Roy Wilkins Park

Roy Wilkins Park is a 53-acre park and recreation complex in the St. Albans section of southeastern Queens. Named for Roy Wilkins, who led the NAACP as its executive director from 1955 to 1977 during the height of the civil rights movement, the park is one of the most important recreation facilities in southern Queens.

Wilkins guided the NAACP through the critical civil rights era, working alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall, and other leaders to dismantle legal segregation. He was a key organizer of the 1963 March on Washington and helped secure passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The park features a swimming pool, a multi-use recreation center, athletic fields, tennis courts, basketball courts, a running track, playgrounds, and a large bandshell that hosts concerts and community events. The recreation center offers year-round indoor programming including fitness, arts, and educational activities.

St. Albans is a historically significant African American community that was home to many prominent Black professionals, musicians, and athletes in the mid-20th century, including Count Basie, Lena Horne, and Jackie Robinson. The neighborhood's residential character of single-family homes gives it a suburban quality.

Roy Wilkins Park serves as the recreational centerpiece of a neighborhood with deep connections to the African American experience in New York, honoring a civil rights leader who believed that equal access to opportunity, including access to quality recreation, was a fundamental American right.