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Washington, D.C., has manymuseums. Some examine Washington as a federal city. But a new museumtells the story of the nation’s capital and its people. I’m FaithLapidus.
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And I’m Steve Ember. We tell about the City Museum this week onthe VOA Special English program, This is America.
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Barbara Franco is director of the City Museum. She says visitorslearn that Washington, D.C., is much more than just the historicbuildings. D.C. means District of Columbia, the name of the largerfederal area with Washington at the center. The museum tells aboutthe people and events that helped shaped the capital.Five-hundred-thousand people live in the city.
The City Museum is a thirty-million dollar project. It wascreated by the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. The HistoricalSociety was founded in eighteen-ninety-four.
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The City Museum is inside the Carnegie Library building at MountVernon Square, in Washington’s newly redeveloped downtown area. TheCarnegie Library was the city’s first public library. It was openfrom nineteen-oh-three until nineteen-seventy. The Carnegie Librarywas chosen for the museum because of its own history as a welcomingplace. There was a time when laws could keep black people out ofbuildings. The Carnegie Library is one of the few public buildingsin Washington that was never segregated.
Barbara Franco says the City Museum is designed to beinteractive. Doors open to different periods in Washington’shistory. Visitors pick up a speakerphone and listen to stories aboutthe city. A film tells the history with hip-hop music and specialeffects. Pictures of Presidents George Washington and AbrahamLincoln speak and appear to jump out at you.
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The main room has many pictures and rare documents. Visitors canread the freedom papers of a former slave. A poster fromeighty-sixty-five offers reward money to find the killer ofPresident Lincoln. The killer was John Wilkes Booth, an actor whosupported the Confederate states of the South. Booth was caught andkilled before there could be a trial.
But Barbara Franco says the most popular thing at the museum is ahuge lighted floor map of Washington. The map was made from asatellite picture. Local visitors can find their home, or school, oranyplace else around the city.
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Around the map, the room is divided into time periods. Thesebegin with the Piscataway Indians who settled the area four-thousandyears ago.
Visitors learn about PierreL’Enfant, a French-born building designer who lived in America.L’Enfant designed the city of Washington in seventy-ninety-one, atthe direction of George Washington, the nation’s first president.
And there was Alexander Shepherd. He was governor of Washingtonfrom eighteen-seventy-three to eighteen-seventy-four. He led animprovement campaign that included building streets and plantingtrees. But he left the city several million dollars in debt.
There is also the story of James Wormley. His father was a slave.Yet in eighteen-seventy-one, after the Civil War, James Wormleyopened one of the best hotels in the city.
Barbara Franco says this success shows that African Americansplayed an important part in Washington’s early history. But shenotes that some of that progress was harmed because of future lawsin America that treated blacks unfairly.
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Washington has more than one-hundred-twenty-five neighborhoodcommunities. Visitors to the museum learn about areas such as AdamsMorgan, Georgetown and Chinatown.
Chinese immigrants established a community on Pennsylvania Avenueduring the middle of the eighteen-hundreds. They were later forcedout, but found a permanent home along H Street in NorthwestWashington.
The City Museum also deals with longstanding tensions over localcontrol of Washington. Today, Washington has an elected mayor andcity council. But citizens protest that while they have taxation,they have no voting representation in Congress. Some people thinkthe solution is to make Washington the fifty-first state.
The museum also explores the city’s history of racial problems.Tensions were high during the slavery debates before the Civil Warin the eighteen-sixties. In nineteen-nineteen, race riots tookplace. Whites attacked black neighborhoods. In nineteen-sixty-eight,blacks rioted after the murder of Martin Luther King Junior inMemphis, Tennessee.
During the nineteen-sixties, African Americans also protestedracial inequality in schools. They worked to desegregate eatingplaces and theaters. And they worked to end restrictive housinglaws.
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Some streets in Washington are named after letters in thealphabet. U Street, for example, has a long and interesting history.In the early nineteen-hundreds, Greater U Street was the center ofentertainment and business in Washington.
U Street was part of the artistic movement of thenineteen-twenties and thirties known as the Harlem Renaissance.People heard some of the city’s best music along what became knownas the black Broadway. Singer Bessie Smith played at the HowardTheater. So did a Washingtonian who became a famous orchestraleader, Duke Ellington.
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U Street also was home to the Twelfth Street YMCA, a center forcommunity activities and sports. YMCA stands for Young Men’sChristian Association. The Twelfth Street “Y,” as it was called, wasthe first black YMCA in the country. It was built innineteen-twelve.
Here was one of the few places where African Americans could finda home away from home and make life-long friends. Politicalactivists met at the Y to organize marches to demand the samefreedoms as white people.
Teachers and professors lived at the Y because rooms there didnot cost much. Writer Langston Hughes lived at the Twelfth Street Ywhen he wrote his first book in the nineteen-twenties. Listen now toa recording from the City Museum of a doctor and his wife:
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MAN: “I probably wouldn’t be here today if it hadn’t been for theY. Because, as I can look back, I came to Washington, never been outof Texas, had less than five dollars after I paid the cab fare fromUnion Station to the Y — now this was in January, snow was on theground — and here I am, they literally took me in.”
WOMAN: “The Y gave me my first job. That was my first time beingaway from home, where I took care of myself. I made friends backthen, who are still my friends. I think being at the Y had animpression on my life.”
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As visitors explore the City Museum, they learn about the periodwhen Marion Barry was mayor of Washington. He began as an activistseeking home rule for the District and civil rights. His popularitywon him election to the school board, the city council and finallythe mayor’s office. He served from nineteen-seventy-eight tonineteen-ninety.
But there were mismanaged social programs, debt and repeatedaccusations of dishonesty in his administration. In nineteen-ninety,Marion Barry was arrested for drug possession. He resigned andserved six months in prison. Then, in nineteen-ninety-four,Washington voters elected him to four more years as mayor.
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When people in Washington are tired of politics, they can turn tosports. Washington has a number of teams, although no Major Leaguebaseball team for more than thirty years. Yet, during segregation,even sports was no escape from racial realities.
Negro League baseball teams were popular in thenineteen-thirties. But they could not play white teams. Sportscenters for blacks often lacked equipment and space. Race alsodivided play areas for children. Listen to this recording from theCity Museum:
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WOMAN: “Only ten white children are using the spacious New YorkAvenue playground, while across the street a thousand Negro girlsand five-hundred Negro boys at the Dunbar High School have no playspace at all. Dark-skinned children peer wistfully through the fenceat a well-equipped white playground in their neighborhood. HistorianConstance Green.”
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Over the years, some government agencies and businesses have leftWashington for nearby areas of Virginia and Maryland. Many whitesfled the city after the nineteen-sixty-eight riots and the highcrime rates of more recent years. So did a lot of blacks, especiallywealthier ones.
Today, some people are returning to Washington. There is a lot ofbuilding and redevelopment going on. City Museum director BarbaraFranco hopes the new exhibits will get more people to explore whatshe says is the real museum — Washington itself.
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VOICE ONE:
This is America was written and produced by Cynthia Kirk. This isFaith Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week for anotherprogram about life in the United States on the VOA Special Englishprogram, This is America.