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Mapping Segregation in Washington DC: School and Neighborhood Desegregation in Ward 4
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- Arrington Dixon
- In this interview, Arrington Dixon discussed his early experiences living in Anacostia and moving to the Lamond Riggs area. Dixon remembers segregation and discrimination growing up, and the impact of the church on his life. He also recalls taking the trolleys to McKinley High School, the death of his brother, and running for Councilmember of Ward 4., Arrington Dixon is a native Washingtonian who grew up in Anacostia before moving to Lamond Riggs while was attending Howard University. In 1964, he joined the Air Force Academy. In 1968, Dixon was elected to the D.C. Council to represent Ward 4.
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- Audrey Hinton and Diane Hinton Perry
- In this interview with Diane Hinton Perry and Audrey Hinton, the sisters discuss white flight after moving to Farragut Street NW in 1953, desegregation of their elementary school, and shopping along 14the Street. They also describe their father's life and their various careers., Diane Hinton Perry and Audrey Hinton grew up near Logan Circle and then Sixteenth Street Heights. Both attended school at Parkview Elementary before they were transferred to West Elementary for desegregation, McFarland Junior High, and Roosevelt High School. Diane Hinton Perry now lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
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- Bobbie Coles
- In this interview, Kyle-Coles discusses her move to Washington D.C.; the harassment and threat of violence directed at her family as one of the first Black households in their neighborhood; her experiences in the D.C. public schools before and after legal desegregation; working in D.C.; and other topics related to her family’s experiences in D.C. and in Alabama., Bobbie Coles was born in 1945 in Birmingham, Alabama, and moved to Washington, D.C. when she was in the second grade. Her family first lived at the Parklands apartment complex on Alabama Avenue and Stanton Road SE, where they attended Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church and Coles was a student at the church’s school. Coles’ family moved to 1230 Van Buren Street in 1957. She attended Paul Junior High, a mostly white middle school, where she was placed in a lower track for non-college bound students. At Coolidge High School, she was tracked for college prep. Coles graduated from Howard University and worked for ATandT. Her family sold the house on Van Buren Street in 1999., Collection 220, Mapping Segregation in Washington D.C. Oral History Project, is not part of the DC Oral History Collaborative. However, the interviews from Collection 220 are part of the Mapping Segregation in Washington, D.C. project. The topic and interviewers are the same, the funding sources are different. The interviews from Collection 220 have been included with the interviews from the DC Oral History Collaborative as a convenience to researchers.
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- Brinnie and Angie Whitehurst
- In Part 1 of this interview, Brinnie and Angie recount the various places Brinnie lived in the District before moving to Peabody Street; the experience of living in a 2-bedroom house with Fort Slocum as their backyard; their neighbors; and another relative’s loss of her home in Petworth to eminent domain. Angie also discusses her memories of the schools she attended., Brinnie Whitehurst was born in Edmond, West Virginia in 1928 and moved to Washington, D.C. in the 1940s where she attended Armstrong High School. After attending Bluefield State College in West Virginia, she moved back to D.C. where she married and raised four children. In 1959, the family moved to 128 Peabody Street NW, next to Fort Slocum Park. Four years later their house was among 19 taken by eminent domain to build Rabaut Junior High School. The family moved to 1309 Hamilton Street NW. Brinnie’s daughter Angelyn (Angie) Whitehurst was in second grade at this time. She attended Bancroft and Whittier elementary schools, MacFarland Junior High School, and Woodrow Wilson High School., Collection 220, Mapping Segregation in Washington D.C. Oral History Project, is not part of the DC Oral History Collaborative. However, the interviews from Collection 220 are part of the Mapping Segregation in Washington, D.C. project. The topic and interviewers are the same, the funding sources are different. The interviews from Collection 220 have been included with the interviews from the DC Oral History Collaborative as a convenience to researchers.
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- Carolivia Herron
- In Part 1 of this interview, Carolivia Herron discusses growing up in Northeast Washington, D.C. in a segregated neighborhood, Douglass Street NE in Kenilworth, and visiting her grandmother's house in Capitol Heights. Herron recounts her experiences growing up a Black Jewish kid in school, her family's role in blockbusting their Takoma neighborhood, and Neighbors, Incorporated., Carolivia Herron was born in 1941 at the Freedmen's Hospital of Howard University in Washington, D.C. She grew up in the Mayfair Mansions Apartments before moving with her parents to Takoma in the early 1950s. She attended Neval Thomas Elementary School, Woodson Junior High and Paul Junior High, and Spingarn High School. She attended Howard University, where she met Stokely Carmichael. In 2016, she published an autobiographical book called Peacesong DC. She is the current president of Neighbors, Inc.
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- David Nicholson
- This is Part 1 of 3 interviews with David E. Nicholson. Nicholson discusses growing up in Bloomingdale, his experience in DC Public Schools, and his family's involvement with St. George's Episcopal Church., David E. Nicholson was born in 1951 in Washington, D.C. before his family moved to Jamaica. He moved back to D.C. with his mother and siblings in 1960, where they lived with his grandparents in Bloomingdale. He attended a segregated elementary school and went to Sidwell Friends for high school through the Black Student Fund. Nicholson worked for the Washington Post for 13 years, before becoming a house husband and writer.
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- Ethel Delaney Lee
- In this interview, Ethel Delaney Lee discusses how she first came to live in D.C. as a young adult in the 1950s and her eight-year employment in the Woman’s Bureau of the D.C. police department. She witnessed the treatment of musician and activist Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin, and of the opera star Lillian Evanti, after they were arrested. As a woman officer, she was mostly responsible for cases related to domestic violence and child neglect. Ms. Lee also discusses the neighborhood of North Portal Estates, where she lived for much of her adult life, and her children, including her son’s career as a football player and then as the owner of a physical therapy practice with several locations in the D.C. area. She concludes the interview with a recounting of her brother’s murder in North Carolina by a drug-addicted relative., Ethel Delaney Lee was born in Bordentown, New Jersey in 1926 and grew up in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York, the daughter of a Methodist minister. In 1947, she graduated from Howard University, where she met her future husband, and she moved to D.C. in 1952. In 1954, she and her husband bought a house in D.C.'s Petworth neighborhood, where they lived for nine years. They were among the first Black families to move to the 400 block of Delafield Place NW. In 1963, she and her husband moved to North Portal Estates. Ms. Lee worked as a D.C. police officer from 1954 to 1962, and spent the rest of her career with the D.C. Public Schools, retiring in 1990 to work in her daughter’s dental practice and help care for her granddaughter. Ms. Lee died on Jan. 28, 2022.
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- Faith Wheeler
- In this interview, Faith Wheeler discusses how she came to live in DC and what attracted her to Takoma – specifically that it was a mostly Black, integrated, and friendly community where the neighbors looked out for one another. She talks about some of her longtime neighbors and the work of Neighbors, Inc., which she became involved with. She discusses her daughter’s schooling and the decision to send her to Sidwell Friends rather than Takoma Elementary School. She comments on her daughter’s African American friends having moved to Prince George’s County as adults. She discusses her role as ANC Commissioner in bridging conflicts over the use of a public park, and all of the people she got to know through her civic work, for example via a cross-jurisdictional group called Safe Takoma. She describes a very successful street festival that helped bring together people who had been the subject of complaints about loitering in the park with homeowner residents and business owners., Faith Wheeler was born in 1941 in Massachusetts. She attended Wilmington College in Ohio, and in her last semester, participated in American University’s Washington Semester Program. She then lived in Costa Rica, DC, and Kansas over the next eight years, and moved to DC full-time in 1970. Beginning with a job as a translator, she spent the next 30 years working for the Inter-American Development Bank. She lived in Dupont Circle, Adams Morgan, Glover Park, and Adams Morgan again before moving to her current address in 1978 with her husband and baby. In Takoma, she became involved with various civic organizations, including Neighbors, Inc., and eventually became an ANC Commissioner. She also helped organize the annual Takoma Park Folk Festival and worked with other groups that served both the DC and Maryland sides of Takoma Park., Collection 220, Mapping Segregation in Washington D.C. Oral History Project, is not part of the DC Oral History Collaborative. However, the interviews from Collection 220 are part of the Mapping Segregation in Washington, D.C. project. The topic and interviewers are the same, the funding sources are different. The interviews from Collection 220 have been included with the interviews from the DC Oral History Collaborative as a convenience to researchers.
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- Fannie Robinson and Nadine Lockard
- In this interview, Fannie Robinson and her daughter Nadine Lockard discuss moving into a predominantly white neighborhood in Washington, D.C., attending an interracial church, and Lockard's experience in the D.C. school system. Nadine also speaks about becoming a special education teacher in the District. Robinson explains working in school lunch rooms and at the Marriott Hadsa. Robinson describes her husbands and boyfriends., Fannie Robinson was born in 1926 in Emella, Alabama and grew up in St. Louis. In 1959, she moved to Washington, D.C. with her husband, who was stationed there in the Navy. While her children attended school, Robinson worked in school lunch rooms and at a Marriott hotel. Nadine Lockard moved to D.C. with her parents in 1959, when she was in the 4th grade. She attended La Salle Elementary School, Bertie Backus Junior High School, and Coolidge High School. After graduating from the DC Teachers College and a program called Teacher Core Portal, Lockard became a special education teacher at various schools around the District.
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- Francine Berkowitz
- In this interview, Francine Berkowitz discusses growing up in Northeast Washington in a predominantly lower-middle class Jewish neighborhood. She also describes attending Tifereth Israel Synagogue, school integration, shopping, and her work as an adult at the Smithsonian., Francine Berkowitz was born in New York City in 1942 to first- and second- generation Polish immigrants. Her family moved to Oneida Street NE soon after she was born, and she attended Keene Elementary, Paul Junior High, and Coolidge High School. She worked at the Smithsonian for almost 60 years.
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- Joe Hairston
- In this interview, Hairston discusses his role in integrating the 1300 block of Kennedy Street NW in the mid-1950s and his move to D.C.’s Shepherd Park neighborhood in 1963, where he joined the efforts of Neighbors, Inc. to oppose blockbusting, racial steering, and other forms of racial discrimination in housing. He also discusses his daughters’ experiences in D.C.’s newly- integrated schools and later work by Neighbors, Inc. to stop the construction of freeways through D.C., promote traffic calming, and address other issues in Shepherd Park. Hairson reflects extensively on the founding of Neighbors, Inc., National Neighbors, others’ efforts to integrate housing in and around D.C., his own personal history, and the Hairston family’s history in the broader of context of American history., Joseph Henry Hairston was born in 1922 in Virginia. As a young adult, he became the U.S. Army’s first Black helicopter pilot. In 1954, Hairston bought a house for his family on the 1300 block of Kennedy Street NW, in what had been an exclusively white neighborhood. His children attended the formerly all-white neighborhood schools, West Elementary, MacFarland Junior High, and Roosevelt High School. In 1963, the family moved to Shepherd Park, where Hairston became an active member of Neighbors, Inc. and remained for the rest of his life. Hairston died in 2019. Hairston’s extended family and ancestors are the subject of Henry Wiencek’s 1999 book The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White., Collection 220, Mapping Segregation in Washington D.C. Oral History Project, is not part of the DC Oral History Collaborative. However, the interviews from Collection 220 are part of the Mapping Segregation in Washington, D.C. project. The topic and interviewers are the same, the funding sources are different. The interviews from Collection 220 have been included with the interviews from the DC Oral History Collaborative as a convenience to researchers.
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- Lewis Maiden
- In this interview, Lewis Maiden discusses what Petworth was like when his family first moved there, when many of his neighbors and schoolmates were Italians. He talks about the various neighbors and local businesses he has known over the years since moving back to Petworth in 1971, including a former People’s Drug at Georgia and New Hampshire avenues that temporarily became a boxing club and youth community center. He talks about what he did for fun both as a teenager and as an adult, including playing at Lincoln’s Cottage on the grounds of the Old Soldier’s Home, swimming and fishing in Rock Creek, and some of the places he went to hear music., Lewis Maiden was born in Washington DC in 1950 to parents who were also born in DC. His family first moved to Petworth around 1960, where he attended St. Gabriel’s through 8th grade and then Roosevelt High School. He moved to his current home in Petworth in 1971. He spent his career as a printer for the U.S. House of Representatives and for individual Congressmen., Collection 220, Mapping Segregation in Washington D.C. Oral History Project, is not part of the DC Oral History Collaborative. However, the interviews from Collection 220 are part of the Mapping Segregation in Washington, D.C. project. The topic and interviewers are the same, the funding sources are different. The interviews from Collection 220 have been included with the interviews from the DC Oral History Collaborative as a convenience to researchers.
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- Marietta Crichlow and Linda Crichlow White
- In this interview, Marietta discusses her childhood and her years as a young woman, when she lived in her family’s Le Droit Park home while attending Howard University. She also discusses her move to Petworth in 1950 with her husband and daughter Linda. She talks about what the neighborhood was like when they first moved there, before most of the white families moved away, and in later years when she was a member of the Block Club, which met monthly. She and Linda comment on how the neighborhood has changed. Marietta also talks about her father’s job at the Library of Congress, and going to visit him there, and the stores she used to shop at downtown., Marietta Louise Stevens Crichlow was born in 1919 in Washington, D.C. She lived with her family in Le Droit Park and attended Mott Elementary until second grade, when her mother died. She then moved to Pennsylvania to live with relatives and returned to D.C. in 1937 to attend Howard University. She later received an MS in Education at Gallaudet University. She was a longtime member of Mt. Carmel Baptist Church. In 1950, she moved with her husband and daughter Linda to 543 Randolph Street in Petworth. She remained there for the rest of her life. She worked in the D.C. Public Schools. Linda Crichlow White, Marietta’s daughter, was born in 1949. She briefly attended Petworth Elementary School and then Park View Elementary. (This interview was focused on Marietta so no further biographical information was collected on Linda.), Collection 220, Mapping Segregation in Washington D.C. Oral History Project, is not part of the DC Oral History Collaborative. However, the interviews from Collection 220 are part of the Mapping Segregation in Washington, D.C. project. The topic and interviewers are the same, the funding sources are different. The interviews from Collection 220 have been included with the interviews from the DC Oral History Collaborative as a convenience to researchers.
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- Martha Saragovitz and Barbara Saragovitz
- In Part 1 of this interview with Barbara and Martha Saragovitz, the sisters discuss growing up in Lamond Riggs, when the neighborhood was brand new and largely Jewish. They recount their experiences during the real estate blockbusting and their family's eventual move to Capitol Hill in 1963. Martha remembers a few violent incidents after moving to Southwest, D.C., and her time as an undergraduate at American University., Martha Saragovitz was born in 1945 and lived on North Capitol Street before her family moved to a house in the Lamond Riggs neighborhood. Barbara Saragovitz was born in 1948 soon after the move. In 1963, their parents moved again, to Capitol Hill. Martha attended American University and Barbara went to the University of Maryland. They both live in Silver Spring as of this interview.
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- Muriel Tillinghast
- In this interview, Muriel discusses her childhood and her years as a young woman. Muriel discusses her experiences navigating her K-12 schools. Most notably, Muriel discusses her experience of racism and racial integration at Roosevelt High School. Muriel draws from her experiences and the observations she made of her classmates. Muriel discusses her higher education experiences at Howard University. During this time and after graduating from Roosevelt, Muriel was able to travel for social justice pursuits. Muriel discusses her contributions to NAG and SNCC., Muriel Tillinghast was born on January 21, 1943 in Washington, D.C. She lived with her family at 749 Girard Street NW. Muriel attended Bruce Elementary School, Banneker Junior High School and Roosevelt High School. After completing her K-12 education, Muriel attended Howard University and graduated in 1964 where she majored in Anthropology and Sociology with a minor in Political Science. Muriel was heavily involved in political activism with organizations such as NAG and SNCC. Muriel continued her social justice pursuits as she relocated, married, and had children in New York City., Collection 220, Mapping Segregation in Washington D.C. Oral History Project, is not part of the DC Oral History Collaborative. However, the interviews from Collection 220 are part of the Mapping Segregation in Washington, D.C. project. The topic and interviewers are the same, the funding sources are different. The interviews from Collection 220 have been included with the interviews from the DC Oral History Collaborative as a convenience to researchers.
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- Phylicia Fauntleroy Bowman
- In this interview, Phylicia Fauntleroy Bowman discusses her experience with being in D.C. public schools during school desegregation, changes to her neighborhood due to white flight, and her post-secondary education., Phylicia Fauntleroy Bowman is a native Washingtonian, born in 1947. When she was four, her family moved to Brightwood, where they were the second Black family on the block. She attended Park View Elementary and West Elementary, after desegregation. After graduating from Roosevelt High School, she attended Oberlin college before pursuing graduate school at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Bowman spent most of her career at the DC Public Service Commission, and eventually became the executive director.
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- Steve Nelson
- In this interview, Steve Nelson discusses how his family saved money to purchase a house in Riggs Park during the period of white flight from the neighborhood. Nelson recalls his experiences in the DC Public School system, including LaSalle Elementary and Bell Vocational High School. Nelson also recounts a crime resulting in the death of his brother, and how the neighborhood continues to evolve., Clyde Steve Nelson was born in 1960 in Washington, D.C. Soon after, his parents bought a house in Riggs Park during the period of white flight. Nelson's mother worked as a budget analyst for the Department of Navy and his father was a chauffeur for the Civil Service Commission. Nelson had two brothers, David and Mark, and a sister. As an adult, he worked as an electrician for DC Public Schools.