Greenbelt Recreation’s Creative Kids Camp invites community members to attend free, family-friendly performances on the last day of the Creative Kids Camp session. See campers ages 6 to 12 and select staffers perform The Cookie Caper, an original musical written and directed by Chris Cherry, Greenbelt Recreation’s performing arts coordinator. When an entire batch of cookies mysteriously disappears, the campers at Creative Kids Camp decide to do some sleuthing. A series of intriguing clues leads them on a musical tour of discovery through the historic Greenbelt Community Center. The final performances will take place at 10 a.m. and 2:15 p.m. in the Community Center gym on Friday, August 9. For free tickets, visit the Community Center business office or call 301-397-2208. City of Greenbelt arts programs are supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council. For additional program information, visit greenbeltmd.gov/arts.
The Cookie Caper Exhibit: Early Greenbelt in Black and White
A new Greenbelt history exhibit has opened in the Community Center’s gallery. Entitled The Cookie Caper: Early Greenbelt in Black and White, the exhibit explores the history depicted in this summer’s Creative Kids Camp show. In the show, current campers discover a diary hidden in the Community Center in 1937, on the day that Eleanor Roosevelt came to visit the building. The campers learn that the diarist, 10-year-old Dorothy Donohue, recorded both her joy at living in the new town of Greenbelt, and her sorrow that her best friend, Lily Washington, could not live in Greenbelt because of racial segregation. Dorothy resolves to speak with Mrs. Roosevelt on behalf of Lily and her family.
Although Dorothy and Lily are fictitious characters, many of the events described in The Cookie Caper, including Eleanor Roosevelt’s visit, are historical events. The new exhibit provides a rich factual context for this time in the history of Greenbelt and the nation. Performing Arts Coordinator Chris Cherry both authored the play and conducted the research for the exhibit. As part of his research, Cherry and his husband Stefan Brodd traveled to Hyde Park, N.Y., in April to visit the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. The Roosevelt Museum has mounted a major exhibit ‒ Black Americans, Civil Rights and the Roosevelts, 1932-1962 ‒ which runs through the end of 2024. Cherry called the visit to Hyde Park powerful and informative. “We went back for a second day in order to go through the exhibit all over again,” he said. “It gave us a much fuller understanding of the history of the time and especially the important role played by Eleanor Roosevelt.”
Another research visit took Cherry to the manuscripts division of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University. There he obtained a copy of a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt from Selma Thomas, a Black woman who had read newspaper accounts of the Greenbelt project. She expressed her longing for a similar community for her family. Her letter is included in the Community Center exhibit. The exhibit highlights some other little-known events and forgotten characters. Today’s Greenbelters will be pleased to learn that the Greenbelt drug store’s lunch counter was integrated from the start, and that when controversy arose, residents vociferously supported equal service in what was the town’s only eating establishment in the 1930s.
Another rediscovered gem is the story of Dr. Will Alexander, the official who oversaw the completion of Greenbelt and the operation of the town during its early years. Dr. Will, as he was affectionately known, had been instrumental in the founding of Dillard University, the historically Black university in New Orleans, and had served as its first acting president. Prior to entering government service, he had headed the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, a nonprofit organization that worked throughout the South to avert lynchings, end the practice of peonage and combat the Ku Klux Klan. Dr. Will can be seen in an exhibit photo, smiling at Eleanor Roosevelt’s side during her visit to a classroom at the Greenbelt school. The photo is one of 40 historic photographs in the exhibit, which also includes letters, newspaper excerpts and even a recipe.
The exhibit is currently on display at the Community Center in the gallery (Room 112) during evenings and weekends through Sunday, August 25. Weekday daytime viewing is also available, starting August 12. City of Greenbelt arts programs are supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council. For additional program information, visit greenbeltmd.gov/arts.
Rebecca Squire is the Arts Promotion Specialist with Greenbelt Recreation Arts.