DC Public Library, The People’s Archive

Content Description

Oral history interviews commissioned by the DC Public Library Foundation documenting a subset of the activist community at the Black Lives Matter Memorial Fence in Lafayette Park who worked to protect and curate the Fence.

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Oral history interviews recorded by students in the Real World History class at Center for Inspired Teaching.

Content Description Creating and Teaching Real World History is a companion project to the Center for Inspired Teaching 'Real World History' Oral History Project. This project includes interviews with Cosby Hunt, creator of the Real World History program, Caitlin Wolf, co-teacher of Real World History from 2015-2017, and Ms. Edith Crutchfield, a long-time D.C. resident who moved to Washington, D.C., from Culpeper, Virginia, in 1953. Ms. Crutchfield first became involved with Real World History when she...

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The Go-Go Museum & Café and partners collected 11 oral histories, produced two go-go concerts, and organized a major conference on go-go: “Go-Go Preservation Week 2021” in collaboration with the Traditional Arts DC project at Howard University. The Go-Go-Preservation Week panel discussions, concerts, and oral history collections.

Scope and Contents From 2005 and 2007, Ingrid Drake coordinated the Ivy City Oral History Project, in collaboration with the youth of Ivy City Achievers. She interviewed and supervised interviews with residents of the Ivy City neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The project was part of a larger initiative of Empower D.C., a grassroots nonprofit in D.C., called the Ivy City Neighborhood and Oral History Project, which began in 2004. The larger initiative arose from a plan to preserve Alexander Crummell School in...

Content Description

This collection contains transcripts of interviews conducted by Kip Lornell and Charles Stephenson as part of the research for their book "The Beat: Go-Go's Fusion of Funk and Hip-Hop." The materials document the evolution of Go-Go performers and sound; as well as the cultural and political role the music plays in Washington, D.C.

Scope and Contents Mapping Segregation in Washington DC: School and Neighborhood Desegregation in Ward 4 documents the transformation of Ward 4 neighborhoods and schools during the 1950s and early 1960s. Ward 4 was predominantly white in the early 1940s, but saw a shift in demographics as white families fled after the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bolling v. Sharpe, in which public school segregation was deemed unconstitutional in the District of Columbia. This project primarily consists of interviews with...

Scope and Contents Between 2003 and 2005 Joseph Lapp conducted a series of oral history interviews to document the history of the Kenilworth neighborhood. Interviewees included Lapp family members and the Fellowship Haven Church community. Topics include family stories, tenant management movement, Aquatic gardens, African-American experience and the Eastland Gardens community. Digital files include copies of all transcripts, PowerPoint presentation given at Kenilworth History Day celebration, and a general...

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Between 1976 and 1981 the Schlesinger Library of Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, conducted over 70 oral history interviews with African-American women, of which the transcripts of 8 D.C. interviews were donated to the D.C. Public Library. Topics include family background, childhood history, family, socioeconomic status, education, influences, accomplishments and the effects of sex and race on their lives. No tapes of these interviews were transferred to the Library.

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In 2001 the Oral History Committee of Historic Takoma received a grant from Montgomery County's Historic Preservation Commission to conduct interviews with three longtime residents of Takoma Park, Maryland. Topics include public schools, World War II, architecture, real estate development, transportation, the African-American community, race relations, churches, and recreation in the neighborhood and metropolitan area. All interviews were conducted Eilene McGuckian.