In the post-Civil War years, African-Americans who were bound by a strong sense of community settled near the Brown School and the Manassas Industrial School on what was then known as Liberty Avenue. As early as 1895, African-Americans began buying tracts of land from Isaac Baldwin and building homes on Liberty Avenue and nearby Douglas Street. Carpenters, stone masons, laundresses, domestic servants, and government clerks settled here before the 1917 town ordinance that segregated housing for Manassas citizens. None-whites were then prohibited from erecting or occupying any property bordering any of the town's avenues, streets or alleys, except west of Grant Avenue-South Lee Avenue and South Street (present day Prince William Street.) A Supreme Court decision soon overturned segregation ordinances that were widespread across the south and in northern cities.
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