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 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...

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In 1993, Jeff Koenreich conducted these oral histories for the Library's Oral History Project. Residents of the Striver Section of the Shaw neighborhood were interviewed. Topics include the history of the neighborhood, childhood, family, segregation, the Civil Rights movement, and the community.

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.

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Between 1993 and 1997, Service Employees International Union Local 82, the DC branch of a union representing mainly custodial workers, conducted a total of 13 oral history interviews with union members as part of the Service Workers’ Oral History and Education Project. Interviewees were current and former union members of all ages, some who had taken part in union leadership. Topics include work experiences, union politics, interviewee experiences in union leadership, and health.

Content Description

Digital audio recordings and PDF transcripts of 10 oral history interviews recorded by Shaw Library staff to document the Shaw neighborhood and the effect of the 1968 riots on its community.

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Between 1983 and 1985, Dolores Smith conducted 33 oral history interviews as a part of her film project Southwest Remembered: A Story of Urban Renewal. Interviewees were residents, business owners, and others with longstanding connections to the Southwest neighborhood. Topics include the Southwest neighborhood before urban renewal, the effects of urban renewal on the neighborhood and community, childhood and life experiences, and work and social life.