Moton Park
Moton Park is a 15-acre municipal park located at the intersection of Moton Street and Charles Barkley Avenue in the Russell Heights area of Leeds. It was established in the mid-1940s on a 40-acre site purchased by the Jefferson County Board of Education for Moton High School, a high school for black students in Leeds, Trussville, Irondale, Rose Hill and Overton. The school was named for Robert R. Moton, the second president of Tuskegee Institute. The high school was later purchased by the Leeds City Schools system and converted into Leeds Middle School.
During the planning of the school, Leeds mayor Bill Dorrough asked the county to set aside two acres for a municipal swimming pool. The pool was filled in and converted to a covered pavilion in the 1980s. Ball fields, basketball courts, a walking track and a picnic area were added in the 1990s.
In 2008 several pieces of playground equipment removed from a park being redeveloped in Atlanta were installed at Moton Park. The transfer was coordinated under a grant from the Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Birmingham.
References
- Hickerson, Patrick (June 20, 2008) "Leeds' Moton Park receives Atlanta playground equipment once slated for the wrecking ball." Birmingham News