Banneker

For most of his life, Benjamin Banneker lived in a one-room log cabin near what is now Oella Avenue in southern Baltimore County, between Catonsville and Ellicott City. A farmer by vocation, Banneker was also a mathematical prodigy, land surveyor and inventor who constructed the first mechanical clock made in America. He also published the country's first farmer's almanac, which was based on his own astronomical observations.Banneker's achievements were all the more remarkable given that he was a free black man during an era when slavery was virtually universal in the South.

Friends and descendants of Benjamin Banneker gathered Nov. 10 to mark the 281st birthday of the famed African-American astronomer and mathematician who is also known for his work surveying the land that eventually became Washington, D.C. But this time the focus of the annual celebration at the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Oella wasn't on the colonial-era African-American scientist and farmer. The honoree at Saturday's celebration was his grandmother, Molly Bannaky.

With a Supreme Court decision that essentially ends the Benjamin Banneker scholarship program for black students at the University of Maryland College Park, UMCP officials appear to be in a bind. Since the late 1960s, the school has been under pressure from the federal government to make its campus more open to black students. UMCP officials felt they were doing just that, mainly by offering the Banneker awards. But then came the Supreme Court's action this past Monday, which upheld a federal appellate court's ruling from last fall against the 17-year-old Banneker program.

A quilt made by a prominent African-American textile artist and teacher was stolen during a burglary this month from the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Oella, where it was on loan. The red-and-gold quilt owned by Joan M.E. Gaither, a former professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art , was missing after a break-in at the museum overnight on Dec. 19, Baltimore County police said. The burglar or burglars broke through a glass pane in a back door and threw a television, picture frame and a few items from the gift shop onto the floor.

In one week recently, this newspaper reported on a prestigious black couple's bid to at last integrate the Baltimore Country Club, on Newt Gingrich's suggestion that Maryland retake the property it ceded centuries ago to create Washington, D.C., and on opening arguments in the racial conundrum known as the O.J. Simpson murder trial.There was yet another article in the paper that week whose roots ran as deep as those of the Wye Oak into that melange of racial and geographical current events: It described this summer's groundbreaking for a historical park in Baltimore County's Oella, where Benjamin Banneker once lived and marveled at the heavens.

ONE DAY IN THE autumn of 1788, young George Ellicott stopped by the rough-hewn log cabin occupied by his friend and neighbor Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who eked out a humble living farming tobacco on a 100-acre plot adjoining the Ellicott estate.Though the 28-year-old Ellicott, scion of the founding family of what is today Ellicott City, had been born with every advantage of wealth and education, he had found himself drawn to the reclusive, unassuming Banneker, 29 years his senior, who had won a measure of renown locally as a self-taught polymath and builder of a wooden striking clock that kept perfect time.

To the dismay of supporters, groundbreaking is months behind schedule for Baltimore County's Banneker Historical Park, a project that has been in the discussion and planning stages for a decade.Bureaucratic delays and disagreements involving a subcontractor on the project have been blamed for delaying bids on construction of the park -- a memorial to scientist Benjamin Banneker. Bids were to have been advertised in February and let in April, with a late-summer groundbreaking.The county now expects bids on the $10 million project to be advertised this month and construction to begin in February, a delay termed "very unusual" by Albert R. Svehla Jr., deputy director of the Department of Recreation and Parks.

"The problem isn't that minority students are made to feel unwelcome on this campus," Edward Graves is saying. "But we don't feel particularly welcome either. African-American students tend to feel isolated and alienated here. We're cut off -- from each other and from the university. It always feels as though this is their campus instead of our campus.Mr. Graves, who is black, is a 20-year-old engineering student from Philadelphia, now finishing his junior year. We were sitting near the Hornbake Library at the University of Maryland College Park.

A 43-year-old amateur historian in Ohio made a startling discovery while climbing through the limbs of his family tree.He found the long-lost sister of Benjamin Banneker, the Oella astronomer often called this country's "first black man of science."Charles Weiker, a computer operator who lives in Fremont, Ohio, began researching his family's origins more than 25 years ago. He had no idea that a long trail of old census tracts, wills and birth certificates would establish a family connection with one of Baltimore's most celebrated historical personages.

WASHINGTON -- The University of Maryland at College Park was appealing today to the U.S. Supreme Court in a final attempt to save a scholarship program for African-American students."

The Banneker School Legacy Committee of Catonsville, known as the Banneker Reunion Committee of Catonsville, enjoyed a three-day weekend Sept. 23-25 with students, who attended or graduated from Banneker. Our vision is to empower and preserve our community. Our mission is to locate and preserve historical African-American landmarks, recognizing those who contributed to maintaining the legacy of Catonsville history. Our theme is "Preserving the past to ensure the future.

Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum now boasts a replica of the one-room log cabin that the African-American scientist built and lived in on his western Baltimore County farm. Officials formally opened the 224-square-foot cabin Thursday on the park grounds in Catonsville, two days before the 278th anniversary of Banneker's birth. The home furthers efforts to educate the public about this significant figure in local, state and national history whose accomplishments included helping to survey the land that became the nation's capital.

Gwendolyn Parrish was studying to become a doctor when she met a Baltimore County police lieutenant who was recruiting candidates in her Turners Station neighborhood. At first, she dismissed the idea. But she eventually became drawn to "a calling to do service for my community and make a difference," Parrish said, noting that the relationship between the historically black neighborhood and police was tense in the 1980s. So Parrish left the University of Maryland, Baltimore County after three years to pursue a law enforcement career.

Hit by prosecutor's car, man critically injured A man was critically injured early yesterday when he was struck by a car driven by a Baltimore assistant state's attorney on his way to District Court in Brooklyn, city police said. Police said Jeremy Eldridge, the prosecutor, was eastbound in the 400 block of E. Patapsco Ave. about 8 a.m. and heading to the John R. Hargrove Jr. District Court in the 700 block of E. Patapsco Ave. when a 52-year-old man, whose name has not been released, staggered into the roadway and was struck.

Fort Meade Veterans Day Fort George G. Meade will hold a Veterans Day event at 11 a.m. tomorrow at the Fort Meade Museum Memorial Plaza, 4674 Griffin Ave. Navy Commander James Liddy (Ret.), an expert on counterterrorism and critical-infrastructure protection, will be the keynote speaker. Members of the Maryland congressional delegation will read letters saluting veterans and their contributions to the nation's defense. Information: 301-677-1301 or 301-677-1436. Medical Parkway closed Medical Parkway, which is on the Anne Arundel Medical Center campus between Pavilion Parkway and Jennifer Road in Annapolis, will be closed this weekend so that construction crews can continue work on a covered walkway across Medical Parkway.

Tension hung in the air as contestants in the Howard County Library Teen Idol Competition waited for the results. Daniel Goldstein, a rising eighth-grader at Elkridge Landing Middle School who had donned a sparkly top hat and belted out "There's No Business Like Show Business," passed the time by playing a piano in the hallway. Others contestants nibbled on cookies and pretzels.

The history of public higher education in Maryland is one written starkly in black and white.With colleges segregated by law, Maryland even created a fund in the 1930s to pay for black students to attend graduate programs elsewhere -- offering to pay for one student to attend school in Alaska rather than in Baltimore.Pressured by federal courts and civil rights agencies, the University of Maryland submitted a series of plans on how it would better integrate its campus. In the late 1970s, campus officials thought they had finally found a sure way to trumpet its rejection of the legacy of racism: the Benjamin Banneker scholarship, an all-costs paid scholarship for talented black students.

An education programmer at the Children's Museum of Indian-apolis has been named the new curator of Annapolis' Banneker-Douglass Museum, state officials said yesterday.Marian Carpenter, who also has served as assistant program archivist for African-American history at the Indiana Historical Society, was selected last week for the newly created position at the museum, which has lacked leadership since its director was fired four months ago after less than a year on the job.A curator "is something that's been needed," said Carroll Hynson Jr., chairman of the Commission on African-American History and Culture.

People interested in trying to buy or rent a home using Howard County's Moderate Income Housing Unit program have until Jan. 31 to enroll before the next lottery Feb. 25. The county is holding a workshop for prospective buyers at 7 p.m. Jan. 14 in the Banneker Room - the County Council chambers in the George Howard Building in Ellicott City. Townhouses and apartments are available at Belmont Station, a large development along U.S. 1 north of Route 175. Townhouses and condominium apartments are also becoming available at Elkridge Crossing, off of Montgomery Road at U.S. 1, the site of the old Elkridge drive-in theater.