On May 6, the Town of Hempstead Landmarks Preservation Commission considered the Lakeview Public Library’s application for designation as a historic landmark, presented by Martine Laventure, the social worker in the Malverne School District’s Davison Avenue Intermediate School.
Laventure, along with the Davison Avenue Ambassadors, a children’s civic learning and advocacy group, and other members of the Lakeview community, made their case to the Commission.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and members of the Lakeview chapter of the NAACP organized and led a march from Rockville Centre to Lakeview on May 12, 1965, that ended at the library, formerly the Woodfield Road School. Laventure and the Ambassadors asserted that the library was the focus of a moment in civil rights history that deserves to be remembered.
“For years I carried a photograph on my phone of Dr. Martin Luther King standing at that exact site,” Laventure said, addressing the commission. “That was the catalyst to this entire project. It was the spark that led me to realize that as a resident and as an educator, I could not let the ground that Doctor King stood on remain unprotected.”
That photo and many others, along with transcribed testimony and firsthand accounts of the march, and the history of the Woodfield Road School, comprised a 26-page narrative document the group presented to the commission in addition to their remarks.
Shiloh Demosthenes, a Davison Avenue 5th grader and a member of the Ambassadors, spoke about the need to preserve the history of the former school, and how that history can inspire people in the future.
“It is specifically advertised on the official flier for that day, that [King’s ] stop at Woodfield Road School was scheduled for 3:35 p.m.,” Shiloh said. “That flier is proof that Woodfield Road School was a priority for one of the most famous people in history. He came here because Lakeview was on the front lines for civil rights in New York.”
Shiloh said he had learned part of what he knew about King’s march from the firsthand account of Frederick Brewington, a former Woodfield Road student and a civil rights attorney. Brewington was one of many former Woodfield Road students that Laventure and the Ambassadors collected accounts from over the course of their research.
“[Brewington] remembers Doctor King putting a hand on his head — that one moment changed his life because of what happened at that building,” Shiloh said. “Brewington grew to to be a civil rights attorney. If Doctor King’s standing there could inspire a boy to become a lawyer, then from this moment, I can grow up and be anything I want to be — but I can only do that if we protect the places where our history happened.”
After Laventure and the Ambassadors spoke, Doris Hicks-Newkirk, president of the Lakeview NAACP chapter and a founding member of the Lakeview Civic Association, endorsed them before the committee.
“We put up a plaque right in the driveway [of the library] so the young people could see that 60 years ago, Dr. King was here,” Newkirk said. “I think that honoring us even more in Lakeview by making the library a landmark will serve our community greatly.”
Lisa Ortiz, president of the library board, also spoke, congratulating the Ambassadors on their hard work and urging the commission to take their proposal seriously.
“I’ve been on the board for almost 10 years now, and I know that the library has requested this many times in the past,” Ortiz said. “We’re hoping that this time around, through all the efforts of the Ambassadors under Doctor Laventure, that you guys would really take this serious and grant us this request.”
Lakeview Civic Association President Dr. William Anders spoke last, and like Ortiz, urged the commission to hear their case out and recognize the library’s unique role in civil right history.
“Hearing [the Ambassadors] have the courage to present in front of their community, in front of you all, and to learn a rich history that exists within our Lakeview Library speaks to the lesson that the school district of Malverne has been able to give them,” Anders said. “We ask you all to support this, to support our kids and to support the history that's so rich to us as community members that are right here in Lakeview.”
The commission moved to continue the process of landmark certification for the library to the next step, which is a public hearing, with a date to be determined.
