Fairview Park
Salem Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Due to racial segregation into the mid-20th century, African Americans were excluded from many amusement parks and recreational facilities. Local Sunday School superintendents formed the Monongahela Valley Sunday School Assoc. and in 1945 purchased land here to create a park open to all blacks. It was the first and only black-owned amusement park in Pa. and has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 2011.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
For much of the 20th century, segregation shut Black families out of America's amusement parks and swimming pools, even where no law required it. In 1945 the Monongahela Valley Sunday School Association bought this Westmoreland County ground to build a park where African Americans could gather freely — the first and only Black-owned amusement park in Pennsylvania. It became a rare place of leisure and dignity, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.
Why it matters
Fairview Park shows how Black communities built their own spaces for joy in the face of exclusion, a quiet but powerful chapter of the fight for equal access to public life.
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