The Black Power Movement in DC: A Context Study

Speaker A [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Tangible Remnants. I'm Nakita Reed and this is my show where I explore the interconnectedness of architecture, preservation, sustainability, race, and gender. I'm excited that you're here, so let's get into it.

Speaker B [00:00:19]:
Welcome back. This is going to be a solo episode. Like many of you, I am grieving.

Speaker C [00:00:26]:
And processing the results from the 2024 US election.

Speaker B [00:00:30]:
I'm not surprised at the result, but I am incredibly disappointed. I have no platitudes to offer and.

Speaker C [00:00:37]:
Am emotionally preparing for the notable changes that will happen in the US over the next few years. But for solace, I've found myself looking to examples of tumultuous times in the.

Speaker B [00:00:48]:
Past, not only to remind myself that things have been worse, but also to.

Speaker C [00:00:52]:
Glean insights on a way to move forward.

Speaker B [00:00:55]:
In particular, I've been thinking about the Black Power movement. So today's episode I'm going to share.

Speaker C [00:01:01]:
Some excerpts with you from a contact.

Speaker B [00:01:04]:
Study on the Black Power movement that I had the opportunity to be a part of with Sarah Schoenfeld and George Derek Musgrove. You might remember them from episode 34.

Speaker C [00:01:13]:
When we did the live episode at.

Speaker B [00:01:15]:
The Octagon Museum in D.C. in preservation speak, a historic context study is an.

Speaker C [00:01:21]:
Organizing structure for interpreting history that groups information into historic properties which can share.

Speaker B [00:01:28]:
A common theme, common geographical location, and common time period. The development of historic context is a foundation for decisions about planning, identification, evaluation, registration, and treatment of historic properties based on comparative significance.

Speaker C [00:01:45]:
Basically, a context study helps connect history.

Speaker B [00:01:47]:
To the built environment. And one of the things that I.

Speaker C [00:01:51]:
Often talk about is the need to elevate more buildings that center diverse narratives.

Speaker B [00:01:55]:
To the National Register of Historic Places so these buildings can be documented and have access to more funding opportunities.

Speaker C [00:02:03]:
And historic contexts are important in this.

Speaker B [00:02:05]:
Regard because they can be used as.

Speaker C [00:02:07]:
A basis for justification of significance for.

Speaker B [00:02:10]:
More than just one building. And often the evaluation of properties for National Register eligibility involves an assessment of.

Speaker C [00:02:17]:
The significance of a property in terms of the history of the relevant geographical area, the history of associated historical themes.

Speaker B [00:02:24]:
Or subjects, all that within an historical and contemporary time frame. So it's context and documents like historic context studies are available for future researchers.

Speaker C [00:02:36]:
And other researchers to use to plug.

Speaker B [00:02:39]:
Additional historic buildings into it if the context of the buildings fit. And so basically, it's a way to.

Speaker C [00:02:45]:
Help more buildings get listed to the.

Speaker B [00:02:47]:
Register without each individual project having to do an overall context for significance. And so, now that you have some background on what a contact study is, let me share with you how this project came to BE so in 2020, the D.C. preservation League, also known as DCPL, received a $50,000 grant from the African American Civil Rights Program, as administered.

Speaker C [00:03:13]:
By the National Park Service Department of.

Speaker B [00:03:15]:
The Interior, to fund the creation of a study entitled Black Power in 20th Century Washington, D.C. a context study. The intent of the project was to.

Speaker C [00:03:25]:
Catalyze nominations to both the D.C. inventory.

Speaker B [00:03:28]:
Of historic Sites and the National Register.

Speaker C [00:03:31]:
Of Historic Places, as well as to.

Speaker B [00:03:33]:
Devise an outreach plan to educate the community on the research findings and significant associated properties. As quoted by Rebecca Miller, DCPL's executive director, in the press release, quote, the.

Speaker C [00:03:48]:
Activists involved in the Black Power movement built up the community by adding schools.

Speaker B [00:03:52]:
Centers for art and music, and even.

Speaker C [00:03:55]:
Oversight boards for the local police departments. They sparked important discussions about the city's.

Speaker B [00:04:00]:
Ongoing redevelopment, and they were catalysts for establishing DC's first democratically elected local government.

Speaker C [00:04:06]:
In nearly a century. These details and stories are largely unknown.

Speaker B [00:04:11]:
It's long past time we tell them, end quote.

Speaker C [00:04:15]:
The project took a few years to research, to do the outreach and to.

Speaker B [00:04:19]:
Finish, and the finalized contact study was.

Speaker C [00:04:21]:
Presented to the D.C. historic Preservation Review Board in June of this year, and.

Speaker B [00:04:26]:
The full document is now public domain.

Speaker C [00:04:29]:
Sarah and Derek are masterful researchers and.

Speaker B [00:04:32]:
Storytellers and did such a fantastic job.

Speaker C [00:04:34]:
In the writing of this document.

Speaker B [00:04:36]:
My involvement was really centered on the.

Speaker C [00:04:39]:
External evaluation of a few buildings and.

Speaker B [00:04:41]:
Formatting the inventory list to make sure it was cohesive. And this context study, along with many.

Speaker C [00:04:47]:
Of the other multiple property documents and.

Speaker B [00:04:49]:
Other context studies that the D.C. preservation.

Speaker C [00:04:52]:
League has funded over the past few.

Speaker B [00:04:53]:
Years, are available online. Other ones that I've been a part.

Speaker C [00:04:57]:
Of include the African American civil rights movement of the 20th century in Washington.

Speaker B [00:05:02]:
D.C. as well as the women's suffrage.

Speaker C [00:05:04]:
Movement of the 20th century.

Speaker B [00:05:07]:
And these projects are also available, and I'll make sure to include links in the show notes for anyone interested in.

Speaker C [00:05:13]:
Reading through these types of documents and using them to get any more buildings.

Speaker B [00:05:16]:
Listed on the National Register. All right, so with that, I've laid some context for you. Let's get into an excerpt from Black Power in 20th Century Washington, D.C. a context study introduction when US sprinters John Carlos and Tommy Smith raised their fists in the Black Power salute on the.

Speaker C [00:05:38]:
Medal stand during the 1968 Olympics in.

Speaker B [00:05:41]:
Mexico City, they were vilified by many white Americans.

Speaker C [00:05:45]:
Some of the mainstream media branded them traitors.

Speaker B [00:05:48]:
They received an avalanche of death threats from outraged white citizens, and the US.

Speaker C [00:05:52]:
Olympic team ousted them from Mexico City.

Speaker B [00:05:54]:
Sending them scrambling to find flights back to California.

Speaker C [00:05:58]:
Feeling besieged, the two remained mute, refusing.

Speaker B [00:06:02]:
To make any statements to the press for eight days.

Speaker C [00:06:05]:
They would not break their silence until.

Speaker B [00:06:07]:
They traveled across the country to Washington, D.C. their host in the nation's capital, Black Power organizer Stokely Carmichael, told reporters.

Speaker C [00:06:16]:
Why Carlos and Smith had chosen the District to make their first statement to the media.

Speaker B [00:06:22]:
This city, because of its black majority, should give them a hero's welcome. Indeed it did. Carlos came to the district alone on October 24th.

Speaker C [00:06:33]:
Smith remained in California caring for his mother, who nearly had a nervous breakdown.

Speaker B [00:06:38]:
Because of harassment by the pressure. When he landed At National Airport, 200 people, led by Black Power firebrand H. Rat Brown, SNCC organizer Coco Barnes, and Carmichael were on hand to greet him.

Speaker C [00:06:52]:
The crowds only increased as the day went on.

Speaker B [00:06:54]:
From the airport, Carlos headed to Federal City College, where almost 600 people gathered for an 11am press conference. Later in the day, 2,000 gathered outside.

Speaker C [00:07:05]:
Of Frederick Douglass hall at Howard University, where the student assembly presented Carlos with a gold medallion emblazoned with an image of Malcolm X.

Speaker B [00:07:14]:
Later that afternoon, Carlos and his entourage.

Speaker C [00:07:18]:
Retired to the New School of Afro.

Speaker B [00:07:19]:
American thought on 14th street, arguably the.

Speaker C [00:07:23]:
City'S most important hub for Black Power organizing. Carlos had not simply benefited from the.

Speaker B [00:07:28]:
City'S large black majority, approximately half a.

Speaker C [00:07:31]:
Million people, 70% of the population in.

Speaker B [00:07:35]:
1968, but its large and well organized community of Black Power activists. Every stop in his tour was orchestrated.

Speaker C [00:07:42]:
By local organizers and each of the.

Speaker B [00:07:44]:
Venues was Black run.

Speaker C [00:07:45]:
This huge Black Majority and dense Black.

Speaker B [00:07:48]:
Power activist community made the District a critical epicenter of Black Power organizing on.

Speaker C [00:07:53]:
Par with the better known communities in.

Speaker B [00:07:55]:
New York, Los Angeles, Newark and Chicago. Terminology this context study provides a brief history of the Black Power movement in Washington, D.C. it identifies important themes in the movement, names critical players, and establishes.

Speaker C [00:08:12]:
A list of places that define this history.

Speaker B [00:08:15]:
Black Power was and is a slippery.

Speaker C [00:08:17]:
Term that contemporaries used to refer to.

Speaker B [00:08:20]:
A wide array of activists ranging from black capitalists to Pan African socialists. Despite their differences, what united these activists was an embrace of three core tenets, Black self determination, self love and self defense, or, as the historian Rhonda Williams describes it, a politics in which black people placed less faith in white goodwill.

Speaker C [00:08:44]:
And paid more attention to the structure of power.

Speaker B [00:08:50]:
Period of Significance and Study Limitations Though Black Power politics has appeared and reappeared.

Speaker C [00:08:56]:
In African American life for well over.

Speaker B [00:08:58]:
A century, this study will focus on the movement between 1966 and 1978, when it overtook civil rights style politics and became the dominant impulse among African Americans.

Speaker C [00:09:10]:
Aside from these temporal limitations, this study.

Speaker B [00:09:13]:
Will explore the Black Power Movement in.

Speaker C [00:09:15]:
The District of Columbia only.

Speaker B [00:09:17]:
While we treat the District as a national hub for Black power organizing, giving.

Speaker C [00:09:21]:
Appropriate attention to famous out of town.

Speaker B [00:09:24]:
Activists like John Carlos, our focus is.

Speaker C [00:09:26]:
The community of organizers who made up.

Speaker B [00:09:28]:
The local movement and their impact on the city. The District of Columbia is unique among American cities Created by Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which reserve the ultimate power of legislative jurisdiction over the federal city to Congress, it is the voteless capital of a democracy.

Speaker C [00:09:49]:
The federal government's ultimate control over the.

Speaker B [00:09:51]:
City has often made it a laboratory for legislators interested in trying out new policies and a battleground for national interests.

Speaker C [00:09:59]:
Seeking to implement their vision of American.

Speaker B [00:10:01]:
Democracy on the symbolically important capital. This is particularly true when it comes.

Speaker C [00:10:06]:
To matters of race.

Speaker B [00:10:08]:
The District has always had a large black community. African Americans constituted roughly 20% of the population when Congress arrived in town in 1800 and their numbers have only once.

Speaker C [00:10:19]:
Dipped below that percentage in the intervening 222 years.

Speaker B [00:10:24]:
Indeed, in 1957, Rapid Black in migration and white out migration made the District.

Speaker C [00:10:31]:
The country's first majority black major American.

Speaker B [00:10:33]:
City and the black percentage of the population would continue to rise until it.

Speaker C [00:10:38]:
Reached a high of 73% in the early 1970s.

Speaker B [00:10:42]:
It was in this moment, when residents affectionately referred to the District as Chocolate City, that Black Power activists spearheaded the.

Speaker C [00:10:50]:
Effort to secure self determination for the city.

Speaker B [00:10:54]:
Methodology the Washington, D.C. black Power context study was carried out in two phases. Phase one occurred between 2016 and 2021.

Speaker C [00:11:06]:
And included the creation of a census.

Speaker B [00:11:08]:
Timeline of all of the major Black Power organizations and events that operated or.

Speaker C [00:11:13]:
Took place in the district between 1961 and 1978. A team of researchers led by George.

Speaker B [00:11:20]:
Derek Musgrove created the census by checking.

Speaker C [00:11:23]:
The secondary source literature to identify Black.

Speaker B [00:11:26]:
Power events and organizations that occurred or operated in the District of Columbia. They also conducted informational interviews with veteran DC Black Power activists to identify Black Power events and organizations that may not.

Speaker C [00:11:40]:
Have previously come to the attention of scholars. Third, the team of researchers searched D.C.

Speaker B [00:11:46]:
Newspapers, specifically the Washington Post, Evening Star, and Washington after, to identify additional events and organizations and write short descriptions of each.

Speaker C [00:11:57]:
In those instances where the above sources.

Speaker B [00:11:59]:
Were not sufficient to write a short.

Speaker C [00:12:00]:
Description of a given event or organization.

Speaker B [00:12:03]:
The team consulted the archival record. Phase two involved one the identification of.

Speaker C [00:12:10]:
Major themes to organize the development and.

Speaker B [00:12:12]:
Understanding of the context study and 2.

Speaker C [00:12:15]:
Public scoping engagement with a subject matter.

Speaker B [00:12:17]:
Expert panel to develop the themes and.

Speaker C [00:12:19]:
Topics that shaped Black Power history in dc.

Speaker B [00:12:23]:
Thank you to the subject matter experts Donnell Booz, Judy Richardson Charles Stevenson and.

Speaker C [00:12:28]:
Annie Balk for their insightful comments.

Speaker B [00:12:31]:
Themes Nine primary themes were identified in relation to sites associated with the Black.

Speaker C [00:12:37]:
Power movement in Washington, D.C. in 1966 through 1978.

Speaker B [00:12:42]:
However, approximately 30 of these, more than any other single thematic category, are not.

Speaker C [00:12:48]:
Primarily associated with any of the major themes.

Speaker B [00:12:51]:
For each site designated as Other, there's a survey in an appendix that provides an explanatory note. Historical Context of the Black Power Movement in the District of Columbia Origins the Washington, D.C. black Power movement grew out.

Speaker C [00:13:08]:
Of the wrenching transformations that engulfed the.

Speaker B [00:13:10]:
Nation'S capital in the two decades after World War II. With stunning rapidity, between 1945 and 1965.

Speaker C [00:13:19]:
The city was transformed from being majority.

Speaker B [00:13:21]:
White and legally segregated to majority black and de facto segregated to carry on the struggle for black equality.

Speaker C [00:13:28]:
In this new environment, African Americans gravitated.

Speaker B [00:13:31]:
Toward what many would call Black power politics. As of the mid-1940s, the district was.

Speaker C [00:13:36]:
Run by three presidentially appointed commissioners overseen by Congress. These federal officials worked closely with a powerful group of local businessmen to run the city.

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All of these political elites were white.

Speaker C [00:13:49]:
And overwhelmingly majority of them were determined to maintain segregation.

Speaker B [00:13:53]:
During the first half of the 20th century, these officials beat back local African.

Speaker C [00:13:58]:
Americans and white liberals efforts to end.

Speaker B [00:14:00]:
Segregation in the District. Following World War II, however, this group.

Speaker C [00:14:04]:
Lost the tacit support of key federal power brokers.

Speaker B [00:14:08]:
In order to strengthen the United States position in the Cold War, powerful members of the executive and judicial branches began.

Speaker C [00:14:15]:
To work with African American and liberal.

Speaker B [00:14:16]:
White reformers to in segregation in the nation's capital.

Speaker C [00:14:20]:
With no state or local government to.

Speaker B [00:14:22]:
Protect white supremacy, this coalition swept away.

Speaker C [00:14:25]:
The legal framework of segregation in the.

Speaker B [00:14:27]:
District within 10 years, a decade before.

Speaker C [00:14:30]:
They were able to do so in.

Speaker B [00:14:31]:
Other parts of the South. In 1946, President Truman issued the opening salvo.

Speaker C [00:14:37]:
At the urging of the civil rights.

Speaker B [00:14:39]:
Organizations who met with him following the bloody 1946 election, he appointed a President's Committee on Civil Rights. The following year, the body issued its report to Secure these Rights, which singled out segregation in the District as, quote.

Speaker C [00:14:54]:
A graphic illustration of the failure of US Democracy.

Speaker B [00:14:57]:
End quote. Leveraging his committee's findings, Truman issued a series of reforms, including Executive Order 9980.

Speaker C [00:15:06]:
Which banned segregation in the federal government.

Speaker B [00:15:08]:
Workforce, its city's largest employer. The president's actions emboldened civil rights activists in the city. They broadened their campaign for equal access to public facilities to nearly every aspect of Washington life, from playgrounds to buying.

Speaker C [00:15:21]:
A home to hospitals and the Supreme Court.

Speaker B [00:15:24]:
Often wielding amicus Curie briefs from the Executive provided. Sympathetic to their arguments in a series of landmark cases, it ruled that restrictive covenants, one of the principal ways white.

Speaker C [00:15:36]:
D.C. residents had enforced neighborhood segregation, were legally unenforceable. See heard v. Hodge, 1948.

Speaker B [00:15:43]:
And a 19th century law banning racial discrimination in District businesses, which had never officially been repealed, was legally enforceable District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co. 1953 and that segregation in public education was unconstitutional Bowling v. Sharp, 1954. Thus, within just one decade, as the historians Chris Myers Ash and George Derek Musgrove write, the legal pillars of District segregation had crumbled under the pressure of ceaseless community agitation, powerful interracial alliances, key.

Speaker C [00:16:22]:
Supreme Court decisions, and strategic support from federal authorities.

Speaker B [00:16:28]:
The end of legal segregation helped to spur massive demographic shifts in the District following World War II.

Speaker C [00:16:34]:
The district grew from a mid sized.

Speaker B [00:16:36]:
Southern city into a sprawling metropolitan area, an international hub of the United States Cold War state. This economic and spatial expansion attracted Americans of all races. Pooled by the city's growing service sector and pushed by the collapse of plantation agriculture, African Americans flooded out of rural Virginia and North Carolina and into the district. Between 1940 and 1960, the city's black population more than doubled, jumping from 187,000 to 411,000. Unable to access the segregated suburbs, these African Americans packed into the already overcrowded black Communities of Old L'Enfant City, south of Florida Avenue. The crush of people and the active.

Speaker C [00:17:21]:
Underdevelopment of these neighborhoods by slum landlords.

Speaker B [00:17:24]:
And redlining banks led to dramatic deterioration of the housing stock. As a result, the black middle class.

Speaker C [00:17:31]:
Headed north and eastward, seeking better housing.

Speaker B [00:17:34]:
In the previously segregated neighborhoods outside the burgeoning ghetto.

Speaker C [00:17:38]:
Their incursion into these all white neighborhoods.

Speaker B [00:17:41]:
Precipitated waves of panic selling among residents. In the 1940s, when segregation was still relatively secure, the city's white population actually increased by 40,000, although the majority of the metropolitan area, new white residents, went directly to the burgeoning suburbs. But as the barriers of segregation fell inside the city, white D.C. residents flooded out to the suburbs, with more than 170,000 leaving the District between 1950 and 1960. Another 130,000 would leave the city by the 1960s. By 1957, this racial churn had turned.

Speaker C [00:18:15]:
The District into the city's first major.

Speaker B [00:18:17]:
City with the black majority. Though civil rights activists and liberal reformers.

Speaker C [00:18:23]:
Had eliminated legal segregation in the nation's.

Speaker B [00:18:25]:
Capital and democratic change had created a black majority, the city remained starkly de facto segregated and unequal as late as 1961, black median wages were barely half those of white workers, and black people.

Speaker C [00:18:40]:
Had almost no presence in the upper.

Speaker B [00:18:42]:
Reaches of the federal government, district government and locally white owned businesses. White owned banks refused to lend to black buyers.

Speaker C [00:18:50]:
White real estate agents steered buyers to neighborhoods based on race. Determined both to draw middle class whites.

Speaker B [00:18:56]:
Back into the city and to ease their commute from the suburbs, federal planners instituted massive urban renewal and highway construction projects that displaced tens of thousands of poor residents, the vast majority of them black.

Speaker C [00:19:08]:
The 80% white police force regularly used.

Speaker B [00:19:11]:
Racial epithets and brute force when dealing with black citizens.

Speaker C [00:19:15]:
Segregationists in Congress marshaled their appropriating authority.

Speaker B [00:19:19]:
To underfund city agencies that served black Washingtonians and their inside authority to blame the city's problems on the black majority. Though legally desegregated, the city was a.

Speaker C [00:19:31]:
Critical front in the looming post civil rights era battle over the shape and.

Speaker B [00:19:35]:
Meaning of racial equality. Amidst these transformations, advocates of black nationalism, always present in the District's black community, grew in influence. Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, who.

Speaker C [00:19:50]:
Had personally established the city's Muslim community.

Speaker B [00:19:53]:
In 1937, began a major recruitment drive in 1961, rallying 10,000 at Uline arena.

Speaker C [00:19:59]:
And dedicating a newly built Mosque Number.

Speaker B [00:20:02]:
Four on New Jersey Avenue in Shaw. The Nation of Islam national spokesman, Malcolm X also visited the city that year.

Speaker C [00:20:10]:
On one trip debating the civil rights activist Bayard Rustin at Howard University.

Speaker B [00:20:14]:
For many young activists, the Muslim minister's message was captivating a leading member of Project Awareness, the student group that had staged the debate. The young organizer, Stokely Carmichael, recalled that.

Speaker C [00:20:26]:
Malcolm demonstrated the raw power, the visceral potency and the grip of our unarticulated collective blackness held over us.

Speaker B [00:20:36]:
Malcolm would return to the city briefly to helm mosque number four in 1943 and deepened his relationship with the student.

Speaker C [00:20:43]:
Activists at Howard University.

Speaker B [00:20:45]:
His ideas would have a formative impact on them, and many would become the.

Speaker C [00:20:48]:
Leaders of the DC Black power movement in the years ahead.

Speaker B [00:20:53]:
Another African American organizer gaining influence among the city's black community was Julius Hobson.

Speaker C [00:20:59]:
A federal civil servant and head of.

Speaker B [00:21:00]:
The D.C. chapter of the Congress of Racial Equity.

Speaker C [00:21:04]:
Hobson had used disruptive direct action campaigns.

Speaker B [00:21:07]:
To force nominally desegregated local institutions to hire African Americans before being ejected from the group for his authoritarian leadership style. In 1964, he worked with Malcolm X.

Speaker C [00:21:18]:
And the Cambridge, Maryland leader Gloria Richardson.

Speaker B [00:21:21]:
New York tenants rights activist Jesse Gray.

Speaker C [00:21:24]:
And others to form Associated Community Teams.

Speaker B [00:21:27]:
Act, a confederation of militant protest organizations.

Speaker C [00:21:31]:
Determined to seize political and economic power.

Speaker B [00:21:33]:
In their respective cities. The new group would isolate Uncle Tom.

Speaker C [00:21:38]:
Reject white liberals, and promote black unity.

Speaker B [00:21:42]:
According to one planning document. Easily the most ubiquitous protest leader of mid-1960s D.C. hobson's angry insistence on full.

Speaker C [00:21:52]:
Equality now and his disruptive protest techniques.

Speaker B [00:21:55]:
Became a model for many of the city's young activists. Ironically, the federal government helped to spread Hobson's style of politics.

Speaker C [00:22:03]:
In 1965, the Johnson administration launched its.

Speaker B [00:22:06]:
War on Poverty, an ambitious program to enlist the poor themselves in addressing the scourge of poverty in America.

Speaker C [00:22:14]:
Using an existing social services program, the.

Speaker B [00:22:17]:
United Planning Organization, and sometimes issuing direct.

Speaker C [00:22:20]:
Grants from agencies like the Department of.

Speaker B [00:22:22]:
Labor, the administration funneled millions of dollars.

Speaker C [00:22:25]:
Into the District to hire welfare mothers, street dudes, and former felons to oversee a host of organizations designed to address the problems of the ghetto. These organizers used this money to demand.

Speaker B [00:22:37]:
Police accountability, organize welfare recipients, and call for a popularly elected city government. Among a host of other issues, in the years ahead, they would become some.

Speaker C [00:22:48]:
Of the most militant activists in the city.

Speaker B [00:22:51]:
The Black Power movement begins in Washington.

Speaker C [00:22:53]:
D.C. after Stokely Carmichael's famed Aug. 16.

Speaker B [00:22:57]:
1966 call during the Meredith March Against Fear in Greenwood, Mississippi, we want Black Power. The D.C. black Power movement had no such dramatic inception. Rather, across much of 1966, both before and after Carmichael's speech, local organizers created.

Speaker C [00:23:17]:
A network of new organizations geared toward.

Speaker B [00:23:20]:
Gaining power, celebrating black culture and defending black life.

Speaker C [00:23:24]:
Building on the ideas and infrastructure created.

Speaker B [00:23:26]:
By Malcolm X, Julius Hobson, and the War on Poverty, they shifted the focus of black activism away from seeking equality of opportunity, which would disproportionately benefit the black middle class, and toward gaining resources and control for the poor. As in the rest of the country.

Speaker C [00:23:42]:
The Black power movement in D.C. grew.

Speaker B [00:23:44]:
Out of the civil rights movement. Marion Barry, head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's DC chapter, also known as.

Speaker C [00:23:52]:
SNCC, created the Free DC Movement in.

Speaker B [00:23:54]:
February 1966 to reinvigorate the campaign for home rule. Barry hoped to quote Free DC from our enemies, the people who make it impossible for us to do anything about lousy schools, brutal cops, slumlords, and a host of other ills that run rampant through our city. That April, D.C. southern Christian Leadership Conference SCLC leader Walter Fauntroy founded the Model Inner City Community Organization to seize control of the urban renewal process in Shaw.

Speaker C [00:24:28]:
Determined to avoid the mass displacement of.

Speaker B [00:24:30]:
African Americans and poor whites that had occurred in Southwest, what Fauntroy called Negro removal, the SCLC leader worked to ensure that this time around, urban renewal would be of, by and for the people. End quote. And in May 1966, Representative Adam Clayton Powell, a Democrat from Harlem once known as Mr. Civil Rights, called for, quote, black Power, what I call audacious power, end quote. At the Howard University commencement, Stokely Carmichael, then national Chairman of sncc, found the language so compelling that he called Powell's office to ask for a copy of the address. By the summer of 1966, the Black.

Speaker C [00:25:14]:
Power movement was in full swing in.

Speaker B [00:25:16]:
The District of Columbia, and over the course of the next 12 years it would grow to become one of the.

Speaker C [00:25:21]:
Largest and most important in the nation.

Speaker B [00:25:25]:
This context study goes on to provide context in the following nine themes. Theme 1 the War on Poverty organizing theme 2 Black Women's Activism and Gender Analysis theme 3 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, also known as SNCC theme 4 Black Arts Movement theme 5 the Black.

Speaker C [00:25:50]:
Student Activism and Black Independent Schools theme.

Speaker B [00:25:54]:
6 Self Defense theme 7 Labor theme 8 Pan Africanism and theme 9 the Movement Becomes the Government. So that's the end of the excerpt in case you were wondering to be.

Speaker C [00:26:08]:
Eligible for listing in accordance with this.

Speaker B [00:26:10]:
Contact statement, properties must be located within.

Speaker C [00:26:13]:
The boundaries of the District of Columbia, possess historical associations related to the Black.

Speaker B [00:26:18]:
Power movement in Washington, D.C. and attained.

Speaker C [00:26:21]:
Their significance during the context period of.

Speaker B [00:26:24]:
1966 to 1978, as well as retained sufficient physical integrity related to the relevant themes outlined in this study to convey their significance. And so, to wrap up this episode, I don't know what is next, but I do know that highlighting the histories of marginalized people and remembering those who came before us can provide solace and guidance for how we regroup and move forward. The stories and experiences of marginalized people are important and they will continue to be so into the future. So I hope you enjoyed hearing more about the history of Black power in.

Speaker C [00:27:02]:
Washington, D.C. in the 20th century.

Speaker B [00:27:03]:
I hope you will read the context study, use it, share it, and I hope you take care of yourself. Be well.

Speaker A [00:27:10]:
Thank you so much for listening. Links to amazing resources can be found in the episode's show Notes. Special thanks to Sarah Gilberg for allowing me to use snippets of her song Fireflies from her debut album Other People's Secrets, which, by the way, is available wherever music is sold. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to the show. And now that Tangible Remnants is part of the Gable Media Network, you can listen and subscribe to all network partner content@gablemedia.com that's G A B L media.com until next time. Remember that historic preservation is a present conversation with our past about our future. We don't inherit the earth from our parents, but we borrow it from our children. So let's make sure we're telling our inclusive history.

Speaker D [00:27:58]:
I saw the first fireflies of summer and right then I thought of you oh, I could see us catching them and setting them free Honey, that's what you do that's what you do to me.