HCWDC Funded Documentary to Air on WETA, Monday September 16

"The Bayou: DC's Killer Joint" documents the history of an iconic DC night club and music venue!

On Monday, September 16, the memory of one of DC's most storied music venues will be resurrected on the small screen! Tune in to WETA at 10pm EDT to watch this Council-funded documentary! 

Check out the full documentary description on the producers' website, or read the Washington post review!

WETA programming schedule. 

Public Screening of "African American Pioneer Muslimahs in Washington, DC Part One!"

A Fascinating Look at the Lives of Muslim Women in DC

From a Press Release...

This one-hour screening is a fundraiser for POI television featuring the 50 + years journeys of three women (Sisters Baseemah Beyah, Aidah N. Sabir, and Shukriyyar T. Nisar) in their 80s and 90s. They each left South Carolina for Washington, DC as members and singers in the church and transposed their lives by joining the Nation of Islam and later all making their pilgrimage to Mecca as Muslims. These extraordinary, three ladies will be our featured guests for a question and answer segment after the viewing.

A donation of $20.00 per person over 10 years old and $10.00 per person over 65 years old is requested. However, If you cannot attend this exciting event, contributions can be made payable to the African-American Holiday Association, the fiscal agent and 501©3 organization financially handling this POI project. Please send c/o Z Productions, P.O. Box 77344, Washington, DC 20013. We have begun to work on Part Two, so we can continue to tell our stories.

Refreshments will be served before the screening and several, women business vendors will be available before and after the showing. Please try to RSVP and for further questions, directions and/or information call 202-302-4708 or contact zasha121@yahoo.com.

At the Rumi Forum, 1150 17th Street, NW, Fourth Floor,

Near M Street, NW across the street from the National Geographic Bldg.

On Sunday, June 10, 2012, 3:00 to 6:00 pm

Humanitini Comes to Axum Restaurant and Bar!

Happy Hour Conversations On Today's Hot Topics

Our signature think-and-drink event is back starting Tuesday, February 21st and then every Tuesday after until March 13. The Humanitini is a relaxed discussion between a panel of experts and a happy hour audience on topics of timely interest or importance. Topics will include:

• Distortions of the District - Talk to local film experts about the way Washington DC has been portrayed in both feature and documentary film. Confirmed panelists include filmmakers Aviva Kempner, Ellie Walton, and Steven Nero; as well as representatives from DC Film Girl, Our City Film Festival, and the DC Film Alliance. The panel will be moderated by Amy Saidman of SpeakeasyDC.

• The Coexistence of Trains, Cars, Bikes, and Humans - Discuss everything transportation related in Washington, DC! The panel will look at all sides of issues ranging from Metro fare hikes and congested freeways to transportation informed urban planning and bike lanes. Confirmed panelists include Josh Moskowitz from the District Department of Transportation, Monika Samtani, ‘The Extra Mile’ Transportation Anchor, WUSA9 Morning News, Daniel Hoagland of the Washington Area Bicyclists' Association, Ben Goldman of DCStreets Blog (http://dc.streetsblog.org/), and Jenifer Joy Madden from Greater Greater Washington. The panel will be moderated by Amy Saidman of SpeakeasyDC. 

The final two programs will take place at Axum Restaurant and Bar at 1934 9th Street, NW!

• Caps, Nats, Wiz, and 'Skins: Finding Community Identity Through Sports - We'll take a humanities spin on local sports fandom. Our panelists and the audience will explore the District's unique sports identity. Can a city with a large transient population attract dedicated home-team supporters? Confirmed panelists include Brian Tinsman from The Redskins Blog, Kyle S. Yeldell from National Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation, Howard University Soccer Head Coach, Michael Lawrence, American football tight end Leonard Stephens, and Edwin Henderson from the Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation. The panel will be moderated by Amy Saidman of SpeakeasyDC. This Humanitini will also feature Demont “Peekaso” Pinder, local artist well known as being the art director for JIVE recording artist Raheem DeVaughn. He will paint a sports themed piece during the panel discussion and it will be auctioned off at the end of the program.

• Occupy DC: What is the Price of Freedom? - This program will take a street-level look at the Occupy DC protest, examining its origins and goals as well as the effect it has had on local businesses and city agencies. Confirmed panelists include community activist and lobbyist Erik Jones, and Sinclair Skinner, Legba Carrefour, and Megan Brett from Occupy DC Media team. This panel will be moderated by Andy Shallal, founder of Busboys and Poets.  

  The events are completely free and open to the public (donations accepted).

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History and Community in LeDroit Park

Can Local History Projects Mend Collective Memory?

It's hard to imagine that densely packed Ward 1, with its rows of federal style townhomes and gleaming new luxury condos, was once the target of developers looking to establish subdivided and suburban-style gated communities, but in 1873, LeDroit Park was conceived as just that. Filmmaker Ronald Smokey Stevens recently completed a documentary as part of the DC Community Heritage Project that surveys the history of the neighborhood from its exclusive beginnings, through its illustrious decades as the locus for black culture in Washington (and perhaps the United States), to its current challenges and successes. The film, Preserving LeDroit Park: an historic DC Community, is available in full as part of the Humanities Council's DC Digital Museum, but it can also be purchased at http://www.preservingledroitpark.com.

Stevens' film exemplifies the value of historic preservation and public history. It not only tells the story of LeDroit Park, but it tells the story of a man who's regular rounds through the neighborhood carried him past the Robert and Mary Church Terrell House, and how these encounters with the past inspired and empowered him to find out more.

Mary Church Terrell, Stevens' tells his viewers, began fighting for Civil Rights using civil disobedience tactics long before Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., or the Freedom Riders. In 1950 Terrell and a group of activists sought to test the District of Columbia's anti-segregation laws by entering a de facto white-only restaurant. When they were refused service, they filed a lawsuit which, by 1953, led DC courts to rule segregation in eating places unconstitutional. Though many longtime residents of LeDroit Park and Washington, DC likely know of Terrell and her groundbreaking work, her story may be news to families who have recently made the neighborhood their home. By helping to popularize the story of Terrell as well as those of Anna J. Cooper, Walter E. Washington, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Duke Ellington, and the other notable residents of LeDroit Park, Stevens can help build a sense of community pride and appreciation of a common past.

Photographer David Corry, interviewed for the film, believes that creating this sense of community will be an ongoing challenge for LeDroit Park, but one that can be overcome. The perceived lack of a sense of community caused by gentrification and demographic shifts can be remedied by public history projects like Stevens' film as personal connections to place and time are developed for newcomers, and rebuilt among long-term residents.

The film is produced well, making use of Stevens' oratory skills, authoritative historical research, illustrative photographs, and stock video footage. It is brief, but informative, and well worth the 17 minutes for anyone interested in Washington, DC history.

More information on the notable residents of LeDroit Park can be found in Kim Roberts' online exhibition Wide Enough for Our Ambition.

Students in Cemeteries: Hands on History Learning

Students From a Recent HCWDC Funded Program to Debut Film

The Female Union Band Cemetery
As seen from Rock Creek Park

Recent grantee "I Saw! The Experience of Learning in DC," and its cadre of cemetery exploring youth will screen their film on Saturday, November 12 at 5PM. The event will be hosted by the African-American Civil War Museum at 1925 Vermont Ave, NW. The film titled "We Are Not Afraid to Make History! (Part 1)," was directed, filmed, and edited by the young participants.

Last Summer 30 young students braved the hottest part of the year investigating Washington, DC's historic African-American cemeteries. They met with historians, archeologists, and other researchers who mentored them as they reviewed primary source materials to reconstruct the lives of some of the people buried in the Antebellum era gravesites. The forthcoming film is based on the video documentation of the project.

"I Saw! The Experience of Learning in DC" is an organization that implements "Living Images in my World" as a program of community based education projects with outcomes promoting a social good, high intellectual value, and creative artistic vision.

Click Here to View Their Full Press Release

Announcing the 2011 Cycle II Grant Recipients

Grant Awards Will Be Presented at a Ceremony this Evening at the Thurgood Marshall Center for Service and Heritage

Major Grants

• Washington's Mural's as Spectacle and Message - City Arts Inc.
• Advanced Photography Training for At-Risk DC Youth Critical Exposure
• The 2012 Environmental Film Festival in the Nations Capital
• Shakespeare Steps Out - Folger Shakespeare Library
• 2012 Children's Gallery of Black History - MOMIE's TLC
• One World Education Units: Single Parent Families & Language in America - One World Education
• The Africa Club with Sadiki - Sadiki Educational Safari, Inc.
• Documenting Your Story (Documentary Video Storytelling Seminar) - Stone Soup Films
• Thurgood Marshall Academy's Community Archives Program - Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School
• Washington Storytellers' Theatre DBA Renewal and Enhancement of SpeakeasyDC's podcast - Speakeasy DC
• Voices of Health - Whitman Walker Health
• Our City Film Festival - Yachad, Inc

Small Grants

• Civil War Reading Series - Georgetown Theatre Company
• The Finding Gabriela DC Youth Poetry Competition - The In Series, Inc.
• Southwest Heritage Project - Southwest Neighborhood Assembly
• 38th Annual Conference on DC Historical Studies - Friends of the Washingtoniana Division
• In Their Own Words – DCPS Students - Global Harmony Through Personal Excellence, Inc.
• "Brookland, not Brooklyn" Discussion Guide - Black Women Playwrights’ Group
•  The Mother Story Project - The Sanctuary Theatre

We look forward to seeing the enriching programs, events, and projects produced by these outstanding organizations!

Freedom Riders On WETA and HCTV

New Documentary Airs Monday Night at 9PM

In 1961, a group of African American activists, with supporters of all races and ethnicities, boarded buses at the New York Avenue Greyhound station bound for the Deep South. The supreme court had recently declared discriminatory laws effecting interstate buses and depots unconstitutional, and this courageous group was determined to test the ruling. The Freedom Riders were taunted, beaten, and jailed; their buses disabled and set ablaze, but the determined voyagers succeeded in sending the message that the rule of law alone would not be enough to subdue an entrenched Jim Crow.

This Monday at 9pm, PBS will air an all new documentary film on the Freedom Riders. The WETA website features a history of the movement, excerpts from a Smithsonian panel discussion, updates from a group of students recreating the original bus route, and an interview with the film's creator.

PBS Freedom Rides Trailer

Local filmmaker Steven Nero has been working on a similar, but more DC-focused, documentary with funding from the Humanities Council for the last few years. The most recent edition debuted at the DC Community Heritage Project showcase last December, and has garnered significant attention on the Council's Youtube channel. Check out the film if you haven't already, and be sure to tune in on Monday for producer Stanley Nelson's take on this historic Civil Rights protest.

Nero's Greyhound Building and Freedom Riders Documentary

The DC Community Heritage Project is a partnership of the Humanities Council, the DC Office of Historic Preservation and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Fifteen Minutes with Beverly Lindsay-Johnson

HCWDC Intern Ashley Portillo Interviews A Champion of DC's Native Dance

Visit www.nationalhanddanceassociation.org to learn about Hand Dance, the officially recognized dance of Washington, DC. Find out more about Ms. Lindsay-Johnson's most recent project, "Hand Dance: A Capitol Swing," at our 4th Annual DC Community Heritage Project Showcase on Wednesday, December 8. You are guaranteed to learn something new about DC at this FREE program and reception! RSVP today!. 

Image Courtesy: National Hand Dance
Association

Q: For someone unfamiliar with the Hand Dance, could you explain what it is and why it is important to DC culture and history?

A: Hand Dance is a contemporary swing-style-partner dance with roots in Lindy Hop and Jitterbug. It has been almost a 60-year social dance form. It has gone through a series of evolutions per generation, but started out as more of a swing-style dance rooted on the ground. Then, in the 1950s, because of the more up-tempo music, the foot dance evolved to a faster pace. Then, in the 60s, the style cooled itself out with the advent of Blues music. The footwork was a cooler style- more “cool”, I guess you could say. Then, during the disco era, the dancing was more freestyle. And in the early 90s, Hand Dance made a comeback. Actually, in 1993 the Smithsonian Institution recognized Hand Dance as an American Art Form. This support really helped revive this type of dance because all of a sudden it just started to explode! Because back then in the 50s and 60s, everyone was doing it- mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, kids and grandparents alike. But then, in the 1990s, a revival started to occur. Yet, this time it was a clash between a more freestyle 90s dance with the more structured form the older generations had learned. The dance that we had in the 90s was all about presentation and choreography and you began to see a clash between the two styles of Hand Dance. This is all very important because it is the official dance of the nation’s capital, which is still practiced today in the swing-dance clubs. In the Hand Dance clubs today, you see an improvised type of Hand Dancing. You see a similar structure, but not as much choreography.

Q: Is the improvised form more difficult than the choreographed Hand Dance?

A: Absolutely not. Once you master the man-to-woman indication by way of the movements he makes with his hand or arm, the woman just has to know what those non-verbal communications indicate. She needs to know what those body movements and motions indicate; but all of these styles, whether choreographed and structured or improvised in the clubs, carry the same rule of thumb.

Q: What are some of the challenges you face in trying to preserve or archive the Hand Dance?

A:  Well, they have old-school Hand Dance of the 50s and 60s and there is the contemporary Hand Dance of now. Washington, though, is so unique that you have the older generations at 50 to 60 years old and 70 to 80 years old dancing the Hand Dance. And now, our sociology is so much different than ever before, so the youth is doing it too and they have so much movement. They add to it with their hip-hop twist. The music has changed and the older generation doesn’t always agree with it. But this has taken place in all types of artistic cultures. There’s a pull from the older generation trying to preserve the original Hand Dance. The National Hand Dance Association tries the best that it can to fuse the two together because the older generation understands that change is inevitable. And it respectfully accepts this in order for the dance to continue and not die out. I always say that there has to be change. There has to be an evolution because the music changes and music is what fuels the dance.

Q: Your programs at NHDA have a dual focus: hand dancing as an art form and as a community service. What are some ways in which it is seen as a community service?

A: Well, we’re educating the public on the history of the District of Columbia and African American history and dance. Also, we are teaching the etiquette that comes with the dance and not only that but the cosmic resolution. You have so many young people that have learned it, mastered it, and immersed themselves in the dance. Many have said that this dance has changed their lives completely. I think there has been a social breakdown in contemporary dances- something is missing in them. So we try hard to introduce the Hand Dance to the youth, which is why we have a Youth Chapter.

Q: How did you become interested in and involved with the Hand Dance? 

A: Well… (laughs), I’m originally from New York City and have been in DC since 1977. In the 90s, I was introduced to the Hand Dance when I saw it for the first time. I went to this popular Hand Dance club, Eclipse, and saw this dance form I wasn’t familiar with. I was an oldies and boogie fanatic. Not a fan- a FANATIC (laughs)! I saw this dance and noticed it wasn’t just a dance. I was watching the people and it was amazing to see the dancers smiling to each other. The men were asking the women to dance with them, and then they were taking these women back to their seats (when the dance was over)! These clubs are the safest to be at because it’s a community. So I decided to produce a documentary and I featured the Hand Dance. I became ingratiated in the culture. The more you’re in it, the more you see it as a family. This was back in 1996 when I started as a historian for the NHDA and then became vice president. I’ve been with the NHDA ever since and now I am the president (laughs).

All of the 2010 DCCHP grantees will be recognized at a special showcase held at the Tifereth Israel Congregation in Northwest on December 8th. The Council produced three videos, each combining a collection of grantee interviews or documentary clips that will describe the grantee projects and explain how they were developed. These videos will be shown at the Grantee Showcase, and each organization will have the opportunity to set up a display, to further explain their projects to the attendees. The DCCHP Grantee Showcase is a free, public event. Click here to register.

DCCHP project sponsors and partners include: the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service Office of Historic Preservation, the D.C. Office of Planning and Historic Preservation, the DC Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, DC Historic Preservation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.