A Few Thoughts on Last Week's DC Community Heritage Project Symposium

Insightful commentary on last week's event from Humanities Council Grants and Special Projects Intern, Sneha Sharma

Washington D.C. residents don’t always have all that much in common with one another. They come from different cultures, backgrounds, and hold a diverse array of professions. Some residents have lived here their whole lives and others just moved in. Often, one of the only things these residents hold in common with one another is the history that surrounds them. Washington D.C. has a rich and extensive history that visually reveals itself through the mix of old and new architecture and the plethora of museums. In order to find a collective sense of community, residents ideally should understand this shared history. 

Not only did the panelists at last week's DC Community Heritage Project Symposium address these abstract ideas, they also discussed the importance of architecture and urban planning in relation to community. Throughout history, racism and rising property prices displaced residents and disrupted any shared sense of community that previously existed. In the present society, residents’ common knowledge of these past events can strengthen their understanding of the community and of each other. Since all the panelists possess strong community ties, they ably discussed how their interactions and work within the community improved when residents identified with their community’s history. Through their statements during the discussion, these panelists all reinforced the idea that a community’s history is always relevant to the present residents whether these residents have been here for five or fifty years. 

After the discussion, I realized that these speakers would never have come together if not for the city’s history that they are all so invested in. This demonstrates the strong sense of community that history can help create. The panel itself was well attended and was followed by a Q and A session where some attendees voiced their personal experiences and opinions in relation to the discussion topic.

(Sharma is a student at The University of California Riverside and is currently studying at the University of California DC Center)

Announcing this Year's DC Community Heritage Project Grant Award Winners

$36,000 Awarded for 18 Projects Spanning Every Ward in the City

Congratulations to these 18 outstanding organizations! Each one is working to document, preserve, and share the history of Washington, DC's neighborhoods, landmarks, and culture. 

Logan Circle Community Association, “Logan Circle Heritage Trail Education Curriculum”

The Logan Circle Community Association (LCCA) will, with Garrison Elementary School, Cultural Tourism DC (CTDC), and instructional specialist Chris Magnuson, develop a curriculum outline for 4th and 5th graders that will accompany the forthcoming Logan Circle Heritage Trail. The Heritage Trail, which will be dedicated on July 13, 2013, highlights the civic and cultural history of the Logan Circle neighborhood via beautifully crafted signs that will be mounted on public property along 15 stops throughout the Logan Circle neighborhood.

Chowan Discovery Group, "The Gold Coast"

Chowan Discovery Group will produce a 15-25 minute documentary about Washington, DC's upper 16th Street, NW neighborhoods of Crestwood, Shepherd Park, Colonial Village and North Portal Estates during the period of the 1950's to the 1990's, when most of the population was made up of African-American leaders in the areas of law, education, healthcare, government administration, military and business. The film will include interviews with residents of multiple generations. 

Crestwood Citizens Association, "Crestwood History Project"

The Crestwood History Project will publish a book tracing the little-known history of a neighborhood united within consistent boundaries since its first survey in 1720. This published history, full of photos, drawings and maps, will not only provide Crestwood residents with an enhanced sense of community, it will help give the neighborhood its place in DC history alongside nearby areas that have been better documented.

Paul Laurence Dunbar High School

Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Convocation and Alumni Federation, "Dunbar High School Student Project on Dunbar Alumni Legends and Pioneers"

This exciting new project will engage students at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in a range of educational, research and training experiences providing skill sets that will be beneficial in college and in any work environment. Students will research and identify Dunbar alumni and faculty that have made historically significant and vital contributions to the District and nation. 

Anacostia Community Outreach Center, "The Langston Terrace Dwelling Oral/Video History Project"

The Langston Terrace Dwelling Oral/Video History Project will give the Langston Dwelling Summer campers an opportunity to learn, witness and embrace the importance of the history of their community. The young people will research the history of Langston and interview, photograph and video artifacts of several residents and other stakeholders of the community to be included in the final presentation. The final presentation will include a program open to the community that will feature a showing of the finished product at the Anacostia Community Outreach Center office.

Female Union Band Society, "Mt. Zion/Female Union Band Historic Memorial Park Foundation Website Development Project"

The Foundation seeks funding to hire a web designer to design and launch a website for the Foundation. The website will be a valuable tool for the Female Union Band Society as they work to increase visibility of the Mt. Zion and Female Union Band cemeteries and will also serve as  an effective means of distributing historical information to researchers, tourists, and the community. 

Neighborhood Farm Initiative, "DC Garden Oral History Project"

This oral history project will record interviews with older Washingtonians who have spent significant portions of their lives growing their own food and have participated in Washington's local food economy and culture. By conducting interviews with a diverse group of individuals across the District, they will document not only each gardener's individual story but also the culture, traditions, and practices of food-growers in this city. Interview questions will be geared towards capturing the ways that food has connected people in their neighborhoods and communities at different points in history. 

Deanwood Heights Main Streets, "Master Builders of Deanwood"

Deanwood Heights Main Streets (DHMS) will host a Saturday seminar and screening of Michelle Jones' latest film about African-American architects and their work in DC. The seminar will focus primarily on examining the stories of the architects who lived and worked in Deanwood. 

African American Holiday Association, "African American Pioneer Muslimahs in Washington, DC (Part Two)"

This project is Part Two of the first documentary completed in 2011 through a grant from the Humanities Council of Washington, DC.The producer will conduct another set of interviews with four or five elderly African American Muslim women (Muslimahs) who were not included in the first film. The project's goal is to tell the history of these "sisters" in their 80's and 90's, including the challenges they faced as they converted to a religion and way of life that seemed "foreign" to many. Some of these Muslimahs helped to build DC's only "temple," now the masjid, from the ground up.

Universal Negro Improvement Association Historical Society, Inc., "The Impact of Marcus Garvey and the UNIA in Washington DC"

This three day project will feature an exhibit, discussion, and tours on impact of Marcus Garvey in Washington, DC. All of the programs will be held at the Americas Islamic Heritage Museum in Historic Anacostia.

Black Student Fund, "Remembering the Dream Makers of Black Student Fund"

Black Student Fund (BSF) scholars will archive, research, and document the history of BSF. The research will focus on the organization's leadership and its impact on the DC independent school community. As part of the project, BSF will produce a video on archival and historical research techniques to guide the young scholars in their work. The project will be conducted in preparation for the organization's 50th anniversary in 2014.

Henson Arts in Learning, "Citizens We"

The Citizens We Project is a photographic portrait of the people in the neighborhoods of Adams Morgan, Mt. Pleasant, and Columbia Heights in Washington, DC conducted in partnership with the Shrine of the Sacred Hear Dinner Program. The project will consist of an exhibition of thirty 17 x 25 inch black & white prints of clients from the Shrine of the Sacred Heart Dinner Program, and an online publication about the Dinner Program and the challenges of immigration in contemporary American society. The publication will be available online for free and sold as a soft cover book.

ANC7B, "We are Fairfax Village"

“We are Fairfax Village” is a project working to document the extensive history of the Fairfax Village neighborhood. The mission is to: 1) pursue and value the oral histories of past and current residents of Fairfax Village, 2) perform historical research of various resources related to Fairfax Village, 3) work collaboratively to author, illustrate, and share documents in accessible and user-friendly ways. 

WSC Avant Bard, "Kendall Green and the National College for the Deaf"

WSC Avant Bard will develop a play that explores the history of deaf culture and the history of Kendall Green. The play will be researched by professional scholars and written to convey the history of this often ignored piece of DC's historical narratives to a diverse audience.

All African People's Development and Empowerment Project, "Marcus Garvey Enrichment School Documentary Project"

The Marcus Garvey Enrichment Documentary Project will work with African American youth living in the Barry Farms community of Washington D.C. Youth from the ages of 13-18 will produce a documentary about the historical Barry Farms community, its current social history, and the thriving culture that highlights the positive culture of Barry Farms, but also the historiography of Southeast, Washington D.C. The initial phase of this project seeks funding for research and development of a proposed documentary that audio-visually depict the rich, but under-represented African American youth’s perspective on the current issues of Barry Farms and the broader African American Washington, D.C. community. 

Military Road School Preservation Trust, "Oral History of the Military Road School Alumni before 1954"

As part of the Sesquicentennial observance of the Military Road School, a video of oral histories provided by alumni who lived in the Brightwood community as well as nearby Maryland and attended the School from the 1930's to 1954 will be developed for the purpose of corroborating the educational legacy for which it was well known until closing as a D.C. public school in 1954.

The oral history collection will be accessible to the general public online as a resource that will enable students, teachers, and a wide range of ordinary citizens to witness the academic, social and cultural aspects of what school life was like for preceding generations of African-Americans.

Community Resources Incorporated, "A Loud Silence: A Visual Code on the Underground Railroad"

The Song Yet Sung, by James McBride is the most lyrical, profound, and mystical rendition of the enslavement experience because it centers around, and depicts the use and power of “The Code”, a complex system of signs, symbols, and markers as well as the individuals who connected them to one another and who created a path for enslaved people seeking freedom.This project will research the Underground Railroad in DC, obtain maps of the topography and terrain at the time, create mixed media work depicting the markers, codes, symbols and signs uncovered, and tell the story of their composition, creation, use and meaning.

Rehoboth Baptist Church Historical Committee, "Documenting History of Rehoboth Baptist Church (150 Years)"

Rehoboth Baptist Church will gather, organize, catalog, and archive materials to prepare a comprehensive book on the history and life of Rehoboth Baptist Church (1864-2014). The Rehoboth Baptist Church was founded by former slaves and is one of the oldest Black Baptist Churches in the city.

Join us in December when each of these projects will be presented at the DC Community Heritage Project Showcase!

Conversations on Great Streets: It's All About the H!

Honoring Jane Lang and Ann Belkov of the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Anwar Saleem of H Street Mainstreets, Betty Hart of With These Hands Salon, and Leon Robbins of Stan's Discount Clothing

Purchase Tickets Today at http://conversationsongreatstreet.eventbrite.com

This Thursday, the Humanities Council is celebrating the past and present of H Street NE! Each year the Council selects one of the city’s most vibrant and storied commercial corridors and honors longtime and newly arrived business leaders working to make their neighborhoods great! In 2011 we honored U Street, NW, and last year’s “great street” was Georgia Ave, NW. This year’s honorees are: Jane Lang and Ann Belkov of the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Anwar Saleem of H Street Mainstreet, Betty Hart of With These Hands Salon, and Leon Robbins of Stan’s Discount Clothing! 

http://www.speakeasydc.com/

The honorees will be introduced by special guest Tommy Wells, DC City Councilmember for Ward 6, and each will tell their story in the ever-entertaining style of SpeakeasyDC! For the past few weeks, volunteer storytellers from SpeakeasyDC have coached the honorees, and we can’t wait to hear them reminisce about H Street!

Belkov will accept the award on behalf of the Atlas Performing Arts Center. She is on Atlas’ Executive Committee, and its Board of Directors. She has a long history with the organization, as she was one of the National Parks Service rangers on hand to dedicate the Atlas as a historic property on the National Register of Historic Places.

As the Executive Director of H Street Main Street, Saleem has helped attract over 100 new businesses and 1500 new jobs to the historic commercial corridor. He is as dedicated to the community as he is to the revitalization of businesses in the neighborhood.

Hart’s beauty salon, With These Hands, has been a fixture on H Street for nearly 30 years. She has trained

H Street Festival; Image Courtesy afar.com

countless hairstylists, won numerous awards for customer satisfaction, and always gives back to the community that has supported her and her business since 1984!

Robbins’ clothing store, Stan's Discount Clothing, has been a popular H Street establishment for 23 years, but it has roots in DC that go even deeper. His father Stan founded the business in 1947 at 9th and M Streets NW, later moving it to Chinatown, before Leon finally established it in its current location at 832 H Street, NE.

The evening will feature an open bar as well as food from sponsors Sticky Rice DC and Inspire BBQ. Tickets are only $50 each and the proceeds will benefit the Humanities Council of Washington, DC and its mission to transform lives through the power of the humanities! 

Visit http://conversationsongreatstreet.eventbrite.com to purchase tickets today. 

Conversations on Great Streets: It's All About the H is sponsored by:

New Grant Cycle to Support Commemoration and Remembrance

Proposals are Due March 11

Commemoration and Remembrance Grant Opportunity

Beginning this year, in partnership with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Council will offer 5 grants of $2000 each to organizations and qualifying individuals developing projects that commemorate and remember local and national histories. Commemoration, though almost always celebratory, works in the intellectual sphere much the same way historic preservation does in the physical. If memories can only be preserved by remembering so collective memory can only be preserved by commemoration. 

Though history will always remember DC as the testing ground for emancipation, it is the ritual commemoration of Emancipation Day that makes it an integral part of the city's culture and character. A statue in a local park may provide its subject with an aesthetic sense of immortality, but  it soon becomes merely decoration unless the meaning behind the bronze is consciously remembered through ceremonies, parades, and other traditions. 

The people, events, and sites a public chooses to remember and commemorate can say more about the current community than the remembered past. What histories do we choose to commemorate? Why do we commemorate them the way we do? What messages do we hold on to so that we may apply them dutifully to our daily lives? 

Help us answer these questions while preserving the collective pasts important to the people of Washington. Visit grantapplication.wdchumanities.org and start your grant proposal today. A preliminary application is not required for the Commemoration and Remembrance grant, the final proposal is due on March 11 at midnight.

Small Grants (Also due March 11)

The Council awards small grants in amounts up $1500. These grants are often used to support planning, research, or the early stages of larger endeavors. Like the Major grant, this opportunity is for projects that bring the humanities to the people of Washington, DC. The online application can be found at grantapplicaton.wdchumanities.org.

Reflecting on the Life of Lawrence Guyot

Civil Rights Legend Was a Recent HCWDC Program Panelist

By: Priya Dadlani

Lawrence Guyot, who endured violent beatings as a young civil rights worker during the early 1960’s fighting for black suffrage, died November 23 at his home in Mount Rainier, MD. Guyot 73, had long battled illness.

Lawrence Guyot, Image Credit: wamu.org

Born in Pass Christian, Mississippi on July 17, 1939, Lawrence Thomas Guyot Jr. grew up with his father who was a contractor. Guyot attended Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Mississippi. This historically black college had a few white faculty members but welcomed white students to attend. He graduated with a degree in chemistry and biology in 1963. While still in college he became concerned with human rights and equality so he joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and traveled around Mississippi drumming up support for the civil rights cause through meetings and conventions.

During his fight for black suffrage Guyot was defied, incarcerated and beaten as he led fellow members of SNCC and other  student volunteers from around the country in helping African Americans in Mississippi vote. He then gained publicity and pushed more blacks to fight for their suffrage when he began serving as chairman of the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. This party was formed to replace the all-white state Democratic Party. Although it didn’t succeed in its primary goal, the party’s efforts paved the way for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The physical violence Guyot endured did not deter him or defeat him, and today he is known for his unwavering dedication to his cause. While incarcerated at the Mississippi penitentiary Parchman Farm, he was brutally beaten and went on a 17-day hunger strike during which he lost 100 pounds.  “It was a question of defiance,” Guyot said during an interview with NPR in 2011. “We were not going to let them have complete control over us.”

                Later in life, Guyot was pro same-sex marriage when it was illegal everywhere in the United States. Many times he reflected on the fact that he married a white woman when interracial marriage was illegal in some states, and he gave tremendously inspiring speeches on the meaning and the goal of the civil rights movement. In 2011, Guyot again lent his wisdom and experience to the public as a panelist for a 2011 Humanitini program on gentrification.

Although Lawrence Guyot has passed on, his perseverance and dedication to civil rights and human equality will never be forgotten. He has been, and will always be a true inspiration to people all over the world, fighting for a cause.  “There is nothing like having risked your life with people over something immensely important to you,” he said in 2004. “As Churchill said, there’s nothing more exhilarating than to have been shot at — and missed.” 

DC Public Library Reads Reading Lolita in Tehran

Blogger Priya Dadlani Wraps DCPL's 2012 City-Wide Read

By Priya Dadlani

This year, the DC Public Library city-wide reading program, DC READS, showcased the novel Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. Published in 2003, this novel was on the New York Times bestseller list for 100 weeks and was later translated into thirty-two languages. It is a memoir of the author who travelled back to Iran, her birth place, during the height of the 1979 Revolution where she routinely faced cultural conflicts. Nafisi reflects on how she taught at the University of Tehran, but was later expelled due to her refusal to wear the veil at work. She also lived in Iran through the Iran-Iraq war and later returned to teaching at the University of Allameh Tabatabei. Her personal story is beautifully woven together with the stories of her book club members, seven of her female students, who met weekly at her house to discuss forbidden works of Western literature including the controversial Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

The DC Public Library DC Reads program kicked off on October 15th and offered an array of exciting public programs through November 15th.  Programs included book club discussions on Reading Lolita in Tehran at the Chevy Chase Library, and Carver 2000 Senior Mansion, located at 4800 East Capitol Street NE. On November 13th, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in the Great Hall, Elisabeth Mehl Greene's chamber opera brought a musical perspective to Azar Nafisi's novel with performances by Natalie Barrens, Carolyn Black-Sotir and Michael Langlois.

On November 15th the Takoma Park Library held an Adult Book Group for a discussion on Reading Lolita in Tehran, followed by another discussion on the novel Lolita by Nabokov. There were no shortage of opportunities to discuss Nafisi’s work, but Takoma Park offered participants the chance to have a conversation about the novel that inspired it.

 Nafisi’s novel is famous for its captivating portrait of the Iran-Iraq war viewed from the perspective of a woman scholar in Tehran; a rare glimpse of extraordinary courage in an extraordinary situation. 

The Humanities Council will sponsor DC’s next city-wide read, Live to Read, this Spring! This year’s selection will be Christopher Paul Curtis’ The Watsons Go to Birmingham! 

Kent Boese Believes Historic Preservation Can Promote Respect and Progress Within a Community

Recent DC Community Heritage Project Grant Recipient Discusses Community History and his Forthcoming Park View Walking Tour

By Priya Dadlani

Kent Boese is a DC Community Heritage Project grantee, who created the Park View Walking Tour project and gave the Park View neighborhood a prominent voice in the DC community. Boese moved to the neighborhood in 2007, not knowing much about the community, but after getting to know his neighbors and conducting some research, he found out that this small neighborhood is very unique and holds interesting stories unknown to most of the District. Boese grew up in Harvard, Illinois,a small town of about 5,000 residents. Boese says, “I've discovered in many ways each neighborhood within D.C. operates like a small town. I guess that's why I fell in love with my neighborhood and why I am an effective advocate for it.” Like small towns, communities in the District function better when people work together. Helping neighbors, calling officials and assisting the community are common actions for Boese and others living in communities like Park View.

Boese quickly realized that other local blogs often distorted Park View or fostered their own bias about it. To properly represent the neighborhood, Boese created a blog where he shares information about Park View to anyone who wants to learn more about the community. “I wanted the community to have an equally strong voice as surrounding neighborhoods. I also wanted to create a place where local news and articles on history, development, crime, etc. could be shared and foster discussion within the neighborhood,” says Boese.

Boese’s blog, Park View, D.C., includes reports on the “collective memories and experiences of DC citizens”. Boese believes these details are important because Park View, with the rest of DC, is going through many changes. But the Park View Boese fell in love with is the one that he moved to, not “some mythical future neighborhood”. So for him, it is important to preserve the deeply rooted history of the community and its citizens and make these stories available to newer residents so they will be able to more thoroughly understand what Park View is and make stronger connections to the history of the community. Boese says that, “one of the greatest assets of the neighborhood is the long-established residents. It is in the community’s best interest for the contributions of all previous generations to be known if we are to value and respect each other and continue to move forward as one community.”

The love Boese has for DC comes from a very rich history and to him the District is interesting because it has both “deep roots” and a “transient population”. It also has both a national and a local presence. After many years of relative stability, the city is undergoing a lot of growth and demographic changes. “How we as Washingtonians respond to these changes - preserve, document, and make our history accessible - successfully fight and minimize displacement - and move together as a city will determine our worth to the country and the world,” says Boese. DC has great potential for a better future , but it can only be realized if newer residents and older residents are able to work together and learn more about one another’s history . Boese believes that preserving the history of the city and passing it on to new generations will help District citizens in achieving this goal.

Kent Boese has done something great for DC by giving Park View a voice just as loud as those of its’ neighboring communities. The walking tour project Boese is working on is nearing completion, and a draft was recently sent to the printer. The next step is to distribute all the brochures throughout the District and get the word out about where copies can be found. The Humanities Council is excited about Boese’s walking tour, and we hope the Park View community will be too.