This triangular section of Highbridge Park commemorates the many prominent African-Americans who made their homes in Sugar Hill during the 20th century. According to the Parks Department:
Residents included such political reformers as W.E.B. DuBois, founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Walter White, secretary of the NAACP, and the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Sr. Musicians and performers such [as] Paul Robeson, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn also lived here. The field of arts and letters was represented by Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Aaron Douglas and William Stanley Braithwaite. Professionals included Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American U.S. Supreme Court justice.
