Don’T Be Hidebound By Precedent Worry Change Is Good Dropping The Old Creates New Worlds.

Daydream for a moment here, please.

Press forward into time 25 years and see a daughter and father walking in Hamp Park. The child sees a sign commemorating the Rev. Clifton Hamp.

She asks: “Who was he, Dad?”

The dad explains. He was a pastor with a vision. A black, he moved to Spokane in the 1950s and became a minister who took to heart the words of the Bible. Feed the hungry. Visit the poor. Help the helpless.

He helped found a church. He gave away dinners each Thanksgiving and Christmas, and every summer, he invited to camp children too poor to pay for it.

It became known as Hamp’s Camp and the community heard the laughter of thousands of children returning from a week of swimming, hiking, playing, learning the lessons that only nature can provide, especially to children hemmed in by cities.

The dad also explains that he never knew the Rev. Hamp personally, but on a field trip one day his school came to the park, which was renamed in 1998. They looked at the plaque and the teacher gave a short history lesson on Hamp’s work, and about other African American families who helped shape Spokane, especially the East Central Neighborhood.

Sometimes, that’s how history comes alive, the dad said. A child sees a street name, a park name, a school name and asks questions. Who was Glover? Who was Aubrey L. White? Who was Jim Chase? Who was Elizabeth Sharpley? And then, you connect the child to the past.

The dad also explains to his daughter that when the name change was proposed, controversy erupted. The park was known as Liberty Park and the committees that could have easily made the decision to change the name passed the decision on to other committees.

They were afraid to set a precedent, to rename an established park. They were afraid to bend some rules. But sometimes, rules should be bent. As musician Tuli Kupferberg once said: “When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.”

And finally, the committee showed courage and changed the name from Liberty Park to Hamp Park. That’s why, dear daughter, you know the history of a great man. And the people and community he once helped.