The Intelligencer · same day that I hosted a U Street program at the Busboys and Poets on 14th St....
Transcript of The Intelligencer · same day that I hosted a U Street program at the Busboys and Poets on 14th St....
DC AFRICANA ARCHIVES
PROJECT KICKS OFF
Derek Gray, Archivist
You have old boxes of photos. You’re not sure what to
do with them. You have letters and scrapbooks from
your grand (and great-grand) parents. You think they are
junk, no one is interested in them, so why keep them
around, right?
Wrong! The DC Public Library Special Collections
Department is currently seeking photographs, letters, scrapbooks, and other memorabilia that are
what is nowadays called “hidden history” through the DC Africana Archives Project or “DCAAP.”
In 2014, the George Washington University (GWU) received a $496,000 grant from the Council on
Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to establish the project. Its goal is to document African
American and African history, culture, and politics in the District of Columbia through items regard-
less of format documents, video and audio recordings, photographs, etc. DC AFRICANA, contin-
ued page 4
Spring 2015
U STREET ORAL
HISTORY PROJECT,
page 2
Georgetown Property Records Rescued. . . . . 2
Commissioners Reports Digitized. . . . . 3
Special Collections News Items and
Coming Events. . . . . 3
Hours and Contact. . . . . 4
The Intelligencer The Latest News From Washingtoniana and Black Studies, DC Public Library
From Josephine Butler Collection, DC Community Archives,
From The Evening Star Collection, Washingtoniana, U Street
GEORGETOWN PROPERTY RECORDS RESCUED
Jerry McCoy, Librarian
From the “Archival Collections That Almost
Got Away” file comes this assemblage of
thirty years-worth of Georgetown property
sales records that had been consigned to a
dumpster. Eighteen shoe boxes of meticu-
lously arranged records that were begun in
the early 1980s had been placed in garbage
bags and were ready to be thrown out when a friend of the Peabody Room spotted them.
He asked the owner if he could donate them to our collection and permission was granted (along
with a signed deed of gift form). Over half of the materials have been incorporated into our house
history files. This important information adds immensely to the economic and social history of
Georgetown.
If you have materials relating to a Georgetown property (especially photographs, no matter how
recent) please consider donating the originals or even copies. Future researchers will thank you.
Contact Jerry A. McCoy at [email protected] or (202) 727-0233.
U STREET MEMORIES FROM
DUKE ELLINGTON
TO MARVIN GAYE
Kelly E. Navies, Librarian
During the early to mid-20th Century, the district known as
U Street was the heart of the African American business
and recreation communities of Washington, DC. Known
briefly as “Black Broadway” during the Jazz age of the
1920s, this area, with its multitude of businesses, was a haven for African Americans from all walks
of life in a city deeply marked by legal segregation.
When the legendary Howard Theatre re-opened in 2012, there was a resurgence of interest in the
history of this iconic theatre and the historic U street corridor. As an oral historian, I knew that there
were dozens of people still around who remembered this area before the destruction that occurred in
the wake of the 1968 riots. Thus the U Street Oral History Project was born. With the help of Jazz
historian and WPFW radio personality, Rusty Hassan, I found native Washingtonians who had vivid
memories of the scene either as performers, business owners, entertainment industry professionals,
or just patrons who frequented the area. U STREET, continued page 4
From DC Community Archives, Washingtoniana
COMMISSIONERS REPORTS DIGITIZED
Lauren Algee, Digital Projects Librarian
The Reports of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia have been
digitized from microfilm and are available to view through our DigDC web
portal at: digdc.dclibrary.org. This marks the first unveiling of a new col-
lection since the launch of DigDC in October 2104.
These volumes contain reports compiled from numerous DC government
offices and were presented to Congress by the three-member Board of
Commissioners annually. They provide a unique, detailed glimpse into
DC life and government spanning from 1874-1929. A majority of the vol-
umes consist of annual statistical charts and summaries on subjects
ranging from city expenditures to residential demographic data to de-
tailed public health information. Some reports also include maps, illustra-
tions, diagrams and photographs such as this 1898 image of early electri-
cal lines in D.C.
Special Collections News Items and Coming Events
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The DC Punk Archive continues to grow, including a recent donation of or-
ganizational records from Radio CPR. Project updates: dclibrary.org/punk
Join Charlene Drew Jarvis delivered a lecture about women in politics and
government on March 26, 6:30pm in the Black Studies Center.
Author Garrett Peck discussed Walt Whitman in Washington, DC: The Civil
War and America’s Greatest Poet on March 26, 6:30pm in Washingtoniana.
Women’s History Ride with Women & Bicycles will feature images from
Washingtoniana. Meet on March 28 at 1pm in front of MLK Library then visit
several other neighborhood libraries.
Celebrate U Street with the DC Legendary Musicians on April 2, 6pm in the
Great Hall.
House History workshop returns April 18, 2015. Register at
dchumanities.org.
Call for submissions: Annual Conference on DC Historical Studies. Visit
dchistory.org
Corner Thirteen-And-A-Half Street and
Pennsylvania Avenue. April 1898
Charlene Drew Jarvis, PhD
DC AFRICANA from page 1
The current collection being processed is the Lawrence Guyot, Jr. Papers.
Mr. Guyot was an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, columnist, and
activist in the Civil Rights Movement as a member of the Mississippi Free-
dom Democratic Party in the 1960s. The collection is being preserved, ar-
ranged and described by Emily Weeks and Jada Curtis, two GWU graduate
students hired for the project.
The DCAAP will organize, describe, and catalog the items, and create a
website administered by GWU for public access. Although the university is
the lead grant recipient, the DC Public Library is working with several other
repositories in the city: District of Columbia Archives, Howard University’s
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, the Historical Society of Washington,
DC, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (Archives
Center).
To learn more about the DC Africana Archives Project and/or to donate items, please contact Derek
Gray, Archivist, at [email protected] or (202) 727-2272.
U STREET from page 2
On August 28 2014, the Washington Post profiled the project on the very
same day that I hosted a U Street program at the Busboys and Poets on
14th St. NW. Consequently, the event drew a packed audience with perfor-
mances by Gregory Gaskins of the DC Legendary Musicians and the U
Street Jazz Collective. See link: tinyurl.com/mwytgc6
In January 2015, WJLA, channel 7 ran a story on the project which featured
4th generation Washingtonian Sandra Butler-Truesdale and performer, Ida
Campbell. Ms. Butler-Truesdale was the first interviewee for the project and
is the founder of the DC Legendary Musicians. Currently, the U Street Oral
History project is wrapping up and the oral histories will be digitized and
made available this year. For future updates about the accessibility of the
oral histories, please visit dclibrary.org/research/collections.
About Special Collections
Hours: Monday-Thursday 11am - 8pm, Friday-Saturday 9:30am - 5:30pm or by appointment
Location: Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW Washington, DC 20009
Washingtoniana, Room 307 Black Studies Center, Room 316
202-727-1213 202-727-1211
[email protected] dclibrary.org/research/collections
Special Collections projects have been funded in part by:
From Arrington Dixon Collection, DC
Community Archives, Washingtoniana
Therrell Smith, Interviewee