The Langston Golf Course
The Royal Golf Club and the Langston Golf Course have been so closely associated over the years that it is somewhat difficult to say very much about one, without mentioning the other.
In 1938, the Royals and Wake-Robin Golf Clubs pushed the process of desegregating the public golf courses in Washington, DC by petitioning the Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. Even though the Langston Golf Course opened in 1939, making it the second course in Washington that people of color were allowed to play, the Royals and Wake-Robin continued to petition the Secretary until public courses were desegregated in 1941. On June 30, 1941, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes issued an order to open the golf course to all players. He also insisted that African Americans could buy tickets to any of Washington, DC's, traditionally white public golf courses, writing:
"I can see no reason why Negroes should not be permitted to play on the golf course. They are taxpayers, they are citizens, and they have a right to play golf on public courses on the same basis as whites."
After the official desegregation of public golf courses, African Americans still faced intimidation when they tried to play. A couple of weeks later, a fight broke out at the East Potomac Park Golf Course when African American golfers sought shelter from a torrential rainstorm in the field house.
In September, the Afro-American wrote that "White hoodlums, resenting the appearance of colored players on the hitherto lily-white courses, have been making things uncomfortable for adventuresome golfers; effecting malicious little triflngs [sic], like filling carburetors with sand, deflating tires, removing spark plugs and other such things while the owners were out on the course."
A year later, in July 1942 at the Anacostia Golf Course, women from the Wake Robin Golf Club were harassed by a white crowd, who reportedly picked up the golfers’ balls to prevent them from playing and drove them from the course with sticks, stones, and abusive language.
One way African American golfers hoped to show their right to play was to hold the 1942 United Golfers Association (UGA) tournament, known as the "Negro National Open," on one of Washington, DC's, public courses. Dr. Edgar Brown wanted to "fashion a decree from the Department of the Interior...providing one of the swank courses, now used by white people, for the event."
Under pressure from white organizations, the UGA canceled the tournament. The Royals and Wake-Robin Golf Clubs were undeterred. A letter dated December 3, 1943, drafted by members of the Royal Golf Club to the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Harold Ickes, was accompanied by a map showing a proposed layout for an extension to Langston Golf Course that had been under study by the Department of Interior. In June of 1950, the second nine holes was opened at Langston, an accomplishment of the efforts of the Royals and Wake-Robin Golf Clubs and many others from golfing Associations in the city who waged quite a battle in regard to the project. Letters here & 1949 Langston Golf Course Map.
Over the years, it also became a see-and-be-seen destination. Heavyweight champion Joe Louis played an amateur tournament at Langston in 1940, drawing 2,000 fans. Lifelong golfer David Ross met Muhammad Ali one day on a putting green: “His limousine pulls up, and . . . he said to me, ‘I’ve never picked up a golf club before,’ and he reached out and got my putter.”
By the 1970s, black people could comfortably play at many courses. As the demographics of the city changed around it, Langston did, too. Today newcomers—often white and in their twenties—play just as often as the old-timers. The course, however, is again in shambles. The National Park Service says it will open up operations to bidders this year and will strike a new contract by October 2020. But a similar plan to renovate was under way two years ago and ended abruptly. Longtimers hope the limbo will soon be in the past—and that after 80-some years, the course conditions will finally befit its loyal players.
