Boundary Stones | WETA's Washington DC Local History Website

Officer Frank Collins confronts Laurence Henry on Glen Echo's Dentzel Carousel on June 30, 1960. (Photo source: National Park Service)

Remembering the Summer of 1960 at Glen Echo

You might not immediately associate roller coasters with racial equality, but more than three years before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington, Maryland’s Glen Echo Park was a focal point of the Civil Rights Movement. It made sense: since its opening in 1899, Glen Echo had been the premier amusement park for white Washingtonians. The park featured a number of modern roller coasters, a miniature railway, a Ferris wheel, an amphitheater, a pool: everything and more that other parks provided.

Welcome Home: Lilli Vincenz Launches the Gay Women’s Open House in Arlington

As a closeted lesbian in the 1960s, emotions of isolation, grief, and depression nearly drove Lilli Vincenz to suicide in her early twenties. But after being outed by a roommate and joining a gay...
During the “Lavender Scare,” D.C. Became a Center of Gay Rights Activism

The “Lavender Scare” forced thousands of gay and lesbian federal employees from their jobs in the late 1940s through the 1960s. But in Washington, the Mattachine Society fought back.
Abraham Lincoln’s Basement Offers a Glimpse Into the Past

Beneath the Lincoln Memorial's gleaming marble columns lies a vast hidden basement — complete with century-old worker graffiti, naturally formed stalactites, and a tiny ecosystem that thrived...

LGBTQ+ Pride Month

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"Giving People the Courage to Be Themselves": Gay Pride Day in D.C.

Gay rights activist Larry “Deacon” Maccubbin was at a party with friends in 1975 when the topic of New York Pride eventually came up. As they were discussing who would be going, one of his friends asked why their own city, Washington, D.C., didn’t have a similar event ─ it was the nation’s capital, after all. The idea stuck in Maccubin’s head.
December 17, 2021
- Washington, D.C.
By Holly McDonald
“Those Ladies Were Outraged”: A Lesbian Collective on Capitol Hill Shakes Up Feminism

In 1971, twelve women moved into a house on Capitol Hill, becoming the first serious lesbian collective in America. Contentious from the start and lasting only a year and a half, these Furies (as they called themselves) nonetheless incited a reckoning within the feminist movement, with thought and theory that is still being discussed today.
June 24, 2024
- Washington, D.C.
By Isabel Sans
In 1988, ACT UP Demonstrators Occupied the FDA Headquarters to Demand Action on AIDS

Though the AIDS epidemic had been raging for nearly a decade, by 1988, the FDA had only cleared a single drug to treat it. Frustrated with what they considered a deadly lack of initiative, AIDS patients, community activists, friends, and family marched to the FDA's headquarters in Rockville to demand more treatments, more urgency, and more understanding.
July 29, 2025
- Maryland
By Isabel Sans

Watch & Learn

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Fired for Being Gay, Frank Kameny Ran for Congress

Frank Kameny made history by being the first openly gay man to run for Congress in 1971.
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How Mary Church Terrell Beat Jim Crow in D.C. Restaurants

How Mary Church Terrell challenged racial segregation in D.C. restaurants -- and won.
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Smokey Bear Was a Real Bear Who Had His Own Zipcode in Washington, DC

Both the Smokey Bear character and the real life Smokey hail from Washington, D.C.

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Howard Students Protest at Glen Echo Park

A group of college students, primarily from Howard University, stage a sit-in on the carousel at Glen Echo Park in protest of the park's whites-only policy.

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