DC Public Library, The People’s Archive

Scope and Contents

Between 1972 and 1992 the Library conducted 29 oral history interviews with individuals who had a long association with and knowledge of Washington D.C. Topics include childhood experiences, segregation, religion, neighborhoods, education, communities, employment, demographics and social life. The interviews were organized and conducted by Marcia M. Greenlee and Roxanna Deane.

Scope and Contents

Between 1998 and 1999 the Historical Society of Washington conducted a total of 40 oral history interviews with adults who had attended D.C. public schools. Topics include educational experiences, schools attended, dates of graduation. The project director was Karen Washburn, Oral Historian for the Historical Society.

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 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.