BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Penn Qtr -- Martin Luther King Memorial Library -- Exhibit: Literary Arts Program

DC -- Penn Qtr -- Martin Luther King Memorial Library -- Exhibit: Literary Arts Program:

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Description of Pictures: Literary Arts Program
Exhibit Dates: November 1, 2023 - April 7, 2024
Begun in 1970 by high school teacher David Aaronson, the Literary Arts Program (LAP) allowed high school students in the District of Columbia Public Schools to explore the creative arts and gain experience and skills in the media and publishing industry through the creation of a variety of student publications and cultivation of collaborations with prominent publishers and journalists. The publication of student work was central to the program.
In 2019, Aaronson donated to the People’s Archive over 25 years worth of materials created by the students. It is this collection used to create the exhibit. The exhibit includes journalism, interviews, poetry, short stories and photographs.
Selections from this collection may be accessed at DigDC, the library's portal to digitized and born-digital collections.

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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. MLKLIT_231107_005.JPG: LITERARY ARTS PROGRAM 1970s-1990s The Literary Arts Program, a creative writing, journalism, and photography program for D.C. public high school students, was started in Fall 1970 by David Aaronson. As a young teacher at Cardozo High School, Aaronson saw that traditional teaching was failing many of his students. Realizing that students went from bored to interested when asked to write about the world around them, he began sending them out into the city to write and photograph what interested them. They would bring what they discovered to workshop sessions attended by four students from each of the city's public high schools. The teachers and students together crafted publications that were distributed around the city. For more than thirty years, hundreds of D.C. public high school students learned about video, news, film making, graphic design, poetry, and radio broadcasts. Many of its participants went on to have successful careers in these fields.
2. MLKLIT_231107_008.JPG: Working with students at Cardozo High School, teacher David Aaronson helped the students produce a literary magazine, Cardozo Raps. The magazine was so successful that the Washington Post ran a full page article about the project on June 29, 1969. It was after the success of Cardozo Raps that Aaronson founded the Literary Arts Program.
3. MLKLIT_231107_019.JPG: 1970s CLAIMING POWER During the early 1970s, protests roiled the city, on issues as varied as the war in Vietnam, environmental justice, civil rights, and local control of District government. The culture was also changing radically - young people began expressing their political beliefs through their clothing, music, hairstyles, and more. Literary Art Program students were encouraged to document these changes, creating photographic essays, poetry, journalism, and short stories that reflect a uniquely tumultuous and creative time in the District's history.
4. MLKLIT_231107_026.JPG: Angela Davis marching on Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, 1978. Photo taken by LAP student Duane Winfield.
5. MLKLIT_231107_030.JPG: Don't: A magazine of art and literature. 1971 This was the very first magazine produced by LAP students. Illustration by Kamala Subramanian/Coolidge HS
6. MLKLIT_231107_032.JPG: Citywide Poster Collection: Art & Poetry from D.C. Public High School Students, 1972 Drawing by Douglas Smith, Cardozo High School. Literary Arts Program Magazine undated. Page 36
7. MLKLIT_231107_051.JPG: Press pass issued to LAP student Jane Lincoln. All of the journalism students were issued press passes.
8. MLKLIT_231107_075.JPG: 1980's REFLECTION & TRANSFORMATION Throughout the 1980s, D.C. suffered an increase in crime each year. The crack epidemic and rise of AIDS put new strains on residents and institutions alike. Many middle-class residents moved to the suburbs, causing significant declines in city funding and leaving empty storefronts and school buildings. Many of the problems faced by the city are reflected in the student's work - drug abuse and gun violence were frequent topics of their work. At the same time, they were writing about the same things any teenagers in any area of the country might want to write about: music, fashion, and sports.
9. MLKLIT_231107_086.JPG: LOOKING FOR HEROES Using the theme of the Odyssey and heroes, Carolyn Jones Howard and David Aaronson formed a 3-year partnership with Time Inc. with the idea of preparing DC Public School students for successful careers in writing. Volunteers from Time including writers, reporters, editors, photographers and marketing staff worked with the LAP teachers and students to choose the subjects, prepare for the interviews, and produce the magazines. The subjects featured in the magazines ranged from local high school students to President Ronald Reagan.
10. MLKLIT_231107_109.JPG: LAP student Ken Lambert pictured with journalists at the groundbreaking for the Vietnam War Memorial. One of the first times he went on assignment, LAP photojournalism student Ken Lambert covered the groundbreaking for the National Vietnam War Memorial. He was photographed at the event and the photo ran on the front page of the Washington Post. Seeing himself with the other press photojournalists, Ken realized that he was himself a news photographer.
11. MLKLIT_231107_136.JPG: 1990s A DIFFICULT DECADE As a result of the challenges of the 1980s, by the early 1990s the District was on the verge of bankruptcy. In 1995 an unelected control board created by the federal government took over the management of the budget and most day-to-day functions of D.C. Government. This was also when LAP was moved from the Penn Center to Duke Ellington School for the Arts. Students could no longer leave the campus to write about the city so they wrote about their home lives, travels to and from school, and celebrity visits to the campus. The artwork and writing became more inward looking and more cohesive - and always reflective of the moment.
12. MLKLIT_231107_150.JPG: Ellington students Dave Chappelle and his brother, Sedar, in the offices of WDUK.
13. MLKLIT_231107_154.JPG: Journalist and humorist, Art Buchwald, visiting with LAP students
14. MLKLIT_231107_179.JPG: 1976 DC CITY COUNCIL: A PROFILE In 1968 the residents of D.C. elected their first school board, and in 1973, Congress passed the Home Rule Act, giving District residents the power to elect their first mayor and D.C. Council. Students in the Literary Arts Program made a point of documenting these crucial changes for the District. D.C. City Council, A Profile was produced in 1976 by LAP students after they interviewed and photographed the members of the District's first elected council.
15. MLKLIT_231107_236.JPG: DAHLIA GOES TO THE CHILDREN'S MUSEUM These pages are excerpted from the book Dahlia Goes to the Children's Museum, which was written, photographed, and produced by Nestor Hernandez. Hernandez wrote the book while a student in the Literary Arts Program. The complete book is in the collection of the People's Archive and can also be found online at DigDC. Discover more online at digdc.dclibrary.org
16. MLKLIT_231107_260.JPG: TEACHERS & STUDENTS In 2003, David Aaronson, Lew Berry, and Carolyn Jones Howard left the Literary Arts Program, which continues as part of Duke Ellington's Literary Media and Communications Department. Many students who participated in the Literary Arts Program went on to have careers in media and communications. The People's Archive Literary Arts and Urban Journalism Collection includes materials from 1970 to the 1990s.
17. MLKLIT_231107_317.JPG: Literary Arts Program / Urban Journalism Workshop Students Kofi Adisa - Associate Professor of English, Howard Community College, Columbia, MD Dave Chappelle - Stand-up comedian and actor Terry Dawson - film maker Barrington Edwards - Chair, Social Studies Department, The Paideia School, Atlanta, GA Marta Effinger-Crichlow - Professor, New York City College of Technology. Author, playwright, and documentary filmmaker, her most recent movie is Little Sallie Walker. Andrea Ferster - Attorney and President of DC Bar (2013-2014) Ife Franklin - A professional artist and activist living in Boston, Ife's most recent project is titled The Indigo Project, which honors the lives, histories, cultures, and traditions of African people throughout the diaspora with a concentration on the formerly enslaved of North America. Tyrus Gaines - photographer with his own studio in Charlotte, NC Polly Hanson - Senior Director, Security Risk Emergency Management, Former Chief of the Metro Transit Police Department Essex Hemphill - Poet, performer, activist. Nestor Hern�ndez - Photojournalist based in Washington, DC. Rev. Kenneth Irby - Pastor, Bethel AME Church, St. Petersburg, Fl. He is a former senior faculty member at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
18. MLKLIT_231107_318.JPG: Tyrus Gaines - photographer with his own studio in Charlotte, NC Polly Hanson - Senior Director, Security Risk Emergency Management, Former Chief of the Metro Transit Police Department Essex Hemphill - Poet, performer, activist. Nestor Hern�ndez - Photojournalist based in Washington, DC. Rev. Kenneth Irby - Pastor, Bethel AME Church, St. Petersburg, Fl. He is a former senior faculty member at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Chuck Kennedy - Photographer with his own studio in Washington, DC. Was a staff photographer at the White House, assigned to First Lady Michelle Obama. Ken Lambert - Staff photographer, The Seattle Times. Ken won First Place in the 52nd Annual White House News Photographers Association Competition. Donnell Lewis - Founder and Creative Director of One Creative Source, a graphic design and visual communications office. Jane Lincoln, social worker, activist, fierce knitter Elissa Blount Moorhead - Baltimore-based artist, curator and producer. She also wrote P is for Pussy, a raunchy alphabet picture book of double entendres. John Parmelee - Professor and Director of School of Communications, University of North Florida. Angela Peterson - photographer and editor for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Marlene W. Potts - Writer of the Miller's View detective series. Connie M. Razza - Attorney, Director, The Center for Popular Democracy Hansford Rowe III - Jazz fusion bassist, founding member of Gongzilla
19. MLKLIT_231107_321.JPG: Jane Lincoln, social worker, activist, fierce knitter Elissa Blount Moorhead - Baltimore-based artist, curator and producer. She also wrote P is for Pussy, a raunchy alphabet picture book of double entendres. John Parmelee - Professor and Director of School of Communications, University of North Florida Angela Peterson - photographer and editor for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Marlene W. Potts - Writer of the Miller's View detective series. Connie M. Razza - Attorney, Director, The Center for Popular Democracy Hansford Rowe III - Jazz fusion bassist, founding member of Gongzilla Tony Robinson - CEO & Founder, Robinson Public Affairs Kiernan Seth - Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Kamala Subramanian - Artist Tanzi West-Barbour - Director of Communications, DC Public Library Luci Williams - Journalist, Kansas City Star Duane Winslow - Started his photography career doing cookbook photography before moving to Baltimore, where he works in both photography and printmaking.
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