History is now on display at Greenville’s Unity Park.
A row of 12 display panels titled the ‘Path to Progress’ was unveiled to the public on Nov. 1. Sponsored by The Daniel-Mickel Foundation, the panels are located near the park’s Auro Bridge along the Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail.
Path to Progress details the history of Unity Park and the surrounding Southernside and West Greenville neighborhoods. Various topics are displayed in chronological order starting from the early settlers along the Reedy River to the opening of Unity Park in 2022. The panels also shine a light on the years of racial inequality and neglect within the park’s 60-acre site and the local community.
“If you look back at the Path of Progress, you will see some of the horrific things that happened here. It was a very unsafe, unhealthy place to live,” said Mary Duckett, president of Southernside Neighborhoods in Action.
Two segregated parks, Mayberry Park and Meadowbrook Park, were previously located on the land that now makes up Unity Park. Mayberry Park served as the city’s designated park for Black children and was a gathering place for those in the surrounding communities.
Meadowbrook Park was a baseball stadium built in the 1930s for an all-white baseball team. It sat next to the often neglected Mayberry Park, only separated by a patch of land used as a dumping ground. A women’s prison, a police shooting range and a trash incinerator were also once located on the property that would eventually become Unity Park.
The information displayed on the Path to Progress was accumulated through the stories, pictures and memories of those within the surrounding communities. Minor Shaw, a trustee with the Daniel-Mickel Foundation, explained the project has been a labor of love for everyone involved.
Special section | Unity Park
“We felt that it was important to help tell the story of Unity Park so that those people visiting the park would have a better understanding of Unity Park, the history of Mayberry and Meadowbrook Parks, and the Southernside and West Greenville communities,” Shaw said.
Greenville City Councilmember Lillian Brock Flemming said she appreciates The Daniel-Mickel Foundation for adding something to the park that would make a difference. Flemming is a longtime Southernside resident and grew up playing at Mayberry Park.
“That means our history will not die,” Flemming said.
The panels currently on display are temporary. The final version of Path to Progress will be installed in March and feature a QR code for people to get more historic information on the park.
To further honor the area’s history, the city of Greenville also plans to soon restore the site of Mayberry Park by building a new Little League baseball field. Honor Tower, the park’s 125-foot observation tower, is currently under construction and expected to open in the summer of 2025.
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