Memorial service in Upper Marlboro honors civil rights leader Bob Woodson
Upper Marlboro marked Bob Woodson’s legacy at a Glenarden memorial as his grassroots model for crime, violence and poverty still looms in Prince George’s County.
A memorial service for Bob Woodson filled First Baptist Church of Glenarden International in Upper Marlboro on Tuesday, bringing Prince George’s County into the final chapter of a life defined by neighborhood-based activism. The service, held from 10 a.m. to noon at 600 Watkins Park Dr., centered on a civil rights leader whose supporters said his ideas still matter for communities trying to build safety and stability from within.
Woodson died on May 19 at age 89. Born April 8, 1937, he was the youngest of five children, and his father was a World War I veteran of the 369th Infantry Regiment, the Harlem Hellfighters, a detail often invoked in tributes to his family’s long record of service. The Woodson Center said he died peacefully in his sleep.
The memorial came under the title Remembering the Life of Robert Woodson, and it was held in a church led by Pastor John K. Jenkins Sr., whose congregation has become one of the county’s largest and most visible faith institutions. First Baptist Church of Glenarden International’s size and broad community reach made it a fitting setting for a service aimed at honoring not just a man, but a public philosophy.
That philosophy took shape in 1981, when Woodson founded the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise in Washington with a $25,000 grant. The organization later became the Woodson Center, which says it has spent 45 years supporting grassroots, neighborhood-based solutions to crime, violence, family breakdown and poverty. The center described Woodson as a visionary and civil rights leader whose work was driven by the belief that people closest to a problem are best positioned to solve it.
Public tributes have also identified Woodson as a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal. His approach often challenged conventional civil rights orthodoxy by emphasizing personal responsibility, faith and local leadership, a message that made the Upper Marlboro memorial feel less like a retrospective than a reminder of the unresolved questions his work still raises in Prince George’s County: who leads, who decides and which institutions residents trust to hold neighborhoods together.
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