Black History

A view of Southwest from above. This is from pre-urban renewal circa 1939. Crowded streets full of buildings are in the foreground and the Capitol building is visible in the background.

The Cost of Urban Renewal in Southwest DC

7/21/2022 in DC by Meaghan Kacmarcik

After World War II, Southwest Washington, DC, underwent a bout of complete urban renewal to clean up the blighted neighborhood. But was it worth it? New buildings went up, but a community was torn apart, economic segregation ensued and the project failed to deliver on many of the promises that were made.


 

A photographic portrait of Lucy Diggs Slowe

Howard University's First Dean of Women Had to Fight to Keep Her Brookland Home

4/18/2022 in DC by Fontana Micucci

Returning to campus for the new school year in 1937, Howard University’s students received grim news: one of their deans, Lucy Diggs Slowe, was “reputed critically ill with pleurisy. Her condition was such on Tuesday that relatives were called to her bedside.” After 15 years at the university, Slowe was a staple to the campus and its students – many of the women enrolled at the college saw her has a mentor and advocate for their education at Howard. 

What the headline didn’t mention was what some believed was the cause of her declining health. There were rumblings that it was the efforts of key Howard University staff that had caused her illness, and they wouldn’t stop until Slowe left the school for good. 

Who was Lucy Diggs Slowe, and what led to such harsh conflict between her and the university?

Reston's Roots: Black Activism in Virginia's New Town

3/31/2022 in Virginia by Charlotte Muth
Welcome to Reston: An Open Community Brochure (Courtesy of Reston Historic Trust & Museum)

Around the same time that Walt Disney envisioned a futuristic alternative to urban living—EPCOT (The Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow)—a man named Robert E. Simon Jr. dreamed of a better way to live in the suburbs. It was an era of hope when many were asking: “Through careful planning, innovate design, and high ideals, can we manufacture a better way to live?”

The First Sting

7/8/2021 in DC by Ben Miller
Lt. Robert Arscott and the Operation Sting team sit amid stolen goods

In 1976 D.C. police dressed as cartoon Mafiosos and bought millions in stolen goods from local thieves. They called it "Operation Sting," and soon police across the country were launching "sting operations" of their own. But not everyone was so enamored with the tactic, especially the communities it was being used to target.

Dr. Loguen-Fraser in Puerto Plata. (Source: Wikipedia).

Dr. Loguen-Fraser's Solemn Vow

3/29/2021 in DC by Charlotte Muth

To close off Women's History Month, learn about Sarah Marinda Loguen Fraser, the first woman to receive an M.D. from the Syracuse University College of Medicine, and the fourth Black woman to become a licensed physician in the United States. While her extraordinary life took her all around the world, including New York, the Dominican Republic and France, some of the most important landmarks of her life happened in Washington, D.C.

Charles Hamilton Houston

Charles Hamilton Houston and His Civil Rights Brain Trust

3/24/2021 in DC by Michael Kohler

Charles Hamilton Houston is referred to as the "architect" of the civil rights movement. Before helping the Consolidated Parent Group kickoff their legal case, Houston built up the Howard University Law School into a world-class legal institution and mentored some of the most important figures of the civil rights movement, including Thurgood Marshall.

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