The Whitelaw was a luxury hotel for blacks in the Jim Crow era. It was built by John Whitelaw Lewis who also founded Industral Bank.
http://www.culturaltourismdc.org/info...
http://www.nps.gov/history/40th/DC.htm
On 14th Street in DC riots took place after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This happened 6 months after I was born and now 40 years later the place where the riots began in DC now has people supporting a Black candidate for President of the United States. 14th Street has recovered from the riots and new buildings now line its streets. The area has been revived but it is a lot less black. David Morneau composed a score to my video using the voice of MLK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Was...,_D.C._riots
http://60x365,com/
When I came to DC this place, Club Bali, was home to Living Stage, a theater company. I had no idea it was a club where the likes of Louis Armstrong and Sarah Vaughn performed. If it was the 1940's I might take my baby to this club for a nice Valentines day dinner. Or maybe we would go to the Whitelaw Hotel and take a stroll down U Street to show off a little and have a late night snack.
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!
http://www.gwu.edu/~jazz/venuesb.html
Opened in 1958 as a place where blacks could go and eat without feeling like second class citizens Ben's Chili Bowl is a DC landmark. It is the place to go when you want a half-smoke.
In its early days from the 20's to the 50's the Lincoln Theater was the place where black people went to see performances and movies. Today's dance takes place in front of the recently restored theater in the recently revived neighborhood.
http://www.thelincolntheatre.org/index.asp
Charles "Sweet Daddy" Grace offered am alternative to traditional Christianity. He founded the United House Of Prayer for All People in 1927. Today's dance takes place in front of his house on Logan Circle.
This school was named after Charles Sumner a US Senator and abolitionist. Its primary function was the education of black children. The first high school class graduated in 1877.
This dance takes place in front of the Howard Theater near U Street also called the Black Broadway. The Howard was a Black owned theater which opened in 1910 and as you can imagine many prominent Black artist performed there. One of those artists was Charles Mingus who recorded an album there in 1948 with Lionel Hampton. David Morneau uses the sound of Mingus for this week's collaboration. The Howard Theater is supposedly returning to operation this summer.
http://www.gwu.edu/~jazz/venuesh.html
This dance takes place in front of the National Council of Negro Women. Bethune did so many things in her lifetime and I am astonished by all she accomplished as an educator and presidential adviser and civil rights leader. There is a statue of Bethune in Lincoln Park and I taped some stuff there this summer and I was going to use it in today's video but I can't seem to find it. Maybe I will have to go back and tape some new material.
Blanche Kelso Bruce was the first African-American to serve a full term as a US Senator. His house is around the corner from where I live. The first African-American to serve in the Senate was Hiram Rhodes Revels who was born in the same town that I was, Fayetteville, NC. I just learned that, how sad. I dance in front of Bruce's house. The first photo is of Bruce and his wife Josephine.
After the Civil War blacks flooded into Washington DC and as a result there was a housing shortage. Families began to live in the large alleys in makeshift shacks. Today's dance takes place in Blagden Alley.
Benjamin Banneker assisted Andrew Elicott with the surveying the District of Columbia. He was also a publisher and a clock maker. This park at the end of L'Enfant plaza is named for him.
The Carter G. Woodson house is in bad shape but the park is at least supposed to be getting 2.5 million for repairs. I found several blogs about the Shaw neighborhood that deal with the issue. We need to do a better job of maintaining these historic monuments to our great leaders and not allow them to be neglected. Check out the following blogs about the park.
Godspeed
http://goodspeedupdate.com/2008/2180
The founder of Black History month was a Harvard PhD named Carter G. Woodson. In 1926 Dr. Woodson began Black History Week. Around the corner from where I live is Dr. Woodson's home which is run by the National Park Service. It is in an unfortunate state surrounded by abandoned buildings and itself abandoned save for a few signs one of which reads "no trespassing."
