DC History Center

With a new name and a commitment to being a community-based nonprofit, how could our membership program, which historically made the organization exclusive, be more accessible to reflect our JEDI priorities? Many years in the making, hear how we tackled this question from our Individual and Foundation Giving Manager Sajel Swartz. 🫂 In her blog, Sajel reflects on one year with revamped the membership program. With feedback and discussion, she hopes to continue to improve the experience for our current members and create the best possible experience for our new community. 🔗 Read Sajel's blog, “Anyone can be Friends,” and learn more about the development of our membership program: https://buff.ly/4cERpLE 📸 DC History Center members tour the “Ancestral Spaces” installation at Tudor Place Historic House and Garden with curator Rob DeHart, April 20, 2024. Photo by Sajel Swartz.

The DC History Center with Ford's Theatre Society and other local history sites host Tapas for Teachers, a social event for educators. The beginning of the school year is full of promise and possibility, along with plenty of uncertainty—and educators deserve a night out and support in their classrooms! Join us at Tapas for Teachers on Thursday, September 19, as we celebrate the back to school season with Ford’s Theatre and your favorite local history sites. Enjoy free snacks and good conversation while you learn about teacher resources like professional development and field trips. We'll also share National History Day guidance, tools, and tips, along with topic ideas for the theme: Rights and Responsibilities in History.

The DC History Center warmly invites you to our Back to School Bash, introducing our upcoming exhibition, Class Action: The Fight for Equal Education in the Nation’s Capital. Join us on September 26 for a fun-filled evening in the Torti Gallas + Partners office at the beautifully renovated Grimke School, a historic community landmark. Enjoy delicious bites, refreshing drinks, live jazz, and thought-provoking activities about the history of equal education in DC, inspired by the exhibition. 

El Sábado 14 de Septiembre, los invitamos a compartir sus recuerdos con nosotros en La Casa de La Clinica del Pueblo en Mount Pleasant durante un evento público y gratuito para compartir historias con comida y música.  _____________________________ On Saturday, September 14, share your memories with us at La Casa at the Clinica del Pueblo in Mount Pleasant during this free, public, story-telling event with food and music.

“Understanding the patterns of land dispossession that shaped the city helps us to understand how the conditions that we navigate today came to be.” The Black Broad Branch Project is a public history project that traced present-day descendants from two families that were rooted in what was then called Dry Meadows, on two neighboring plots off of Broad Branch Road in Northwest DC. The Harrises and Shorters were living on family-owned land from the 1840s until the 1920s, when they were forcibly dislocated—through the weaponization of practices like eminent domain and racially-restrictive covenants—to make way for the building of Lafayette Elementary School and its surrounding park. Both were intended to be white-only spaces. The project research team used archival, genealogical, and oral history methods to enact recommendations for redress as imagined by the descendants who have been engaged in this work. They also conducted 16 oral histories as a way to document how both families suffered after being forced off their land and separated from their familial networks. When Mariana Barros-Titus, co-creator of the Black Broad Branch Project, joined the DC History Center as community engagement manager, there became an opportunity for the organization to act as its incubator for the project. Read about Mariana’s work with the Black Broad Branch Project, and how the project has been able to grow in reach and impact in the last year. Read More: https://buff.ly/3Tc8OEn 📸 Descendants of the Pointer-Harris and Dorsey-Shorter families standing on what would have been Harris Family land and is today part of Lafayette-Pointer Park, September 2022. Photo by Mariana Barros-Titus. 📸 Karen Kellibrew, descendant of the Pointer-Harris family, finding her family’s name and land lot in the Baist Atlas Maps at the Kiplinger Research Library, September 2023. Photo by Mariana Barros-Titus. 📸 Jocelind Julien, descendant of the Dorsey-Shorter family, outside of the Wilson Building before testifying before the DC Council on behalf of her family’s history, June 2023. Photo by Mariana Barros-Titus.

A night out for educators—you deserve it! Tapas for Teachers is an annual program celebrating the back-to-school season. On Thursday, September 19, join the DC History Center, @FordsTheatre, and your favorite local history sites for: 💬 Snacks and good conversation 🎒 Teacher resources like professional development opportunities and field trips 📚 National History Day guidance, tools, and tips, along with topic ideas for the theme: Rights and Responsibilities in History Details: 😊 Free! ⏰ 5 - 7 pm 📍 DC History Center, 801 K St NW 🖊️ Register: https://buff.ly/3Tb4x4e Tapas for Teachers is co-hosted by the DC History Center and Ford's Theatre. Local sites represented include: @anacostia Archaeology in the Community, Inc. Arlington National Cemetery Capital Jewish Museum Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives DC Historic Preservation Office, DC Office of Planning Frederick Douglass National Historic Site Historic Congressional Cemetery Library of Congress National Mall and Memorial Parks The People's Archive at DC Public Library President Lincoln's Cottage Tudor Place Historic House & Garden

El Sábado 14 de Septiembre, los invitamos a compartir sus recuerdos con nosotros en La Casa de La Clinica del Pueblo en Mount Pleasant durante un evento público y gratuito para compartir historias con comida y música. Escondidos en una caja de zapatos debajo de la cama hay una carta de amores adolescentes, un diario de viaje, un poster o pancarta de tus días de activismo en las calles. Recuerdos a través de estos objetos nos conectan al pasado y enseñan a las generaciones del futuro cómo era vivir una vida “en aquel entonces”. El DC History Center desea ayudar a preservar estos objetos preciosos a través de nuestro programa de archivo impulsado por nuestra comunidad. Más información: https://buff.ly/3MrQsvr _______________________________________________________________ On Saturday, September 14, share your memories with us at La Casa at the Clinica del Pueblo in Mount Pleasant during this free, public, storytelling event with food and music. Tucked away in a shoebox under the bed are a letter from your high school sweetheart, a travel diary, a poster from your activist days out in the streets. Physical memories like these connect us to the past and teach future generations what life was like “back then.” The DC History Center wants to help you protect these precious objects through our community-driven, archiving program.

Join the Latino/a/x Advisory Group and DC History Center on Saturday, September 14 to share your memories as part of its Latino/a/x community archiving initiative. We’ll spend time together sharing stories, scanning materials for digital preservation, and enjoying food and music. The program is free and open to the public at La Casa at the Clinica del Pueblo in Mount Pleasant. You can ask me questions or email the DC History Center at programs@dchistory.org. Register online, walk-ins welcome: https://lnkd.in/eVshq2cF.

104 years ago, all women in America went to bed with the right to vote for the first time. On August 26, 1920 the 19th Amendment was passed. While this was a major step towards equal voting rights for all citizens, the decades that followed saw continued efforts to eliminate racist and classist policies. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and language requirements were all policies that aimed to suppress the vote among people of color, immigrants, and low-income populations. ⬇️ 🗳️ 1964: The 24th amendment was passed forbidding federal and state governments from imposing taxes on voters during federal elections. 🗳️ 1965: The Voting Rights Act was passed by Congress. President Johnson signed the measure on August 6 with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and other icons of the civil rights movement at his side. 🗳️ 1971: The 26th amendment brought the voting age to 18 from 21. 🗳️ 1975: Provisions were added to the Voting Rights Act to protect members of non-english language speaking groups. 🗳️ 1982: The Voting Rights Act was extended for another 25 years and for the first time protected voting for people with disabilities. 🗳️ 2002: The Help America Vote Act was passed requiring states to replace outdated voting equipment, create statewide voter registration lists, and provide provisional ballots to ensure that eligible voters are not turned away if their names are not on the roll of registered voters. 🗳️ 2012: The US Supreme Court ruled on Shelby County v. Holder. States and localities with a history of suppressing voting rights were no longer required to submit changes in their election laws to the US Justice Department for review. 🗳️ 2019: Leading up to the 2020 Census, (unsuccessful) efforts were made to add a question about citizenship on the Census, aimed at intimidating immigrant populations and therefore impacting redistricting. 🗳️ Today: The fight for equal voting rights continues. 📸 Baltimore suffragettes gather in front of the Carnegie Library in Mount Vernon Square, November 1913. Courtesy, the Fred Schutz Historical Collection, Panoramic Images, Inc. (Fun fact: you can see an enlarged print of this image on the basement level of the Carnegie Library in an exhibit about the building’s history!)

This July, 15 stellar DC educators participated in “Teach the District,” our professional development program that seeks to bring local history to life—no matter what subject the educator teaches. ✏️ Check out what the co-hort did this year and explore our FREE lib guide with resources for teachers: https://buff.ly/3MbHLVR