends for Neighborhood Progress, he helped to organize art classes, such as photography and pottery, for local youth, as well as reading and academic programs. He spent over 50 years on the board of the Frederick News Post (FNP), many of those as President. With Frederick’s Community Action Agency, he helped to operate the soup kitchen and the local food bank.
Gordon has been in Frederick since 1959, and he acknowledges that he’s seen a lot of change. He’s proud of the strides the community has made in opening opportunities to people of color, and shares hope that this work will continue—especially in making available opportunities more economically accessible. He continues to advocate for more diversity in City and County government, and cites recent examples such as County Council Vice-President Kavonté Duckett. Even though his work has been big-picture, for him it hits close to home. He wants to “make things better for Callie and Coco,” his two great-granddaughters, he says.
Joy Onley
Joy Onley has lived a life marked by initiative. Always a lover of history and English, she has spent much time in the public library. On one occasion, she asked a librarian where she could find all of the books on Frederick’s African American history. “We don’t have many of those,” he replied. “You would have to write them yourself.”
And so she did. Onley has written two books about local African American history, Memories of Frederick and Dear Old Faithful Lincoln. She began the process of writing Memories in 1993, incorporating another one of her key interests: seniors. She selected a group of 16 African American seniors who had grown up in different parts of Frederick, to interview and tell stories of the city and their lives.
Dear Old Faithful Lincoln centers around research and teacher interviews associated with what was Lincoln School (now Lincoln Elementary). The facility was formerly the city’s only school for African American students. Onley herself (born in 1943) attended Lincoln until the 10th grade. The book she wrote cataloguing the school’s history has now been incorporated into the rebuilt school’s history lesson plans.
Continuing her work with seniors, Onley has provided appreciation, community and support for Frederick’s elders through AARCH Society’s Living Treasures and her own nonprofit, The Honors Class. The Honors Class holds birthday bashes, a gratitude banquet and even a special program for centenarians. Their oldest senior member, Onley says, is 109.
One of only 12 African American students who chose to leave Lincoln, Onley did so to pursue a high school diploma as one of the first students to integrate Frederick High School. She still remembers the harassment and prejudicial treatment she often received as one of Frederick High’s first black students—yet from day one, she was determined to see it through. “Someone had to do it, and I thought it might as well be me,” she says. No matter what, she has always been determined to see her life through a lens of empowerment. One of her favorite quotes comes from Sidney Poitier: “I am the me I choose to be.”
Ted Luck
Ted Luck has had an outsized impact on Frederick County’s education system. A native of Washington, D.C., he first began working in Frederick in the 1970s, when he taught at what was Thomas Johnson Junior High School. He grew to love the community, and he and his wife Alyce moved to Frederick two years later.
Luck would teach social studies at Monocacy Middle and West Frederick Middle before being offered a position in the FCPS central office. From there, he was invited to become an adjunct instructor at Hood College. Luck developed a foundational graduate course in school diversity training—encompassing understanding of not only ethnic and racial diversity but also socioeconomic differences and learning styles. The course led to the development of a diversity training module for all staff members at FCPS who would be interacting daily with students.
The modules and training model are well-regarded by the State of Maryland, and Luck helped to present FCPS’s program to other counties with diversity training programs. At Hood, he took on the position of Director of Student Success and Outreach, where he helped at-risk students connect with additional resources.
Outside of his work in education, Luck has been active in a number of community organizations. He has served on the board of directors of Frederick Health Hospital, the Community Foundation, Advocates for Homeless Families and United Way. After the death of their son, he and his wife began facilitating a grief share program at their church, Saint Catherine Drexel. Luck has also been active in the Rotary Club of Frederick.
All elements of his career and his community work, though, can be traced back to a love of teaching and, in particular, of educating students in social studies. He truly loves to help others understand the world around them, and a truism that has always stuck with him is the idea that exposure is fundamental to education. He has sought to help students and teachers understand others who have had vastly different experiences than they have.
Wendell Poindexter
Wendell Poindexter has spent virtually all of his long career investing in the Frederick community as an arts educator. He was born here, in 1957, and was influenced early on by his mother’s example as an elementary school teacher. Even so, teaching wasn’t necessarily what he first thought he would do. Arts educators such as FCC’s Betty Coe Reiner shaped and nurtured his love for visual art, and encouraged him to pursue an art degree at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. He originally went to MICA with the objective of pursuing fashion design.
However, once he graduated, he was invited back to FCC, where he had completed much of his core arts coursework. Reiner asked if he might consider putting together a course focusing on commercial art. Even though this would be his first teaching experience, he agreed. Poindexter has remained at FCC since that first adjunct invitation in 1979.
Poindexter’s career is special and unusual in an era where it has become less common to see people commit for decades to a single institution. He received tenure in 1988, and is today the Program Manager of Art at the college. He continues teaching and practicing primarily in the arena of 2D artwork— drawing, illustration and publication design. He exhibits artwork at FCC’s faculty shows, at local galleries such as NOMA and ArtistAngle and has remained involved in shaping Frederick’s arts community through engagement with the Delaplaine Arts Center and the City’s Public Art Commission. He has delighted in watching Frederick change and grow.
“People in Frederick really understand the value of art today,” he says. He cites the many partnerships between arts organizations and businesses. He underscores that for all the occasional complaints about growth, it’s been well worth the expansion in diversity. He puts it this way: “stagnancy isn’t stability—it’s decline. It’s an exciting thing to walk Carroll Creek and hear different languages—to meet new neighbors and new friends.”
