page_title: Scotland, Montgomery County, Maryland
section_title: Save Our Scotland
hierarchical_section_title: Scotland, Montgomery County, Maryland / Save Our Scotland
caption_attribution_description: English: Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Robert Weaver visits Scotland community in Montgomery County, Maryland (believed to be April 1968 for groundbreaking event).
context_page_description: Scotland is an African American community in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, located along Seven Locks Road. Consisting of 100 townhomes, Scotland community's roots date back to the late 19th century, when former slaves bought land in Potomac.
context_section_description: As Scotland's infrastructure remained undeveloped and the housing stock deteriorated, by the early 1960s, housing and other development activities were pressuring the Scotland community. Speculators sought to buy land for potential housing developments and Montgomery County sought land to create and expand Cabin John Park.  Once stretching miles along Seven Locks Road, by 1964 the community had just 48 acres with 35 homes described as "shacks", with 23 condemned. In fall 1964, Scotland's future "looked bleak" as the Inverness North townhouse development would pave over the stream that was the community's primary water source.  
  
  In 1964, Joyce B. Siegel -- "a young, white Bethesda woman"—became engaged with the Scotland community.    
  
  It looked like Scotland would quietly disappear until a seemingly unimportant event occurred just before Christmas of 1964.  Onto the scene came Mrs. Joyce Siegel, a housewife from nearby Bethesda, who drove up to deliver a load of toys for Scotland's children.  It was Siegel's first look at the community, and she was horrified by what se saw and heard.   
  
  Siegel soon began to mobilize support across the broader Montgomery County communities to  "Save Our Scotland" with a formal committee structure created in February 1965 (with Scotland residents (such as Geneva Mason), ministers, and Mrs. Siegel on its board of directors). Save Our Scotland built heavily on faith communities.   
  "We just feel that it is basically morally wrong for affluent people, real-estate operators, and others, to drive these people out of houses just because they do not have enough money and because their skin is not white." Rev. Carl Pritchett, Pastor, Bethesda Presbyterian Church, President, Save Our Scotland, 1966  
  The group leveraged the human resources of the Washington, DC, area: many current or former Federal employees volunteered their time bringing critical expertise to navigate emergent challenges in what was a rather complex set of processes over time.
  To  secure government grants, Scotland Community Develop, Inc, formed. A $78,400 grant funded legal and other support for designing a plan for adequate housing in Scotland. The resulting plan required numerous land actions, Federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) financing, and razing the existing homes. As an indication of the complexity of the process, 26 citizens' associations were convinced to support the necessary rezoning.
  
  After many years of extended struggle, negotiation, and planning, the Scotland Development Corporation took control of land and built 100 townhouses (25 owned and 75 rental) on ten acres in the late 1960s and early 1970s to replace the deteriorating existing housing stock.   
  'Scotland community is an example of how a number of people and institutions - many of them incompatible only a few years ago - can involve themselves in the problems of a community and work together to solve these problems,' [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Robert C.] Weaver told the gathering. The new Scotland's main road will be named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. [who had been assassinated on April 4, just 18 days before], with others dedicated to the late David Scull, former County Council president, and Joyce Siegel, the young Bethesda housewife who organized the original Save Our Scotland Committee three years ago." [1968 article quoted in ] 
  The Scotland project received national attention, both for the processes that enabled the community to retain control even as the housing stock was revitalized, and for the architecture. For example, the Architectural Forum magazine devoted a five-page spread to Scotland.
  The Scotland Community Development had impacts beyond Scotland, itself.  Members testified in front of the U.S. Senate committee for a rent-supplement program that had been created to help the Scotland community. Members also testified to the Maryland General Assembly for tax exemptions for housing non-profits.  These still existed decades later.
  The Scotland community, which includes a community center (2013-14
caption: Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Robert Weaver visits Scotland (for groundbreaking?) (Photo by Alan R. Siegel, Courtesy of Montgomery History)
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