1960s

On Oct. 5, 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson and visiting Philippines President Diosdado Macapagal rode a 25-minute noontime parade through downtown Washington. It was an unremarkable presidential event except for one unsettling detail: the car in which they rode was the same customized black 1961 Lincoln in which President John F. Kennedy had been killed less than a year earlier.

The American Masters documentary "Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train A Comin," includes never-before-aired film footage of a live Hendrix performance at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival, as well as a poignant clip of his final performance in Germany in September 1970, just 12 days before his death at age 27. Unlike the Miami show, rock music archivists have yet to discover any film record of the legendary guitarist's three performances in the Washington, D.C. area in 1967 and 1968, but those shows have become the stuff of local legend.

Though he was the grandson of a Klansman, Bob Zellner realized at a young age that he didn't agree with segregation. As a young man, he joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and became the first white southerner to be a SNCC Field Secretary. In a time of high tensions, particularly in the Deep South, Zellner and his wife Dorothy held their ground as supporters of black freedom and desegregation. They traveled from Danville, Virginia for the March on Washington. Years later, Zellner remembered the experience.

On the days leading up to the March on Washington, buses from every direction poured into the District of Columbia. Culie Vick Kilimanjaro and her husband John Marshall Kilimanjaro came from Greensboro, North Carolina. No one knew exactly what to expect prior to the March. Many feared violence. Many feared that no one would show up and the March would be a bust. 

On August 18, 1967, the Doors played a D.C. area double-header: a 7:30pm show at the National Guard Armory in Annapolis, Maryland, and a late night show at the Alexandria Roller Rink Arena in Alexandria, Virginia. It was a homecoming of sorts for front man Jim Morrison but the night would end poorly. 

For decades Georgetown University students have plotted daring night raids on Healy Hall, removing the clock’s hands as a prank that spawned nicknamed crews, secret hideouts, and tall tales. Administration fines and alarms haven’t stopped the tradition. Every few years, it seems, the clock goes quiet and a new heist becomes campus legend.

Rumor has it that Led Zeppelin's first live show in the DC area was at the Wheaton Youth Center — a nondescript gymnasium in a Maryland suburb on January 20, 1969, in front of 50 confused teens. But there are no photos, articles or a paper trail of any sort to prove it. Surely this must be an urban legend. Or is it? Local filmmaker Jeff Krulik has spent 5 years trying to find out. 

In recent years the small brick building at 2507 N. Franklin Rd. in Arlington has been the home of coffee shops and eateries. That is quite a departure from the building’s previous life. From 1968-1984, this duplex was the national headquarters of the American Nazi Party. A swastika hung over the doorway (visible from busy Wilson Blvd half a block away) and khaki-clad “storm troopers” occupied the space, periodically clashing with neighbors.

So where do you think Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath made his professional football debut? Shea Stadium in New York? Wrong. Fenway Park in Boston? Wrong again. D.C. Stadium in Washington? Nice try, but no. The correct answer is George Washington High School in Alexandria, Virginia.

Washington doesn't usually get mentioned in the pantheon of great American music cities but we've had our moments. One of them was Sunday, November 28, 1965, when Bob Dylan played the Washington Coliseum. But the real story that day wasn't the music. It was an iconic photograph.