Top of the Town, Low Point in History

Last Sunday, February 29th, Pastor Mike preached from a new Word in the World sermon location. This time, he was at Fort Reno Park, an urban park in a neighborhood of Washington D.C.

On site, you can see fields of green and even a community garden (when it’s not winter). On certain days, you can find musicians playing concerts and hear music traveling across the grounds. But within the park, somewhere beneath the green (or brown) grass sits the highest natural point in the District of Columbia, approximately 409 feet or 125 meters. This high point known as the “top of the town” is marked by a small metal disk set into the ground, and yet the place that it’s marking signifiies one of the lowest points in the city’s history.

Fort Reno, for which the park is named, was built in 1861 as a Civil War defense. Like many northern forts, it attracted freed and escaped former slaves. Over a century, the nearby neighborhoods became home to a growing black populus until several government officials and agencies worked to dismantle the community because it was seen as “a blight upon this part of D.C.” Properties in Reno City, former homes and churches, were purchased and knocked down. Those who lived there were pushed out. And the safe haven that had been established was taken.

In their place, Fort Reno Park was created, only under the name of Melvin Hazen, one of the men directly responsible for dismantling the neighborhood. In 2020, pressure built to rename the park but it wasn’t until this year that the park has now been renamed. It represents a time of reflection and recalibration of the way we think about history, both in the world around us and within ourselves, as we enter into the Lenten season and ask God to help direct us to think and be better.