BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Twelve Years that Shook and Shaped Washington: 1963-1975

DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Twelve Years that Shook and Shaped Washington: 1963-1975:

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Description of Pictures: Twelve Years that Shook and Shaped Washington: 1963-1975
December 14, 2015 – October 23, 2016
During this period, Washingtonians experienced their first meaningful presidential vote, elected a city council and mayor for the first time in a century, and became the largest majority African American city in the country. Freeways and suburbanization transformed the face of the city. New public housing accompanied the nation’s most ambitious urban renewal effort, and thousands of residents were displaced in the effort to build a modernist vision of the city. New trends in music, theatre, art, and dance transformed popular culture. Change was in the air, some of it unsettling and threatening. Against a national background of Lyndon Johnson’s “great society,” anti-war protests, black power and feminism, this exhibition focuses on events, people and challenges that transformed the city between 1963 and 1975.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. 12YRS_151222_022.JPG: An Era of Significant Change: Today Washington DC is a multiethnic, multiracial city with reviving neighborhoods, a vibrant arts community, a large metropolitan bus and rail system, and a lively political scene. It also has a shortage of affordable housing and pockets of persistent unemployment and poverty. The foundation for much of today's District was laid during the transformational years of 1963-1975, when DC residents gained limited home rule. Rapid changes also affected nearly every aspect of life and culture -- including housing, transportation, politics, education, and the arts. Many changes were related to the seismic shift in national consciousness that characterized the 1960s. Social activism addressed longstanding social injustices. Issues of war and peace reshaped law and politics. New trends in art, theater, and music reworked the social fabric. DC had become the nation's largest city with a majority African American population -- its leaders honed in civil rights struggles and the new grassroots politics of empowerment. During those 12 years, Washingtonians cast their first meaningful votes in a presidential race, and inaugurated their first popularly elected Council and mayor. The city changed visually as urban renewal projects demolished and replaced entire communities. DC was the focal point for a wide variety of national causes and campaigns -- including poverty, war, and discrimination of all kinds. It was an extraordinary time when men and women took to the streets and redefined what was right and proper and what was legal and equal. Change was in the air.
2. 12YRS_151222_027.JPG: 1963: DC is the Nation's epicenter during times of change. MLK delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. JFK is assassinated and buried in Arlington Cemetery. That nation's largest federally funded urban experiment -- a controversial modernist vision of Southwest DC -- welcomes its first residents. Residents register to vote in preparation for the 1964 presidential election. 1964: Washingtonians gain the right to vote for President. In accordance with the 23rd Ammendment [sic], passed in 1960, for the first time the District as 2 Electoral College votes in the 1964 presidential election. A Presidential commission outlines a plan for the public higher education. The Chase Commission, tasked by President Kennedy, submits a report to President Johnson equating poverty and racism with the absence of educational opportunity for Washingtonians. Washingtonians begin to organize against plans for freeway construction that would disrupt DC neighborhoods. Capital Hill residents oppose the federal government's plans for building interconnecting freeways through their neighborhood. Washington cultural life begins to cross racial boundaries in the city's mainstream arts venues. The Capitol Ballet Company gains national recognition for its training of black dancers. 1965: Predominantly white Georgetown becomes home to the Blues Alley jazz club. WFAN AM becomes the first radio station to offer regular broadcasts in Spanish. DC artists help make Washington a national center for abstract art. The Washington Color School of painters opens a major exhibit at the new Museum of Modern Art. Opposition to the Vietnam War increases among African Americans in DC. In a speech at Howard University on March 2, 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., condemns US policy in Vietnam. 1966: Foes of freeways and urban renewal gain momentum. A nationally recognized consulting group issues a report criticizing the government's planned highway system for DC. The Shaw neighborhood is designated as an inner city area in need of urban renewal. Residents organize to oppose the federal government's plans for the area. New cultural institutions open in DC neighborhoods. Gaston Neal and Don Freeman opened the New School of Afro-American Thought to present events, performance and classes.
3. 12YRS_151222_051.JPG: The first sign inside the door includes two large-print typos. "JFK is assaasinated..." "In accordance with the 23rd Ammendment..." It's always embarrassing to see this sort of stuff on signage.
4. 12YRS_151222_060.JPG: Protestors at Peace Moratorium, November 16, 1969
5. 12YRS_151222_079.JPG: 1967: Washingtonians take another step toward self-government. President Johnson replaces the three District Commissioners with an appointed mayor and Council. President Johnson apppoints [sic] Walter Washington as DC mayor. Plans for Regional transportation system move forward. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (WMATA) is established. Grassroots organizations build a community power base. Youth Pride Inc. is founded to engage youths from low-income families in a federally funded cleanup program. It soon expands its activities to include job training. Local DC artists reach a national audience. Roberta Flack is "discovered" by the popular music world at Mr. Henry's, the Capitol Hill bar where she drew rave reviews. 1968: Washington hosts the Poor People' March and Resurrection City. Disadvantaged people and rights activists from around DC and the nation build Resurrection City, an encampment on the Mall. District churches and civil rights groups provide support for Resurrection City. Washington moves closer to home rule. Residents of DC hold their first local election in nearly a century -- for School Board. Two public colleges open in the District. Federal City College, a center of educational innovation, also holds classes in rented quarters around downtown DC. Washington Technical Institute trains students in trades and semiprofessional skills at locations around the city. Public transportation gains visibility. The Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA) presents its map for a 98-mile regional Metro system. Innovative new companies strengthen DC's reputation as a theater town. The integrated, community-based Back Alley Theater in founded. 1969: Regional transit moves closer to becoming a reality. WMATA formally breaks ground for Metro at Judiciary Square. Washington welcomes new voices. DC's first gay newspaper, the Gay Blade, begins publication. 1970: Women, gays, and members of new communities demand equality. The DC Council holds the first ever hearings on the status of Hispanics in the District. Feminists from George Washington University march for equal rights. Washington welcomes new voices. DC becomes a center of the AfriCOBRA Arts Movement with the arrival of Jeff Donaldson as the head of Howard University's Art Department. Working out of his studio, known as "The Workshop," artist Lou Sovall collaborates with area artists to create posters geared towards community causes.
6. 12YRS_151222_087.JPG: 1970: Women, gays, and members of new communities demand equality. The DC Council holds the first ever hearings on the status of Hispanics in the District. Feminists from George Washington University march for equal rights. Washington welcomes new voices. DC becomes a center of the AfriCOBRA Arts Movement with the arrival of Jeff Donaldson as the head of Howard University's Art Department. Working out of his studio, known as "The Workshop," artist Lou Sovall collaborates with area artists to create posters geared towards community causes. 1971: WAMA FM becomes founding member of National Public Radio (NPR). WHUR FM begins broadcasting from Howard University. DC's Hispanic community gains visibility. The George Washington University (GWU) theater department presents plays in Spanish. Mayor Walter Washington proclaims the last Sunday in July as Hispanic Heritage Day. Police and antiwar demonstrators clash at GWU. 1972: Freeway opponents gain a major victory. DC, Maryland, and Congress delete the North Central Freeway, which would have run through the center of the city, from their plans. Efforts to conquer poverty continue. Antioch College School of Law opens a new kind of law school that gives the disadvantaged access to lawyers. Arts and culture thrive in DC. The DC Black Repertory Theater is founded. Go-go originator Charles Louis "Chuck" Brown has his first hit song, "We the People." 1973: The struggle for home rule heats up. Congress passes the Home rule [sic] Act, granting DC the right to an elected Mayor and a 13-member city council. Activists stage a mock tea party in Southwest on the 200th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Legislation is signed banning gay discrimination. Mayor Washington signed DC legislation against gay discrimination in housing, public accomodation [sic], bank credit, and employment. 1974-1975: District residents vote on home rule. The new home rule charter is approved by DC citizens in a referendum. Washingtonians elect a mayor and city council. Home rule becomes a reality. The DC Council an [sic] Mayor Walter Washington are inaugurated.
7. 12YRS_151222_095.JPG: Artist, Lou Stovall, working in his studio, known as "The Workshop"
8. 12YRS_151222_098.JPG: Painting of a mural to pay tribute to Latin American immigrants who came to the DC area, 1970
9. 12YRS_151222_106.JPG: Gay Activists at the White House, April 17, 1965
10. 12YRS_151222_110.JPG: First Elected Members of the DC Council, 1975
11. 12YRS_151222_114.JPG: Refashioning a Federal City
12. 12YRS_151222_118.JPG: Metro Construction, 1970
13. 12YRS_151222_122.JPG: Chocolate City, Parliament, 1975 In this album the funk band Parliament celebrates Washington's African American population, which became the city's majority in the early 1960s.
14. 12YRS_151222_128.JPG: Ethnic Makeup of Washington, DC 1950: 64.6% White (includes white Hispanics) N/A Hispanic (any race) 35% Black 0.4% Other (including Native American and Asian) 1960: 45.2% White (includes white Hispanics) N/A Hispanic (any race) 53.9% Black 0.9% Other (including Native American and Asian) 1970: 27.7% White (includes white Hispanics) 2.1% Hispanic (any race) 71.1% Black 1.2% Other (including Native American and Asian) 1980: 26.9% White (includes white Hispanics) 2.8% Hispanic (any race) 70.3% Black 2.8% Other (including Native American and Asian)
15. 12YRS_151222_132.JPG: Background: A Federal City Because the District is not a state but the federal capital, Congress has ultimate authority over the city. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the conservative majority that controlled the House and Senate committees responsible for the District instigated a reshaping of the city. In DC, as in the rest of the nation, a boom in suburban residential construction took place during the 1950s. The exodus to the suburbs changed the District's demography. DC had always been a largely white city with a sizable black minority. During the 1950s and 1960s, African Americans became the majority. Fearing the city would lose its affluent white residents and tax base, Congress implemented a comprehensive plan for new housing, highway construction, and other "urban renewal" projects. Federal policymakers and planners argued that Washington ought to be a showplace for the best of American life. However, this vision did not acknowledge the strong social ties and supports that are destroyed when older neighborhoods and long-standing communities are demolished and relocated.
16. 12YRS_151222_134.JPG: One of the pens used by the President, August 6, 1965, in signing S. 1564, An Act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes. Pen Used by LBJ to Sign Landmark Legislation This is one of the pens used by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on August 6, 1965, in signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
17. 12YRS_151222_139.JPG: Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Members Arriving for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963
18. 12YRS_151222_144.JPG: Signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson Civil rights leaders, including Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Clarence Mitchell, and Patricia Roberts Harris, look on as President Lyndon Baines Johnson signs the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
19. 12YRS_151222_153.JPG: Robert Kennedy Addressing Protestors, June 1963 Attorney General Robert Kennedy addresses a crowd at a protest rally against racial discrimination in front of the Justice Department, June 14, 1963, several months before the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
20. 12YRS_151222_159.JPG: The Flow into Anacostia: The development of Greenleaf Gardens in Southwest was too little and too late for the displaces residents, many of whom relocated to Anacostia, just east of the river. Their arrival transformed greater Anacostia and disrupted its historic country-like pattern of small communities. It also altered the racial demography as white neighborhoods became African American and established African American neighborhoods lost cohesion. The new residents found themselves crowded into often shoddily built new private or public housing, as Anacostia's population swelled to far beyond what it could comfortably hold. Old neighborhoods lost their former closeness, and crime became a common worry. Even worse, the poor state of public transportation made Anacostia into an enclave, separated from the greater city both physically and psychologically.
21. 12YRS_151222_164.JPG: Construction in Anacostia, 1970s. Lack of city planning led to a rush of poorly constructed, ill-suited housing construction that remade Anacostia's built environment. By the late 1960s, far Southeast suffered from a concentration of high-density residential apartments, many of them garden apartments. Much of the new construction was financed through the FHA's Section 608 program, which guaranteed loans covering 90% of the project's development costs. Growth and new construction in the area were haphazard and uncontrolled.
22. 12YRS_151222_167.JPG: Barry Farm, 1975 Many of the families displaced from Southwest relocated to Barry Farm, a public housing complex in Southeast DC that sits on the former site of a community built in 1887 by recently emancipated African Americans.
23. 12YRS_151222_176.JPG: Metro: Congress favored construction of freeways through the core of the city but met opposition from residents worried about the destruction of their neighborhoods. Metrorail was an alternative, intended to be a regional counterpart to the freeways. Metro had been scheduled to open in the late 1960s. Delayed by construction obstacles, insufficient federal support, and the lack of coordinated funding from Maryland and Virginia, it did not celebrate its official opening until March 1976. There was great uncertainty about the likelihood of Metro's success, especially in the suburbs where the national love affair with the car had supported passage of highway construction bills in Congress. Debate surrounded the system's financing and the question of who would use it. Would it serve the inner city, with its heavily African American population, of the white suburbs? Could it do both? Where would the lines run, and which communities would have stations? How much disruption would the tunneling and station-building cause?
24. 12YRS_151222_178.JPG: View of Metro Construction from 7th and Pennsylvania, SE, 1974
25. 12YRS_151222_181.JPG: Metro Station under Construction, 1973
26. 12YRS_151222_191.JPG: White Man's Road through Black Man's Home: In the mid-1960s, neighborhood groups established the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis, an organization to coordinate efforts to prevent the construction of freeways threatening several neighborhoods.
27. 12YRS_151222_195.JPG: Adas Israel Synagogue Being Moved from 5th and G, NW, 1969
28. 12YRS_151222_201.JPG: Public Walk Thru of Metro Tunnel, 1973 The public was invited to walk through the Metro subway tunnel the 8/10ths of a mile from Union Station to Judiciary Square. About 1500 people showed up for the two hour opening.
29. 12YRS_151222_208.JPG: Model of a Portion of Southwest Washington, DC: This model represents a portion of the Southwest quadrant of the city as it was constructed in 1919 and as it existed in 2014. The base map is Baist's Real Estate Atlas of Surveys of Washington, District of Columbia, 1919. The three dimensional model was constructed using mapping information from cadapp.com. The model shows many changes including roads, housing, and the waterfront, as well as community assets that remain, such as schools and churches.
30. 12YRS_151222_217.JPG: "After the exodus... empty row houses. Where did these people go?" -- Garnet W. Jex, "The Buzzdozer and the Rose" [on SW] During the late 1950s through the mid-1960s, federal and private funds supported urban redevelopment of the District with a vision that did not always seem to respect the people whose lives were directly affected. Nowhere was the change greater than in Southwest, Anacostia, and Capitol Hill. A hotly debated plan to redesign 600 acres of the Southwest entailed wholesale demolition of existing housing, most of it shamefully substandard, and construction of new, racially integrated housing -- the first in the District. Federal legislation authorized the Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA), an independent agency charged with buying and clearing slums, to reclaim land by right of "eminent domain." It compensated property owners financially and established programs that enabled some displaced residents to find alternative housing.
31. 12YRS_151222_224.JPG: (1960) Model of Capitol Park Towers: Architect Chlothiel Woodard Smith shows off a model of Capitol Park Towers, one of her projects in the Southwest reconstruction. Woodard Smith was an important voice in guiding the rebuilding of Southwest and a proponent of removing the original population and replacing it with a more affluent one.
32. 12YRS_151222_229.JPG: The Urban Problem
33. 12YRS_151222_231.JPG: Public Housing: The Southwest demolition displaced as many as 23,000 residents, most of whom found their own housing. However, the patent disregard for the disruption of the pre-existing Southwest community, especially members who had the fewest resources or options to relocate, featured prominently in news articles, at citizens meetings, and before Congressional committees on the District. Even before the decision to bulldoze Southwest, there had been public debate about inadequate public housing in the District. Citizens groups urged the RLA to construct public housing on the periphery of the new Southwest. One result was Greenleaf Gardens, on 3rd Street.
34. 12YRS_151222_235.JPG: Greenleaf Gardens, 2015 Greenleaf Gardens public housing, completed in 1960, was designed to complement the modernist architecture of the renewal zone across the street.
35. 12YRS_151222_239.JPG: Demolition of Buildings on the Northwest Corner of 11th Street and Virginia Ave, SW, February 1959
36. 12YRS_151222_243.JPG: Street Scene on 4th Street, SW, Shortly Before Demolition, September 1958
37. 12YRS_151222_249.JPG: Segregation in Washington: A Report of the National Committee on Segregation in the Nation's Capital, November 1948
38. 12YRS_151222_258.JPG: Scrapbook Made by Lottie Washington
39. 12YRS_151222_260.JPG: Street Power Federal and foundation support for anti-poverty programs, education, and workforce development supported community development corporations (CDCs) that introduced a wholly new form of organizing. Most of these newly formed CDCs worked to secure resources for overcoming poverty and achieving political power. The era also brought new ideas about grass roots organizing. After an adventurous stint as a civil rights organizer in the deep South, Marion Barry came to the city in 1965 to establish the DC office of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He brought with him militant and confrontational organizing skills hones in the South. In the mid 1960s, Southeast Neighborhood House began organizing tenants and youth in Barry Farms. With a grant from the United Planning Organization, Southwest Neighborhood House hired anti-poverty workers to organize welfare mothers and public housing tenants. After organizing women in Barry Farm, they went on to organize the city-wide Welfare Rights Organization, and later oversaw national welfare rights efforts.
40. 12YRS_151222_268.JPG: Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown, 1968 Stokely Carmichael (left) and H. Rap Brown pose with firearms, symbolizing the mindset of those African Americans who wanted change to come more quickly and decisively. Brown served as the minister of justice of the Black Panther Party.
41. 12YRS_151222_275.JPG: Rufus Mayfield, and members of Youth Pride, Inc., August 7, 1967 Rufus "Catfish" Mayfield (pointing), employed some 900 African American youngsters to clean up the neighborhoods where they lived.
42. 12YRS_151222_281.JPG: Marion Barry, Walter Washington
43. 12YRS_151222_288.JPG: Marion Barry at a Pride, Inc. Event, September 9, 1970 As director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in DC and then Pride, Inc. Barry became a visible and vocal leader in the District during the late 1960s.
44. 12YRS_151222_302.JPG: Pride Inc. Mary Treadwell, Marion Barry, and Carroll Harvey established Youth Pride, Inc. in 1967 to engage youths from low-income families in a federally funded cleanup program. The success of that effort led the organization to expand its activities to include job training, with greatly increased federal funding. Pride Inc. quickly became the most visible anti-poverty program in the District. By the 1970s Pride -- no longer connected with Marion Barry -- had become a real estate investment. The organization was shut down in 1981 after financial mismanagement by Treadwell and other officers.
45. 12YRS_151222_305.JPG: Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and Stokely Carmichael, ca 1966 These men, a generation apart, embodied two different approaches to advancing the black community, both nationally and in DC. Powell was a longtime US Representative from the Harlem district of New York City who pushed and goaded Congress to expand legal rights for African Americans. Carmichael, born in Trinidad, raised in New York, and a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), became impatient with the pace of change and turned to community organizing in DC and the South as a way of seizing full rights and an equitable part of American life. He embraced a range of allies, including the Black Panthers and H. Rap Brown, who were willing to consider violence as a legitimate tool for achieving black power.
46. 12YRS_151222_314.JPG: Politics from the Ground Up Personal and Political A new political class emerged in the 1960s. In DC, residents organized to overcome poverty and discrimination, and Black Power and Pan-Africanism emerged in new university, youth, and community-based organizations. Federal legislation and funding helped drive the new politics. Laws passed to implement the War on Poverty and address President Johnson's vision of a Great Society targeted pervasive discrimination, poverty, and inadequate educational opportunities. These barriers stunted individual lives and hindered the nation's full potential. The laws opened a flood of funding for grassroots economic organizations, new educational institutions, and training programs. At the same time, major philanthropies like the Ford and Rockefeller foundations became important sources of funding for programs that addressed economic inequality and discrimination. In Washington, the establishment of two public colleges, one of which became a center of Afro-American studies, addressed the absence of higher-education opportunities in DC.
47. 12YRS_151222_324.JPG: The Body Politic
48. 12YRS_151222_331.JPG: Untitled, Larry Erskine Thomas, 1967 Larry Erskine Thomas, an early senior staff member of the Anacostia Community Museum, made this painting with a Pan-African theme. Modern Pan-Africanism came into prominence in the United States during the 1960s as a melding of black consciousness with the revolutionary perspective of the independence movements that swept European colonial governments out of Africa.
49. 12YRS_151222_340.JPG: The Body Politic Fashion allowed politics and gained focus from the media's outpouring of pop culture. Women freed themselves from constricting clothes that were tailored for girdles, stockings, high heels, and matching sets of gloves and hats. Young women adopted short skirts, unstructured shifts, boots, and pants as expressions of their personal freedom and political correctness. Men shed ties and button-down shirts for tees, baggy jackets, and jeans, with boots on their feet. The dashiki became a statement of African affinity, and hair became a major indicator of personal identity. Men and women wore their hair natural, loose, long and straight, or in an Afro.
50. 12YRS_151222_343.JPG: Public Higher Education
51. 12YRS_151222_347.JPG: Public Higher Education Higher education has always been an important tool in overcoming economic barriers. The District did not have the state college system that provided reasonably priced higher education for residents of the 50 states. Its only public higher education institution, District of Columbia Teachers College, operated under the authority of the school board and had a student body of less than a thousand. A blue-ribbon panel report to the President in 1964 (The Chase Report) found that the absence in DC of post-high school educational opportunities for those unable to afford private institutions significantly curtailed opportunities for DC citizens. The final report left no doubt that publicly supported institutions should be provided. Federal legislation subsequently authorized two new public colleges in DC: the Washington Technical Institute (WTI) and the Federal City College (FCC). They began classes in the fall of 1968 with an open admission policy that attracted 15,000 registrants. Both offered courses relevant to the populations they served at locations students could reach via public transit.
52. 12YRS_151222_349.JPG: WTI Graduation Ceremony, 1974 Graduation takes place at Washington Technical Institute's original campus, former site of the Bureau of Standards on Connecticut Avenue and Van Ness Street, NW.
53. 12YRS_151222_353.JPG: Public Higher Education in the District of Columbia: A Report to the President (The Chase Report), 1964 The report of the Chase Commission, named after its chair, was received by President Johnson after President Kennedy's assassination. It led to the establishment of two new colleges, Washington Technical Institute and Federal City College, in 1966.
54. 12YRS_151222_371.JPG: Washington Technical Institute WTI, a two-year institution, trained students in trades and semi-professional skills. Its Board of Vocational Education was appointed by the President of the United States. It held classes and special events around the city, including Anacostia, while it built a new campus on Connecticut Avenue, NW -- right on a planned Metro stop. Like Federal City College, its overall mission was to solve community needs through higher education. In 1977, WTI merged with Federal City College and the District of Columbia Teachers College to create the University of the District of Columbia (UDC).
55. 12YRS_151222_374.JPG: Federal City College: Federal City College (FCC), a four-year institution, was a center of educational innovation and controversy from the day it opened. Lacking a central campus, it held classes in rented quarters spread around downtown DC. That made it more accessible to students from around the city, but also meant it had no physical focal point for students, faculty, or the administration. FCC was in the forefront of open admission, which offered immediate matriculation to those who held a high school diploma. It also became a center of Afro-American studies, a new discipline whose advocates wanted to reshape the curriculum to make it less centered on European traditions.
56. 12YRS_151222_378.JPG: New Voices
57. 12YRS_151222_382.JPG: New Voices Women, Gays, and Newcomers Across the nation, inspired and empowered by the language, tactics, and visibility of the Civil Rights Movement, other groups began demanding respect and equal rights. In Washington, African American activists organized community-based organizations such as the United Planning Organization with support from federal anti-poverty funds and private foundations. Other groups that had been largely "underground" or on the margins of social acceptability also became more organized and politically active. The growing visibility of feminists, gays, and new immigrants from Latin America and Asia gave additional tones of DC's historically black and white, officially heterosexual coloration.
58. 12YRS_151222_384.JPG: Gay Activists at the White House, April 17, 1965
59. 12YRS_151222_388.JPG: Feminism
60. 12YRS_151222_392.JPG: Although women had gained the vote and certain legal rights, they still suffered under unequal family laws that affected nearly every aspect if their lives. They suffered discrimination in the public sphere, where tradition and law rendered them invisible. And studied revealed that women -- African American and white -- were the poorest groups in the country. By the late 1960s, women across the country were exploring, articulating, and addressing their growing discontent. They developed local and national organizations such as the DC Area Feminist Alliance, the National Organization for Women, and the National Black Feminist Organization with a political agenda of equality. Feminists gained access to anti-poverty programs and funds as well as foundations that also supported the city's African-American community-based organizations, dominated by men. Feminism struggled to be inclusive of African Americans and lesbians and elicited strong responses, both pro and con. Even its detractors had to admit, however, that by the 1970s feminism had made an impact in DC.
61. 12YRS_151222_401.JPG: Reproductive Freedom The feminist surge of the 1960s coincided with the widespread availability of the first birth control pills. Women sought control over childbearing, which shaped their lives and was the basis for laws and customs that left them unequal with men. in DC this struggle engendered conflict and opposition from those who opposed family planning and those who opposed the legalization of abortion. White conservative as well as some radical black political leaders opposed such efforts.
62. 12YRS_151222_404.JPG: Off Our Backs: The Feminist News Journal, 1970 Founded in DC in 1970, and published for and by women, Off Our Backs covered both local and national news.
63. 12YRS_151222_410.JPG: DC's First Abortion Clinic, 1971 Counselors answer phones on March 15, 1971, at Preterm, located in a medical building at 1726 I Street, NW.
64. 12YRS_151222_416.JPG: Mary Treadwell, 1968 Mary Treadwell was a co-founder, with Marion Barry, of Pride, Inc., an anti-poverty, community-based nonprofit organization. But she was also active in the women's movement locally. She wrote articles and spoke out to defend the idea of family planning and reproductive rights for African American women.
65. 12YRS_151222_425.JPG: Emergence of the Gay Community
66. 12YRS_151222_431.JPG: Emergence of the Gay Community Although never absent from society, gay men and women had long been vilified, declared mentally ill, and made into criminals for private behavior. A sudden transformation in consciousness came in 1969 with the Stonewall riots in New York City, when patrons at a gay bar defied police harassment and fought back. The riots reverberated around the country, and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community came out and became a more unified and political voice. In Washington, Franklin Kameny and the Mattachine Society had been pioneers in pioneer gay activism since the 1960s. In 1971, DC's Gay and Lesbian Gay Activist Alliance (GLAA) organized to secure "full rights and privileges" for gay people. In 1972, the DC School Board banned discrimination on sexual orientation -- the first US city to do so. And in 1973, Mayor Washington signed DC legislation against gay discrimination in housing, public accommodation, bank credit, and employment. Public expressions of the gay lifestyle became more evident. Bars, safe houses, baths, and stores catering to gay sensibilities and gay literature became staples of Washington street life.
67. 12YRS_151222_433.JPG: Gay Liberation Front DC Members at a Chinese Restaurant, 1971
68. 12YRS_151222_436.JPG: Gay Blade First Issue, 1969 The Washington Blade, DC's first gay newspaper, began as the Gay Blade in 1969. [Note that the issue says Vol. 1, No. 2. According to Wikipedia, the first issue was October 1969, not November 1969. Another embarrassment.]
69. 12YRS_151222_446.JPG: Gay Liberation Front-DC Chapel, L-R: Joseph Covert and Howard Grayson, ca 1973
70. 12YRS_151222_449.JPG: Discrimination Against Homosexuals Is As Immoral As Discrimination Against Negroes & Jews Protest Sign from White House Demonstration, April 1965
71. 12YRS_151222_453.JPG: New Communities
72. 12YRS_151222_457.JPG: New Communities Federal legislation in 1965 changed the nation's immigration laws. Congress abolished the national origins formula dating from 1921, which favored northern European immigration. It replaced the formula with a preference system that focused on employment skills and family relationships with US citizens. The changes led to a flow of people from nations that had not previously been major sources of immigration. In the 1960s and 1970s, the DC metro area became a destination for people from Central and South America, the Caribbean, the Philippines, Vietnam, and China. These arriving immigrants established community-based organizations and institutions, and local networks of support and information, that provided a foundation for those who came later. Newly arrived immigrants often relied upon certain kinds of jobs to gain entry to the local labor market, but many also came in search of educational opportunities.
73. 12YRS_151222_460.JPG: Mural Honoring Latin American Immigrants Brothers Caco and Renato Salazar designed and executed this mural in the mid-1970s on Adams Mill Road, NW. Entitled Un pueblo sin murales es un pueblo desmuralizado ("A people without murals are a demuralized people"), it pays tribute to Latin American immigrants who came to the DC area after fleeing unrest in their home countries.
74. 12YRS_151222_465.JPG: "The six Negro members of the nine member Council recognized most of the complaints [from Hispanic residents] as the same ones that Negroes had been forced to deal with in earlier days. But if the problems are the same, the solutions are greatly complicated because of the language barrier." -- William Raspberry, Washington Post, Jan. 30, 1970
75. 12YRS_151222_468.JPG: Program Booklet, 35th Anniversary of the Chinese Community Historical Society The Chinese American community has been a presence in DC long before the 1960s and 70s. Centered on H and F Streets NW and 5th and 8th Streets NW, Chinese workers and families have made this the area known as Chinatown, their home since the 1930s. After the 1968 riots however, many Chinese families moved to suburbs in Virginia and Maryland.
76. 12YRS_151222_473.JPG: Law for the People
77. 12YRS_151222_477.JPG: Jean Camper Cahn with Law School Students
78. 12YRS_151222_487.JPG: Law for the People In the District, where law was big business, affordable legal education and legal services for the disadvantaged had disappeared with the professionalization of the discipline in the late 1920s. In the early 1960s, Antioch College, located in Yellow Springs, Ohio, brought an innovative legal program to DC. It was based on clinics that engaged students in "hands-on" legal work and that provided legal counsel for people unable to access expensive law firms. The clinic-based education model thrived in DC. When Antioch College decided to disband he law school for financial reasons in the mid-1980s, members of the DC Council arranged temporary financing as a bridge to making the school part of the city's higher education establishment. The result was the David A. Clarke School of Law at the University of the District of Columbia.
79. 12YRS_151222_490.JPG: Graduation Ceremony at Antioch Law School with Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Dean Jean Camper Cahn
80. 12YRS_151222_495.JPG: Visual Arts
81. 12YRS_151222_499.JPG: Shaped and influenced by abstract expressionism, the color field movement, and also by the national political turmoil, DC played host to different art movements in the 1960s. The abstract art movement that appeared in New York City during the 1950s influenced the development of Washington's Color School of painters. Like other abstract artists, they turned their backs on photographic literalness to portray inner meaning and the elements of objects. Washington Color School members showed their works in an exhibition called the Washington Color Painters in 1965, which later travelled to other US cities. The exhibition opened at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art, which during its brief existence in the 1960s became a nationally significant art venue and helped make Washington into one of the nation's nodes for abstract art. Many African American artists were inspired by the AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists) movement that Howard University-based artist Jeff Donaldson brought to Washington in the early 1970s. AfriCOBRA artists drew upon African American history and culture, the religious and spiritual iconography of the African diaspora, and the revolutionary tenor of the times.
82. 12YRS_151222_501.JPG: Becoming Official Culture Two Cultures In addition to its official culture of monuments and museums, Washington has a rich local culture that is continually growing and morphing in response to new creative input. During the 1960s, new sources of money enabled American cultural creators to experiment with new -- sometimes radical -- forms. Abstract painters founded the Washington Color School. Dancers melded existing forms. New companies made the District a theater town second only to New York. Singers invented new musical styles and won multiple Grammies. In 1967 architect and museum Topper Carew established the New Thing Art and Architecture Center, a black cultural center offering a wide range of black arts activities. SNCC activists Charlie Cobb, Judy Richardson, and others opened the Drum and Spear bookstore in June 1968. It became the largest black bookstore in the country. Cultural critic and community activist Peggy Cooper Cafritz joined with cultural activist Mike Malone to establish the Duke Ellington School for the Arts in 1974. Today many representatives of DC's local culture in the 1960s and 1970s are part of the national culture. But many community based theater and arts organizations, graffiti and street-corner musicians, and ephemeral creations that were not taped or filmed exist now only in the minds of those who saw them.
83. 12YRS_151222_504.JPG: Arena Stage on the West Side of the 1100 Block of 6th Fleet SW, 1973 A fixture in its modernist buildings near the Southwest waterfront since the early 1960s, Arena Stage was the District's most highly regarded professional theater company. As the 1960s moved into the 1970s, other theater groups appeared that helped give the District a remarkably active theater scene.
84. 12YRS_151222_510.JPG: Drum and Spear Bookstore Drum and Spear Bookstore, which opened on 14th Street, NW in 1968, provided access to African and African-American literature as well as a cultural meeting ground. Shown here are Judy Richardson, one of the founders, and Tony Giddens.
85. 12YRS_151222_517.JPG: Uhuru Nelson Stevens, 1971
86. 12YRS_151222_522.JPG: Alma Thomas
87. 12YRS_151222_534.JPG: Tools of the Artist These brushes, palettes, and other items belonged to Alma Thomas.
88. 12YRS_151222_538.JPG: "The use of color in my paintings is of paramount importance to me. Through color I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness, rather than on man's inhumanity to man." -- Alma Thomas
89. 12YRS_151222_542.JPG: Dance
90. 12YRS_151222_546.JPG: Dance Dance blossomed across America beginning in the 1960s. In addition to ballet and tap, a uniquely blended dance form that co-joined traditional ballet and modern dance with the influence of African dance became a part of popular culture in African American communities. In DC, activists like Doris Jones, Louis Johnson, and Mike Malone began offering opportunities to local black dancers and new experimental dance forms. Club-dancing culture became more popular as dancing became part of the mainstream urban experience.
91. 12YRS_151222_551.JPG: "The DC Black Repertory Dance Theater is a smashing new addition to the performing arts in this city. Barely six months old, the group has enough high-voltage verge to solve the energy crisis singlehandedly." -- Jean Battey Lewis, Washington Post, April 13, 1973
92. 12YRS_151222_555.JPG: Theatre "Lively Canada included, Washington is now the second most active professional theater town on this continent." -- Richard L. Coe, The Washington Post, Sept. 19, 1971
93. 12YRS_151222_560.JPG: Theatre Theater, too, turned its back on tradition. Traditionally, theater was performed on a proscenium stage with the audience sitting in front. DC's Arena Stage became one of the first companies to experiment with an arena-like setting that placed the audience in concentric circles around the performance space. By 1975, it had become a DC staple. Local theater expanded with such experimental efforts as the Back Alley Theatre, established by playwright and community activist Naomi Eftis. In an effort to provide theatre directly to neighborhood residents and showcase the work of radical, African American, and Latino playwrights and dancers, Eftis began offering performances in the alley behind her home in Mount Pleasant. She also helped establish the District's first bilingual theater company, Teatro Doble. Along with Howard University and the District of Columbia Teachers College, the DC Black Repertory Company established by actor and producer Robert Hooks, brought African American plays to new audiences.
94. 12YRS_151222_563.JPG: Washington Theater Club The play Inner City is produced at the Washington Theater Club in 1973. The Club was established in 1957 to provide innovative plays, oftentimes with radical political themes. It also offered classes and musical performances until it closed in 1974.
95. 12YRS_151222_568.JPG: Arena Stage 1967 production of The Great White Hope with James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander The Great White Hope, a play based on the life of African American boxer Jack Johnson that explores racism in American society, premiered at Arena Stage during its 1967-68 season. Despite strong reaction, the production moved to Broadway, where it won three Tony Awards.
96. 12YRS_151222_574.JPG: Fishandler Stage at Arena Stage
97. 12YRS_151222_581.JPG: Chuck Brown The Godfather of Go-Go 1936-2012
98. 12YRS_151222_586.JPG: Stories from Washingtonians
99. 12YRS_151222_588.JPG: Music
100. 12YRS_151222_592.JPG: Music Between 1963 and 1975, Washington's music scene gained variety and energy with the advent of rock music and the mainstreaming of black popular music. The first US concert of the Beatles drew enormous media attention, but much more was happening in the city's music venues -- including the debut of Roberta Flack and the creation of Go-Go by Chuck Brown and other musicians in the city's far Southeast. The jazz scene had a gifted advocate in radio host Felix E. Grant, who drew his programming and interviews from the stream of local and visiting musicians and singers who played at venerable Bohemian Caverns, the new Blues Alley, and other clubs. It was only a matter of time before some of these pop and jazz artists found themselves performing at the Kennedy Center, which opened in 1972, and other bastions of the cultural establishment.
101. 12YRS_151222_594.JPG: Roberta Flack, Quiet Fire, 1971 Roberta Flack's 1971 album, Quiet Fire, launched her into the national spotlight.
102. 12YRS_151222_601.JPG: "Negroes have a soul, but it doesn't mean they have Soul. It's a person's ability -- white or black -- to arouse the innermost emotions of another person." -- Roberta Flack, 1968
103. 12YRS_151222_605.JPG: Roberta Flack Grammy Award winning Roberta Flack learned to play classical piano at an early age. At age 15, she received a music scholarship to attend Howard University. Jazz musician Les McCann discovered her singing at a popular Capitol Hill bar, Mr. Henry's. Many local residents still remember her early days in the bar's small upstairs room.
104. 12YRS_151222_612.JPG: Roberta Flack in Performance at Sylvian Theatre, April 1972
105. 12YRS_151222_614.JPG: Chuck Brown's Guitar
106. 12YRS_151222_621.JPG: Chuck Brown
107. 12YRS_151222_622.JPG: Chuck Brown Charles Louis "Chuck" Brown (1936-2012) was "the Godfather of go-go," a sub-genre of funk music that was Washington's signature music during the late 1960s and 1970s. It blended rhythm, blues, funk, and early hip-hop with an emphasis on a syncopated percussion beat. It was played in dance venues around the city by bands with names like Young Senators, Black Heat, and Aggression.
108. 12YRS_151222_625.JPG: Ramsey Lewis at Bohemian Caverns Album, 1965 Jazz great Ramsey Lewis recorded his popular album, The In Crowd, at Bohemian Caverns.
109. 12YRS_151222_630.JPG: Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers Album
110. 12YRS_151222_633.JPG: Lloyd McNeill Record Jacket, 1969 A Washington native, and the first student to receive the MFA degree from Howard University, Lloyd McNeill made his name as a DC artist and jazz musician before beginning a distinguished career on the faculty of Rutgers University in New Jersey. This recording of the Washington Suite was composed by McNeill for the Capitol Ballet Company.
111. 12YRS_151222_639.JPG: Jazz & Big Bands Who do You Listen To?
112. 12YRS_151222_643.JPG: Jazz & Big Bands The District's long history of being a venue for jazz musicians and big bands continued during the 1960s and 70s, although they had to share the stage with the vibrant pop and go-go scenes. Clubs and theatres along U Street such as Republic Gardens, Bohemian Caverns, and Lincoln Theatre provided venues for emerging local talent and for the country's top jazz performers. These establishments, which opened in the 1920s, closed after the late 1960s. They have recently experienced a revival of sorts and have reopened for business. Opening in 1965 in Georgetown, Blues Alley became the premier showcase for jazz and blues in the city.
113. 12YRS_151222_645.JPG: Blues Alley
114. 12YRS_151222_649.JPG: Matchbook from Blues Alley
115. 12YRS_151222_652.JPG: Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene, Jr., 1967 Washingtonian Petey Greene, Jr., overcame drug addiction and incarceration to become one of the most well-known and beloved radio and TV personalities. His frank and often caustic commentary offended some, but he developed a large and devoted following. His broadcasts during the 1968 riots were said to help bring an end to the violence.
116. 12YRS_151222_656.JPG: Cathy Hughes and Smokey Robinson Operating as General Manager of Howard University radio station WHUR, Cathy Hughes created the "Quiet Storm" easy listening music format. The format proved so popular that it was franchised to hundreds of radio stations around the country. Hughes has since gone on to become a successful national media entrepreneur.
117. 12YRS_151222_659.JPG: Craig Oliver, WAMU Craig Oliver served as WAMU's production and operations manager, reporter, news director, and program director.
118. 12YRS_151222_665.JPG: WAMU Staff with Susan Harmon Housed at American University, WAMU began broadcasting in 1961 and offered jazz as well as news and other programming. Susan Harmon was one of the station's founders and served as its general manager.
119. 12YRS_151222_670.JPG: Who Do You Listen To? Personal identity extended to the media. Choosing a radio station meant choosing a community, and in the 1960s listeners had a growing range of aural communities to choose from. Some stations, like WOL, were well established parts of the DC media, while others, like brand-new National Public Radio, were still finding their niche and their listening community.
120. 12YRS_151222_680.JPG: 14th Street in Columbia Heights, April 6, 1968 Army troops patrol the debris-strewn street, which is lined with buildings showing fire damage.
121. 12YRS_151222_689.JPG: Viet Nam Moratorium, 1970 The antiwar sentiment spread from campuses and became a broad-based movement that included many "middle-of-the-road" groups. This poster was designed by John Scheider for the Ad Hoc Federal Employees Moratorium Committee.
122. 12YRS_151222_694.JPG: Protestors at Peace Moratorium, November 16, 1969 During the 1960s, the District Police Department had to expand its law enforcement horizons beyond ordinary street crime to include civil protests. The earliest protests addressed the civil rights issues. But as the Vietnam War heated up, the District also became a center of antiwar protests, both by outsiders and, in this case, by local residents.
123. 12YRS_151222_698.JPG: Antiwar Protest Led by Coretta Scott King Under the leadership of Coretta Scott King, anti-war protesters march to the White House on October 15, 1969.
124. 12YRS_151222_716.JPG: DC Riots 1968 During the 1960s, when people spoke ominously of a long, hot summer, they weren't referring to the weather. Riots and civil disturbances had become a summertime occurrence in African American neighborhoods through the nation. Black urban ghettos reverberated with broken promises and discontent, and young people filled the streets on hot nights looking for action. DC experienced less violence than other black communities across the nation -- until 1968 and the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Activists led by Stokely Carmichael demanded that stores and businesses, many owned by whites and serving blacks, close for the day to honor King. Roving bands feeding on their own frustration changed the demand into an opportunity to loot the stores and then burn them. Days of fire and violence spread through central parts of the District and into Capitol Hill. Community leaders such as radio personality Petey Greene, city official Walter Fauntroy, and Mayor Walter Washington used their influence to end the violence.
125. 12YRS_151222_723.JPG: Soldiers on F Street
126. 12YRS_151222_730.JPG: Soul Sister in Automobile
127. 12YRS_151222_733.JPG: Poor People's March "I look back on the Poor People's Campaign and that decade, as painful as it was, as what was necessary to awaken enough people to change public policy." -- Walter Fauntroy
128. 12YRS_151222_737.JPG: Demonstrators in Poor People's Campaign March Past Smithsonian Castle, 1968
129. 12YRS_151222_741.JPG: Poor People's March After the 1968 DC riots, rights activists decided to go ahead with Rev. King's plans for a poor people's march on Washington. Washingtonians were a major part of the planning efforts. Churches like St. Augustine's in Southwest were staging areas, and local public figures graced the organizing committee. The People's Camp, or Resurrection City, was conceived to bring poverty into public view through civil disobedience in the nation's capital. It succeeded. But life in the makeshift camp was difficult and uncomfortable, and the many local and federal law enforcement personnel were a constant and often unfriendly presence.
130. 12YRS_151222_744.JPG: Demonstrators for Indian Rights, Poor People's Campaign, 1968
131. 12YRS_151222_746.JPG: Wagon Train in the Poor People's March, 1968
132. 12YRS_151222_750.JPG: Tents of Resurrection City on the National Mall, 1968 Residents of Resurrection City lived in tents and other temporary structures arranged on the mall, with sidewalks and dirt streets.
133. 12YRS_151222_754.JPG: Poor People's Campaign Brochure
134. 12YRS_151222_757.JPG: Spanish American Christian Conference for Community Action, 1968 Like many religious organizations and churches around the nation, the Spanish American Christian Conference for Community Action sent a delegation to the Poor People's March.
135. 12YRS_151222_761.JPG: "I look back on the Poor People's Campaign and that decade, as painful as it was, as what was necessary to awaken enough people to change public policy." -- Walter Fauntroy
136. 12YRS_151222_764.JPG: Police Frisking a Demonstrator in Resurrection City, 1968 Security personnel and police maintained a constant, sometimes unfriendly, presence in and around Resurrection City.
137. 12YRS_151222_781.JPG: Mayor Walter E. Washington with President Lyndon B. Johnson, September 6, 1967 President Johnson, an advocate of home rule, used his authority to establish the post of mayor-commissioner with an appointed city council. He selected a personal friend and highly regarded DC public housing administrator, Walter E. Washington.
138. 12YRS_151222_786.JPG: Mayor Washington Addressing the First Meeting of New District Council, November 7, 1967 The mayor, appointed by President Lyndon Johnson, addresses the new district council, also appointed by the President. These appointed officials put Washington on the long road to home rule.
139. 12YRS_151222_791.JPG: Women Voting for President at Cardoza High School, 1964 The 23rd Amendment gave District residents the vote for president.
140. 12YRS_151222_796.JPG: 1968 was a pivotal year Home Rule
141. 12YRS_151222_811.JPG: In 1968, DC residents voted for members of the local School Board -- their first election in a century. Many also participated locally and nationally in rights activities and the presidential campaign during what turned out to be a very tumultuous year. * In April, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Riots erupted in DC and around the nation. * In June, US Senator and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was also assassinated. * In August, chaos and sometimes violence characterized the Democratic National Convention. The year ended with a divisive presidential election that pitted a badly split Democratic Party against the well-organized campaign of Richard Nixon.
142. 12YRS_151222_814.JPG: DC riot, April '68. Aftermath
143. 12YRS_151222_834.JPG: Supporters of Free DC Movement March, 1965-66 Supporters of the Free DC Movement march on H Street, NE. A coalition of DC organizations led by Marion Barry tried to mobilize support for home rule in 1965-66.
144. 12YRS_151222_839.JPG: Mock Tea Party in Southwest, 1973 On the 200th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, activists for home rule stage their own tea protest.
145. 12YRS_151222_846.JPG: Washington Committee on Black Power's Votemobile, 1967 Sitting in the right front seat is Julius Hobson, who was prominent in the campaign to gain statehood.
146. 12YRS_151222_849.JPG: League of Women Voters March for Home Rule, 1970 The efforts to achieve home rule were generally non-partisan and attracted support from a wide range of DC residents.
147. 12YRS_151222_859.JPG: Home Rule Day, July 17, 1966 Comedian and rights activist Dick Gregory leads Southwest residents on the Mall.
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