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Title: Dr. George 'DOC' Rutherford
Description: Dr. Rutherford, 'DOC,' speaks about his life long passion of education. Dr. Rutherford was the principal of Fletcher-Johnson School in the Marshall Heights neighborhood., Dr. Rutherford was born in West Virginia. At an early age, his sister inspired him to pursue his education. After returning from college, he came to the District as a physical education teacher. The school administration recognized his commitment to and effectiveness with the students and continued to be promoted eventually rising to an Assistant Principal and finally as the Principal of Fletcher-Johnson all while earning his PhD. Dr. Rutherford has a wife and three children.

Title: Richard Hamilton
Description: Mr. Hamilton recalls stories about living in segregated America, the start of the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization, owing the Central Ave Market in Marshall Heights, serving on the Metropolitan Police Department, and as Director of Security of the Jefferson Hotel. He provides great advice about how to treat people and maintaining strong relationships., Richard Hamilton is a hard working man. Even in his retirement, he currently runs the Watkins Security and remains a very influential person in Ward 7. Mr. Hamilton has always been a hard worker, throughout his professional career, he has always held more than one job. He lived through segregation, and still managed to obtain an education, raise a family, own several businesses, raise through the ranks of the Metropolitan Police Department, and serve as the Chairman of the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization.

Title: Michael Stanley
Description: In this interview, Michael Stanley discusses growing up in Fort Totten in the 1950s. He talks about the close-knit nature of the Fort Totten community and the long-lasting friendships that formed among neighborhood children. He then reflects on his life as a teenager and favorite clothing styles, and participating in the Cadet Core in high school. He reflects on the uniqueness of living in Fort Totten and how it has evolved., Michael Stanley is a native Washingtonian born at Georgetown Hospital where his mother worked. He lived with his family on Savannah Terrace in Southeast Washington until they moved to the Fort Totten neighborhood in approximately 1955 when he was six years old. He attended Keene Elementary School until the sixth grade, then MacFarland for seventh grade and part of eighth grade. Halfway through his eighth-grade year Bertie Backus was opened and he attended there the remainder of eighth grade and ninth grade. He was in the first graduating class of Bertie Backus. He attended high school at Roosevelt. After graduating from high school, he got a job and was later drafted into the Army where he served for two years and nine months. After that he attended college at UDC where he majored in business management.

Title: Map of the District of Columbia showing location of schools
Description: Shows schools white and colored schools in the District of Columbia. Oriented with north toward the upper left. Includes notes and authorities. In lower margin: H. Doc. 7, pt 4, 59-1., Mounted on fabric; From report of Board of Education of D.C., 1904/1905

Title: Arlington County, Virginia
Description: Shows white and colored schools. Includes northern portion of Alexandria County. Oriented with north toward the upper right. April 1935. Revised June 1935., Mounted on fabric; Copy 2 mounted on heavy cardboard

Title: Map of the District of Columbia showing location of schools
Description: Relief shown by contours. Schools shown by race. Oriented with north toward the upper left. Includes notes., Mounted on fabric; 2 copies, paper mounted on fabric; copy 2 discolored and in 2 sheets; Digitized copy 1

Title: Map showing location of school buildings, 1935
Description: White and colored schools differentiated. Shows block numbers. Boundaries of 17 districts drawn over map in red and blue pencil. North oriented toward upper left., Mounted on fabric; Boundaries drawn over map may be police precincts

Title: Map showing location of school buildings, 1931-32
Description: Shows elementary schools, junior high schools, high schools and teachers' colleges. Colored and white schools are differentiated. Includes block numbers and index. Oriented with north toward the upper left. In lower right margin: Columbia Planograph Co., Washington, D.C., Mounted on fabric; Handwritten below key: D.C. Engineer Commissioner

Title: Carolyn Stieff
Description: Please note this interview was recorded over a telephone call. Carolyn Stieff reflects on her time as an active member of the WMATA union Amalgamated Transit Union 689. Thrust into the labor movement in 1974 while still in her first months on the job, she participated in the 1974 wildcat strike. After that experience Carolyn soon got involved in the union. She speaks about what it was like to be one of the first female bus drivers in DC, a role that brought her both harassment and praise from the riding public. Sexual harassment looms large in the lead up to the 1978 strike. A one-day walkout takes place in response to the rape of one of the female drivers sets the tone for the six-day wildcat strike which follows. Carolyn describes the raucous meetings leading up to the 1978 strike and what it felt like to be on the picket line. She then reflects on why she believes the union was able to stay strong throughout the 1980s and 1990s, even as other unions around the country were experiencing significant hardship. The legacy of the 1978 strike, she believes, helped to carry the union throughout these two decades., Carolyn Stieff was born into a still segregated town in Richmond County, Virginia. At 6 years old her family decided to move to Washington, D.C., where she grew up on Park Road in the Park View neighborhood. She was one of the first women to drive a bus in Washington, D.C., and was active in the Amalgamated Transit Union local 689 from the day that she began work at Metro. She would participate in both the 1974 and 1978 Wildcat strikes and continued to work for workers' rights as part of her role in the union until she retired in 2010.

Title: James Daniels
Description: Please note this interview was recorded over a telephone call. In this oral history, James Daniels reflects on his time working at WMATA (Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) and his work with the labor movement while at WMATA and beyond. He also speaks about his time growing up in South Carolina, where he lived until he was 12. The part of South Carolina he is from was still dependent on the cotton economy, and as a young child he picked cotton on a plantation. He remembers the fear that the Ku Klux Klan struck into his family and how that limited their political involvement. He talks about his excitement to move to Washington, D.C., away from a life that seemed to have no opportunities. In high school he was influenced by the Civil Rights, and Black Power movements and joined a Black Studies reading group. He already remembers marching with people from his neighborhood into white areas of town and being received with a high degree of curiosity., James Daniels was born in rural South Carolina and moved to Washington, D.C. when he was 12 years old. He took part in the Civil Rights Movement and Black Studies groups while in high school. In the 1970s he became a bus operator as WMATA (Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority).

Title: Ron Majors
Description: Ron Majors reflects on his decades working as a bus operator for WMATA (Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) and the importance of the union for strengthening the rights of workers. Though he joined Metro in 1980, two years after the 1978 Metro wildcat strike, he saw evidence of the strike's lasting legacy regarding labor militancy all around him. Ron talks about what it meant to always be 'strike ready' and how this affected labor relations. He also speaks about his Catholic upbringing as well as his time in the labor movement affected his world view. He also speaks about why he believes that it continues to be important for workers to stand up for each other's rights. Throughout the interview, Ron's love of the Petworth neighborhood and pride in his role as a bus operator and in the union are evident., Ron Majors is a native Washingtonian who grew-up in the Petworth neighborhood. He served in the U.S. Navy and worked at the Department of Energy before joining Metro in 1980. During his time at Metro he was active in the Metro union. His labor activism went beyond just Metro, as he worked in solidarity with workers around the city to achieve better conditions. In 1992 he was Metro employee of the year. Ron is retired and continues to live in the Petworth neighborhood.

Title: Sandra Perrin
Description: Please note this interview was recorded over Zoom. Sandra Perrin reflects on her experiences organizing and doing political work as part of the union that represented Metro workers. Her story begins with her childhood in Washington, D.C. Born to two working class parents, she developed a love of reading fueled by the bookmobile that would regularly visit her neighborhood. When her father died in a car accident, her mother became the wage earner. She speaks about her time at Howard University, where she joined in the civil rights movement, particularly the Black Panthers school breakfast program. After a few false starts she found her home at Metro, where she joined the union as a shop steward. The union recognized her leadership potential and sent her to Florida to a training school for women in the labor movement, an experience Sandra described as 'life changing'. When the wildcat strike broke out in 1978 Sandra was one of the only clerical workers to join the bus operators for the strike's duration. Sandra reflects on the union's continued work following the strike. She is particularly excited about her work lobbying with the union. She goes into detail about the careful balance the union had to tread in the 1980s when Metro cracked down on drug use among the drivers., Sandra Perrin was born and raised in southeast Washington, D.C. Her father was a taxi driver that died in a car accident when she was 6 years old, leaving her to be raised by her mother. She received an associate's degree from Howard University. During her early 20s, Sandra was the first Black person to work in the accounting department of Metro's clerical office. It is there she found her niche when she joined the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) as a shop steward. Working with the union she participated in the major 1978 Metro strike, and the unions advocacy efforts. She also joined labor struggles around Washington, D.C. She continues to live in the D.C. area.

Title: Mapping Segregation in Washington DC: School and Neighborhood Desegregation in Ward 4

Title: Joe Hairston
Description: 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.

Title: Anita Hammond
Description: Anita Hammond shares her life from her earliest memory as a child growing up in segregated, farming community of Seaford, Delaware to her currently life in Penn Branch neighborhood, in Washington, D.C. She has lived in the neighborhood, since 1965. She shares her vivid memories of the people, neighborhood association and nearby community businesses. Finally, Mrs. Hammond shares and how COVID-19 has impacted her life., Anita Hammond was born in the 1930s, in the town of Seaford, Delaware. Seaford was a segregated, farming community at that time. Mrs. Hammond is a retired school teacher and she met a her husband, a widower who was also the first African American insurance actuary in Washington, D.C. His two children were in her elementary school class. They married in 1965 and purchased a home in Penn Branch neighborhood that same year, after having briefly lived in the Marshall Heights neighborhood. For decades since, Anita has also an active member of the Penn Branch Community Association. She successfully secured grant funding from during the Marion Barry Administration to conduct free youth programs for children in the community. She recalls the Penn Branch Civic Association being racially integrated while she served on the executive board and she has enjoyed their Annual Dinner Dances, over the years. Anita Hammond relocated to North Carolina after her husband died and sold her home to her daughter, Angela. However, she later returned to her Penn Branch residence and has remained there ever since.

Title: Betty May Brooks-Cole

Title: Yvonne Baskerville

Title: Herbert Freeman
Description: In this oral history interview, Mr. Herbert Freeman, owner of Freeman's House of Styles in Brightwood Park, discusses his life and experiences moving from Engelhard, North Carolina, to Washington, DC. Mr. Freeman discusses his early life in Engelhard, his move to Washington, DC, in 1962, his transition to life in the city, and his long and successful career as a barber in Washington. He also discusses violence against Black persons in both the past and present, segregation in North Carolina, and the 1968 Riots in Washington, DC after the assassination of Martin Luther King., Herbert Freeman was born on May 3, 1941, in Vanceboro, North Carolina. When Mr. Freeman was two years old his father became ill, and his mother moved him and his siblings to Engelhard, NC. In Engelhard Mr. Freeman's mother worked as a domestic worker and raised her six children by herself. Mr. Freeman attended school through twelfth grade in Engelhard and worked in tobacco during his youth. He later worked at a segregated white-only beach in Nags Head, NC. Though Mr. Freeman first came to Washington in 1962, he soon returned to North Carolina to attend a barber school. After he completed school, Mr. Freeman returned to DC, earned his barbering license, and began working as a barber in Washington. After working at several different barber shops, Mr. Freeman opened his own barber shop in Brightwood Park in 1976, Freeman's House of Styles. Mr. Freeman has been married for over fifty years, has two sons, and continues to work at his barber shop to this day

Title: Mabel Mitchell
Description: In this oral history interview, Ms. Mabel Mitchell, a long time DC resident, discusses her life and experiences moving from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Washington, DC. Ms. Mitchell discusses her early life in Raleigh, her move to Washington, DC, in the early 1950s, her transition to living and working in DC, and her long career in the government. Ms. Mitchell also talks about segregation and racial discrimination in Washington, as well as gentrification in the city in the 21st century., Born in the early 1940s, Ms. Mabel Mitchell grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. When Ms. Mitchell was only three years old her father died, leaving her mother to raise her with the help of grandparents and extended family. Though Ms. Mitchell was her parents’ only child, she was raised with a cousin who was like a sister. After graduating from high school, Ms. Mitchell moved to Washington, DC, in search of work and lived with her aunt. After working a variety of jobs, Ms. Mitchell secured a job at the Bureau of Navy Personnel beginning a forty-one-year career in the government. Ms. Mitchell retired in 2010.

Title: Alvin Harris
Description: Mr. Alvin Harris discusses his life and experiences moving from Raleigh, North Carolina to Washington, DC. Mr. Harris discusses his early life in Raleigh, his family’s move to Southeast Washington, DC, and his upbringing and education in the city. He also discusses his life in Washington, his work as a carpenter and career in construction, and his transition to work for the federal government. Additionally, Mr. Harris talks about Marion Berry and “Chocolate City,” and the crack epidemic in DC., Alvin “Flooty” Harris was born on October 21, 1958, outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, and was the youngest of his parents’ five children. His mother, Betty Jean Lyn Harris (b. 10/22/1932), raised Mr. Harris and his sibling as a single mother with the help of grandparents. The family migrated to Washington, DC, in 1966, when Mr. Harris was only 8 years old, and moved into the Hill East neighborhood of Southeast. Upon moving to Washington, Mr. Harris completed primary school education at Thomas B. Bryan Elementary School, attended Charles W. Eliot Junior High School, and went on to graduate from Eastern High School in 1977. Mr. Harris then completed a four-year carpentry apprenticeship through the Joint Carpentry Apprentice Committee and subsequently spent nine years working in construction. After leaving construction, Mr. Harris got a job as a carpenter working the federal government. Mr. Harris worked for the government until his retirement.

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