During 2024, the Scotland AME Zion Church in Potomac celebrated both its 100th anniversary and progress toward its rebuilding and eventual reopening.
The church on Seven Locks Road was built by hand and opened in 1924 as the spiritual home of the local Black community. Many of the descendants are still active members in the church and local community.
The church was damaged severely in 2019 during a flood that collapsed a basement wall and left the congregation without a place of worship of its own for five years. The flooding and subsequent storms damaged the very foundation of the church.
The water damage was also partially caused by a community that didn’t value it, according to County Executive Marc Elrich and Councilmember Andrew Friedson.
The church was “the victim not of just floods of rain but also floods of institutional racism,” Friedson said, noting that nearby construction forced water run off to flood the church, which was on lower ground.
In the past few years, a generous and varied interfaith and business community has come together to raise $9 million. Another $2.4 million is still needed not just to rebuild the church and make sure it’s on stable ground but also to expand it.
As work on the church continues, church members are planning to hold their first service inside the new building in March of 2025.
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