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Howard University

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"Say your say, do your thing, stand up and be counted": The First National Black Deaf Advocates Conference

"Say your say, do your thing, stand up and be counted": The First National Black Deaf Advocates Conference

11/04/2022 in DC by Emma O'Neill-Dietel

In June 1981, Black Deaf leaders gathered in Washington to sew the seeds of an organization that would have a profound impact on the Black Deaf community. After centuries of exclusion in both Black and Deaf spaces, organizers came together to make a space of their own. With goals to educate, empower, and strengthen the community, this conference led a call for Black inclusion and leadership in Deaf organizations locally and nationally.

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

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

04/18/2022 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?

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DC
"We Want 504!"

"We Want 504!"

10/12/2021 in DC by Dominique Mickiewicz

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.

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James Nabrit Jr and His Uncompromising Assault on Segregation

James Nabrit Jr and His Uncompromising Assault on Segregation

03/25/2021 in DC by Michael Kohler

James Nabrit Jr came to the District as an up-and-coming Howard law professor. He developed the first course at an American law school on civil rights law and instilled in his students an unrelenting belief in the immorality and impracticality of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision. As the lead counsel for the District's Bolling v. Sharpe case, Nabrit championed the position of attacking segregation outright, instead of relying on equalization. He pushed Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP to sharpen their attacks on school segregation and strongly influenced the outcome of all of the Brown v. Board school cases.

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Charles Hamilton Houston and His Civil Rights Brain Trust

Charles Hamilton Houston and His Civil Rights Brain Trust

03/24/2021 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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For The Blackbyrds, Making Music was a Walk in the Park

For The Blackbyrds, Making Music was a Walk in the Park

02/25/2021 in DC by Lori Wysong

If you’re from the D.C. area, you know Rock Creek Park for its hiking trails and scenic views. But if you’re from any other part of the country, you might recognize it best from the 1975 song, “Rock Creek Park.” The song’s minimalist verse describes happenings at the local park after sundown...

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Before K-Pop there was… the Arirang? The First Korean students at Howard University

Before K-Pop there was… the Arirang? The First Korean students at Howard University

02/12/2020 in DC by Karis Lee

Today, the K-Pop phenomenon has taken the world by storm; but it seems that American fascination with Korean music goes all the way back to the late 1800s, 1896 to be exact. Long before bands like BTS sold out stadiums, there were seven Korean (then called Chosun) students whose singing captured the attention of “dozens of damsels” at Howard University.

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The Howard University Fight Over Vaccination

The Howard University Fight Over Vaccination

11/17/2016 in DC by Max Lee

Prior to 1909, Harry Bradford had almost never landed himself in the paper. He appeared in The Washington Post once, when it announced that the Kensington Orchestra was going to be performing in the near future. (Bradford played violin.) But other than that, nothing. And yet, in 1910, Bradford’s name was in all caps on the front page of the Post. “Bradford told to quit,” the headline read.

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Sit-ins Come to Arlington

Sit-ins Come to Arlington

06/22/2014 in DC by Mark Jones

Shortly after 1 p.m. on June 9, 1960 a biracial contingent of college students entered the People’s Drug Store at Lee Highway and Old Dominion Dr. in Arlington and requested service at the store’s lunch counter. Less than a mile away, a similar group sat down at the counter at the Cherrydale Drug Fair.

Both lunch counters promptly closed.

Still, the students did not move. In fact, they remained seated for hours, calmly reading books and Bibles until well after dark, in protest of the stores’ refusal to serve African American patrons at their lunch counters.

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Muhammad Ali's Speech at Howard University, 1967

Muhammad Ali's Speech at Howard University, 1967

04/14/2014 in DC by Patrick Kiger

The PBS documentary The Trials of Muhammad Ali, covers the boxing champ's struggles outside the ring during the tumultuous mid-1960s, and his emergence as a symbol of protest and dissent for young people of that time. Ali's duality as a firebrand activist and a revolutionary icon is examplified, in some ways, by his controversial appearance at Howard University in April 22, 1967, where he gave a speech to African-American students just days before he refused induction in the armed forces, which led to his indictment and conviction for draft evasion. 

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