This storytelling tour will start with walking (literally) through history. Native Washingtonian and retired city planner, Mr. Map, will take us on a walking tour of U Street, the hub of this historic neighborhood. After lunch we will travel down to the African American History and Culture Museum to continue the reflection of how history impacts us individually, in AVP and our communities.

In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, in our nation’s capital, segregation was the law. Jim Crow ruled. Blacks were pushed out of downtown DC, modernized after the Civil War, and settled uptown.

The cultural, intellectual, and political center of African American life grew and thrived, despite the many obstacles, between Howard University to the east and 16^th Street to the west. Along lettered streets from S to V there were over 300 black-owned businesses and banks, 100 churches, restaurants and clubs, and the first Black YMCA. The lavish Lincoln Theater was dedicated in 1922, the same year as the Lincoln Monument. This area was home to professors and students, legal scholars and poets, doctors and intellectuals, writers, artists and musicians, and of course, world class entertainers. It became known as Black Broadway.

Visual, literary, and musical arts continue to play an important part in DC cultural life. There are hundreds of murals many painted by local artists celebrating our city and the people who have shaped it. Art on Call began in 2000 where more than 1,000 police and fire call boxes erected during the 19^th and 20^th centuries were identified. To date 145 of these boxes have been artistically restored to highlight the neighborhoods where they stand. Toni Morrison studied and taught at Howard. Langston Hughes wrote poetry here. DC’s very own Go-Go music was originated by Washingtonian, Chuck Berry. In the spring of 2019, when a gentrified neighborhood not far from Black Broadway attempted to silence this music on the street, a group calling themselves Don’t Mute DC rose up and protested. The campaign garnered support from over 80,000 people and is alive and well today as it works to protect the homegrown culture in DC.