Douglass and McGar Parks
Fort Worth, TX
From the late 1800s through the 1920s, amid Jim Crow segregation, Douglass and McGar parks gave Fort Worth's African Americans rare recreational ground. In 1895 Black entrepreneur Thomas Mason and partners bought land in the Trinity River bottoms that became Douglass Park — named for Frederick Douglass — which hosted annual Juneteenth celebrations drawing thousands and served Black churches and the Prince Hall Masons. When crowds for Negro-league baseball outgrew it, games moved to the nearby ballpark renamed McGar Park; flooding and industrial development erased both by the late 1920s.