Black History

When anti-discrimination legislation was delayed for four years, activists occupied Federal buildings in protest, placing Washington at the heart of the rising disability rights movement.

In 1910 Maryland Democrats planned to bar all African Americans from voting, forever. But Black men and women were ready to fight for their place in the state.

In 1936, D.C. officials hired Carrie Weaver Smith to reform the National Training School for Girls. 18 months later, they fired her. But Smith was not going away without a fight.

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.

For seventy years, St. Augustine Catholic Church, at 15th and L St., NW, was the place where Washington's Black Catholics were baptized, married, and laid to rest. Known as "The Mother Church" of Black Catholics, the property was sold to The Washington Post in 1946. The transaction caught many parishioners by surprise and caused a rift with the white leadership of the Archdiocese.

In 1993, then President-elect Bill Clinton’s choice of location for his inaugural morning prayer service was certainly a departure from precedent. For the first time in history, this time honored tradition took place at a historically Black church: Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal on M Street in downtown Washington. Church officials and clergy were pleased -- as Metropolitan administrator Roslyn Stewart Christian said: “He picked a neighborhood church … 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is right around the corner. He intends to be our president, our leader and our neighbor.”