On February 27, 1993, the Washingtoniana Division held a public panel entitled “Milestone on the Road to Self-Government” at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. The panel was part of the 20th Annual Conference on Washington, D.C. Historical Studies. Panelists included John Bonner Duncan, Walter E. Washington, John Hechinger, and Charles Horsky, prominent D.C. politicians who played key roles in D.C.’s transition from the three-commissioner-led government to home rule in 1973. The panel was recorded and a separate interview was conducted in 1993 with Hechinger in which he reflects on his life, business, race relations, and his role as D.C.’s first Chairman of the City Council. The latter was part of a planned post-WWII Washington documentation project led by the Washingtoniana Division and the D.C. Archives and Records Center. The two sets of recordings were later combined into a single oral history project focused on documenting and interpreting the political development of a major metropolitan community since the end of World War II. The project includes audio recordings and transcripts of a panel discussion of the transition to home rule and a follow-up interview with one of the panelists. Topics include the formation of the D.C. city government, D.C.’s relationship with the federal government, the roles of interviewees in business and government, and race relations.