Barry Farm by Joy Sharon Yi B.F.A. in Television and Broadcast Journalism, May 2011, Chapman University a Thesis Submitted to T

Barry Farm

by Joy Sharon Yi

B.F.A. in Television and Broadcast Journalism, May 2011, Chapman University

A Thesis submitted to

The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences (formerly the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design) of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

May 21, 2017

Thesis directed by

Gabriela Bulisova Professorial Lecturer of Art and Design

Susan Sterner Program Head, New Media Photojournalism Associate Professor of Photojournalism

ii For mom and dad

iii Acknowledgments

There are many people in the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design who helped bring this thesis to life. I am deeply grateful to Susan Sterner. The last two years in the

New Media Photojournalism program has inspired every part of this project. Thank you for shaping my narrative voice. Gabriela Bulisova provided feedback and support at critical ventures of this project. Thank you, Gabriela, for believing in me. The written elements of this project could not exist without Mary Kane and Manuel Roig-Franzia.

Jasper Colt offered his sage wisdom in the creation of the Barry Farm film. Frank

DiPerna passed on his love for film, art, and the printed image. Benjamin Tankersley taught me to see the world differently through studio lighting. Eddy Leonel Aldana graciously taught me how to use a view camera. It has been a joy to learn and grow with my peers in the New Media Photojournalism program. Many classmates offered encouragement and support in periods of doubt.

My time as a graduate fellow at the Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic

Engagement and Public Service has shaped me in more ways than I can express. I am especially grateful to Amy Cohen and Ashlynn Profit whose commitment to inclusion and equity in D.C. has inspired me and informed this project. I am also grateful to the

Alexia Foundation for their support.

James Roche recognized an overeager graduate student in the early stages of this project and introduced me to many current and former Barry Farm residents. Thank you for opening that first door for me. Sean “Maybon” Brown passionately shared his love for basketball and the Barry Farm’s Goodman League with me. I am thankful to Wendy

Glenn and the staff at the Barry Farm Recreation Center who graciously allowed me to

iv document their events and programs. I am grateful to Dasani Watkins and her family who welcomed me into their family and allowed me to film over the course of this project.

Finally, this project could not be possible without the many Barry Farm families who gave me the privilege of documenting their lives. It has been a wonderful gift and honor.

David Sung, you have been my rock. Thank you for your unconditional support and friendship and for listening patiently as I struggled to create and complete this project. To my mom and dad – whom this project is dedicated to – thank you for the sacrifices you made to raise and love me and for instilling in me values of compassion, joy, and justice.

v Abstract of Thesis

Barry Farm

Generation after generation, communities of color have been systematically and institutionally oppressed in America. African-Americans, in particular, have faced enormous challenges even after the civil rights movement – the rise of police brutality, drug addiction, mass incarceration, and gentrification to name a few. My aim is to focus on housing policies that have disproportionately affected African Americans. The goal of this thesis is twofold: (1) recognize government-sanctioned urban housing policies and practices that have “serially displaced” black families and (2) to celebrate black communities that have endured and thrived despite these challenges, with a specific lens on Washington, D.C.’s Barry Farm Public Houses.

While there were many systemic abuses toward minorities in the area of housing such as the implementation of racial covenants, black codes, subprime lending, and redlining, for the purposes of this paper, I will focus on the phenomena of “urban renewal” and how this rhetoric was used and repeated to “serially displace” and deliberately zone African Americans into modern ghettos. I will provide personal accounts from residents living in D.C.’s Barry Farm Public Houses and conclude a fundamental paradigm shift in urban planning and a long-term investment in affordable housing is necessary to curtail the trend of displacement, homelessness, and wealth inequality in America.

The multimedia component of this project celebrates the Barry Farm community.

In 1961, journalist Jane Jacobs suggested ways a poor neighborhood could “unslum.”

vi Mindy Fullilove clarified Jacobs’ most poignant remark in 2005: “A slum would endure if residents left as quickly as they could. A neighborhood would transform itself, if people wanted to stay. It was the investment of time, money, and love that would make the difference.” During the course of this project, I have spoken with many current and former Barry Farm residents who have generously shared their lives and love for the

Barry Farm neighborhood with me. They have taught me how to preserve and love a neighborhood, even as its physical aesthetic deteriorates. I hope the multimedia components of this project will give a small glimpse into a loving, thriving neighborhood.

vii Table of Contents

Dedication……………………………………………………………...…………………iii

Acknowledgements…………….………………………………….….…………………..iv

Abstract of Thesis…………….……………………………………….………………….vi

List of Figures…………….…………..……………………………….………………….ix

Chapter 1: Thesis Research Essay: Urban Renewal or Negro Removal? The

Gentrification of Barry Farm…………….………………………………………………..2

Chapter 2: Visual Review…………….……………………………….…………………21

Chapter 3: Methods and Media Used…………….……………………………….….….34

Bibliography…………….………………………………………..………………..…….35

Appendix A: Barry Farm Photographs………………..……………………………..….40

Appendix B: Barry Farm in NEXT 2017, CSAD ………………………………...…….65

Appendix C: Website…….……….……………….……………..………………………68

Appendix D: Community Engagement, The Best Part of Me Workshop..…..………..…73

Appendix E: Community Engagement, FotoWeek DC..……….…………...…...………76

Appendix F: Barry Farm Book.……….…………………………………….…...………77

viii List of Figures

CHAPTER 1

Figure 1. The 295 Freeway and the Barry Farm Public Houses, Yi………………...4

Figure 2. Dylan and Little Sean on the playground, Yi……………………………..8

Figure 3. Film school, Dasani checks in with her advisor at E.L. Haynes High

School, Yi………………………………………………………………....9

Figure 4. James, Yi…………………………………………………………………14

Figure 5. Brookland Manor Housing Protest, Yi………………………………..…20

CHAPTER 2

Figure 6. Unauthorized immigration lodgings in a Bayard Street tenement,

Library of Congress, Riis…………………………………………...…....21

Figure 7. Children running through Cabrini Green, one of Chicago’s notorious

housing projects, White………………………………………………….23

Figure 8. Dylan runs in front of his Barry Farm home, Yi…………………………24

Figure 9. Ajoh Achot and Achol Manyen, Sheikh………………………………....29

Figure 10. Dylan, Yi…………………………………………………………………30

Figure 12. Zion, Yi…………………………………………………………………..30

Figure 12. Lee and Sean on Sean’s 50 th birthday, Yi………………………………..31

Figure 13. A film still from the Barry Farm documentary, Yi……………………...32

Figure 14. A film still from the Barry Farm documentary, Yi…………………..….32

Figure 15. A film still from the Barry Farm documentary, Yi…………..………….32

ix “Urban renewal means negro removal.”

James Baldwin, 1963

1 Chapter One: Thesis Research Essay

BACKGROUND

In the nation’s capital - five miles from the White House - there is a public housing project that will soon be demolished called Barry Farm. It consists of faded, beige houses in neat rows and a basketball court that fills with crowds in the summer.

While its appearance is modest, Barry Farm carries a rich and mighty history. In 1867, after the end of the Civil War, the U.S. Freedman’s Bureau purchased land from white landowners and sold the land to former slaves. With a pioneering spirit, the newly freed men purchased the land and built their homes from the ground up, creating the first home-owning African American community in the nation’s capital. Today, over 300 public housing units take up much of the Barry Farm neighborhood, erected in the 1950s to accommodate the influx of black communities displaced from the urban renewal of the

1950s and 1960s 1. As of 2017, the Barry Farm Public Houses are under the threat of a new urban renewal.

THE FIRST URBAN RENEWAL

Urban renewal in America started with the Housing Act of 1949 2. America was in the midst of its Second Great Migration, and the influx of poor back families during a period of segregation created homogenous neighborhoods primed for severe overcrowding, exploitation, rioting, and poor housing conditions. In Chicago’s Black

Belt, it was estimated that 375,000 African Americans lived in housing that was equipped

1 In 1954, the Redevelopment Land Authority cleared substandard housing under the Redevelopment Act and created public housing in Barry Farm. 2 The term “urban renewal” was actually introduced into law with the Housing Act of 1954, but the origins of removing “slum” or “blighted” neighborhoods began with the Housing Act of 1949.

2 for no more than 110,000 people. An estimated 29 tons of rats were collected (Hirsch,

1998).

Under the Housing Act, once a neighborhood was deemed “slum” or “blighted,” the federal government had the power under eminent domain to seize the land, evict residents, and sell the land to developers for a fraction of the price.

This plan for “progress” was used to raze entire black neighborhoods.

Between 1950 and 1974, urban renewal destroyed 1,600 African American communities in 993 cities (Fullilove 2005, Hyra 2012). In the black community, the plan was viewed as “negro removal” as “second ghettos” were created and African Americans were moved from areas of investment, like central business districts, into concentrated areas of poverty. In 1998, author Arnold Hirsch argued, “the real tragedy surrounding the emergence of the modern ghetto is that it ….was carried out with government sanctioned support.”

With a growing internal refugee population, city planners sought to create “buffer zones” to hide the urban poor. They built highways, public housing, and empty spaces and eliminated streets to inhibit the flow of poor people in and out of the city (Fullilove,

2005). In Camden, New Jersey, for example, an interstate highway destroyed 3,000 low- income housing units. A report by New Jersey’s State Attorney General stated, “It is obvious from a glance at the... transit plans that an attempt is being made to eliminate the

Negro and Puerto Rican ghetto areas by… building highways that benefit white suburbanites, facilitating their movement from the suburbs to work and back (Rothstein,

2017).”

3 In Washington, D.C., the construction of the 295 Freeway and Suitland Parkway devastated the Barry Farm neighborhood (see fig. 1). One hundred low-income African

American families were displaced in the process.

Fig. 1. The 295 Freeway devastated the Barry Farm neighborhood. 2017. Photograph by Joy Sharon Yi

By the end of urban renewal, one million people were displaced; 75% of those displaced were people of color (Fullilove, 2011). The “whole of Black America experienced root shock,” said Mindy Fullilove in 2005, severe trauma from being uprooted from their communities.

4 THE SECOND URBAN RENEWAL

When the effects of white flight abated and public housing created from the first urban renewal were deteriorating, the federal government again created an urban renewal plan called Housing Opportunities of People Everywhere, or HOPE VI. The words

“urban renewal” were replaced with “revitalization, rehabilitation, and transformation.”

Activists termed it gentrification or displacement. Whatever the name, the goal of HOPE

VI was to deconcentrate pockets of poverty and rehabilitate “severely distressed” public housing units into “mixed-income communities.”

The results of HOPE VI were remarkably similar to the first urban renewal.

Between 1996 and 2007, 169,393 public housing units were demolished in 139 cities

(Hyra 2012). After the first ten years of HOPE VI, only 19% of residents displaced from the razing returned (Manzo et al, 2008). Since the HOPE VI program officially ended in

2011 3, no long-term benefits have been reported. In fact, scholars have reported “massive human costs of the urban poor” including the disintegration of community networks, no long-term employment or earnings benefits, and no improvements in health (Manzo et al,

2008, Goetz 2011).

Today, America is undergoing an affordable housing crisis. Between 2000 and

2010, the number of affordable housing units in D.C. halved and from 2000 to 2007, 15% of landlords took their properties out of the rental assistance program (Kijakazi et al,

2016). In 2015, The Atlantic reported that with no exception – every county in America did not have enough affordable housing. Yet, public housing units – often the only

3 The HOPE VI program is now called the Choice Neighborhood Initiative governed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

5 affordable housing low-income families can afford - continue to be razed under the

HOPE VI program.

In Washington, D.C., HOPE VI funded the creation of the New Communities

Initiative. Under the Initiative, Barry Farm – referred to by residents as Barry Farms – is one of the next public housing complexes in D.C. to be demolished, threatening the livelihoods of over 300 families who currently live there. Much has been documented after a housing project has already been torn down and residents have been displaced. By reporting and documenting families living in public housing before urban renewal – in particular, the Barry Farm Public Houses - the author hopes to ignite immediate conversations and engage the local community about affordable housing, equity, and gentrification in the nation’s capital. The author also hopes to recognize that behind the decaying, monolithic exterior of the Barry Farm Public Houses is a community of

Americans that people don’t see.

For the purposes of this paper, Barry Farm indicates the Barry Farm Public

Houses, not the Barry Farm neighborhood as a whole.

THERE ARE THE CHILDREN

“I’m not afraid to die. To me, dying is a kindness… because life is painful.” -- Dasani Watkins, 17

It was 2013 when Dasani moved to Barry Farm in Ward 8 of Washington, D.C., with her family. The windows and walls were stained green and black with mold. There was no air conditioning and no heater, but the trees were large, full, and colored with the

6 shades of fall. Dasani brought a box of her things, including her childhood teddy bear,

Sally.

“I thought this was the worst place in the world and I could not believe my mom would bring us to this hood,” Dasani recalls. “But...I was excited to have my own room.”

Though she didn’t have a bed - and wouldn’t have one for a year - she was glad to have a place to rest her head. She was 12 years old and knew living in Barry Farm was better than the alternative. Her room became her oasis.

On a typical day in Barry Farm, you can find children running around, burning

Hot Cheetos with cigarette lighters, or trespassing onto the nearby football field to go on their next adventure. They play with abandon. They pull each other’s hair. They ride their bikes against a golden sky with the Washington Monument standing clear in the background. Football – and occasionally dodgeball - is their game of choice. Mostly, they roll around in the dirt. They wrestle. They run. They cry.

Other times, children have to deal with the realities of poverty and crime. From

January 1, 2015 to January 1, 2016, the Metropolitan Police Department reported 1,255 violent crimes in Ward 8, 56 homicides, and 6,111 assaults with a deadly weapon 4.

“I think Barry Farms is bad because people like to kill and people like to mess with people,” says Dasani’s younger brother, Dylan (see fig. 2).

***

4 Crimemap.dc.gov

Fig. 2. “I want to live in a mansion,” says Dylan, 8. “Or someplace that’s not a football field or playground.” On July 24 2016, Dylan and Little Sean trespassed onto a school playground. The playground directly in front of their house was razed to create the Barry Farm Recreation Center, which is not open for children after hours. Photograph by Joy Sharon Yi

Dylan, 8, was playing on the football field when he heard gunshots. On Sept. 17,

2016, two unidentified shooters killed two people and wounded seven others at an annual community event in Southeast D.C. Dylan was two streets away.

“All my children need to get in the house now!” Dylan’s mother, Ave, yelled. Her authoritative command was a familiar sound to the children. “Devon, Mason, Elizabeth,

Dylan, Chase, Lailah,” Ave whispered to herself. She knew her eldest daughter, Dasani, and her eldest son, Deonte, were already in the house.

Minutes passed and like clockwork - as quickly as the gunshots had rung in the air

- things returned to normal. Dasani was in her room. Dylan was playing. Ave was back outside. That’s what life was like at the Farms.

“Isn’t that sad?” a parent would later recall.

8 To outsiders, the Barry Farm neighborhood has become synonymous with murder, drugs, and crime. But in a rapidly gentrifying city, D.C.’s poorest residents are in an embittered battle for their homes and the right to stay in place while development occurs. The threat of being pushed out is more concerning than the threat of being killed, and the daily struggle is often the most concerning.

“All of D.C. was going crazy over it. But I’m used to it, so I wasn’t really scared,”

Dasani says referring to the Sept. 17 shooting. “I’m not afraid to die. To me, dying is a kindness actually because if I die on this earth, you relieve me of the pain from living through life, because life is painful.”

Dasani, in fact, lives in the poorest ward of Washington, D.C. - Ward 8 - where the unequal distribution of wealth, capital, and social mobility is glaringly apparent. In the ward’s most historic neighborhood of Anacostia, for example, 50 percent of children live below the poverty line and almost 50 percent of the population is illiterate.

“I don’t want to grow up being homeless,” Dasani says. “I don’t want my kids to grow up holding a sign on the streets. I want to do good in school so I can provide for my children.” Dasani dreams of getting out of the “hood,” as she calls it, to attend Duke

University.

9 Fig. 3. A screenshot from the Barry Farm documentary. Dasani checks in with her advisor, Catherine Day, at E.L. Haynes High School October 17, 2016. In Dasani’s sophomore year, she earned a 4.0 grade point average, but she struggles with Her Advanced Placement courses in her junior year. Film still by Joy Sharon Yi

At home, Dasani spends most of her time in her room, usually video chatting with her friends, playing piano, or completing homework assignments. When her younger siblings ask if they can come in, she adamantly denies access. Her room is her sanctuary.

THERE ARE THE PARENTS

Ave didn’t have a choice: live in Barry Farm or die moving from street to street.

Her husband was recently incarcerated, and she had lost her job. She had stood outside of the Gallery Place metro station with her eight children holding up a cardboard sign. In good times, they got enough to rent a hotel room. In bad times, they had to sleep in a van on the streets. Her aunt graciously allowed Ave and her kids to stay with her a year. But it was getting to be too much.

The house in Barry Farm - she recalled - was already falling apart when she met with the landlord. The floors were decaying, the kitchen stove didn’t work, electricity was scant. But she feared if she didn’t get the house, she would have to wait on an endless waiting list. Eventually, Ave’s family moved to Sumner Road next door to

Rochelle’s family, a family who has lived in Barry Farm for three generations. Rochelle and Ave quickly became friends.

Rochelle grew up in Barry Farm as a child in 1974. A born-and-raised

Washingtonian, Rochelle endured the struggle of living in Barry Farm when Washington

10 was considered the murder capital of America. The years had kept her kind, hard working, and reliant on her faith.

“I’m an Indian,” she says pumping her hands. “I graduated Ana in 1991,” referring to Anacostia Senior High School. When Rochelle’s best friend was shot and murdered, she left for North Carolina and didn’t turn back. However, an unfortunate sequence of events compelled Rochelle to return. Rochelle’s grandmother passed away, her mother had a brain aneurysm, and her brother with a disability was unable to care for her mother. There were few other housing options in the District 5.

“I’m ready to leave,” says Ave. “But I don’t want to move from the hood to another hood.”

“I pay my rent on time, every time,” Rochelle says. “I want that voucher.”

That is the situation for many households. Their option is to receive a voucher 6 to rent a subsidized home or to move to another public housing unit. But the available affordable housing units in Washington are few. There is also little transparency and accountability. In April 2017, for example, the Washington City Paper reported the Equal

Rights Center was suing a management company after the ERC found discrimination in housing based on “source of income.”

In the backdrop of Barry Farm’s future redevelopment is America’s growing affordable housing crisis. According to research by the Urban Institute, zero counties in

America have enough housing for those living in extreme poverty. There are only 28 affordable homes available for every 100 households in need, and nationally, a wage of

5 Rochelle and Ave’s families are both considered “hard-to-house” – households with individuals with a disability or many children. In Washington, D.C., while the number of single homeless individuals has dropped, the number of homeless families has risen significantly. According to the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, that number has risen 75% in 5 short years. 6 The Housing Choice Voucher Program, overseen by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is the largest rental-assistance program in America, designed to assist low-income families to rent a subsidized home

11 $20.30 per hour is needed to rent a two-bedroom apartment. That’s 2.8 full time jobs. In the District of Columbia, you need to make $31.21 per hour or retain three full time minimum-wage jobs to be able to rent a two-bedroom apartment. That is the second highest rate in the country. Still, housing authorities across America are razing public housing units to create “mixed-income communities.”

Meanwhile, Ave starts to lose control over her situation. After five years, Ave’s welfare check has shrunk significantly. She cannot afford to buy school supplies for her kids. She was one semester away from graduating with an Associate’s Degree when her school closed down. She has little time to mourn and decides she wants to go to hair school and own a salon.

“It’s going to be called Ave Clarice,” she says, waving her right hand across the air.

THERE ARE THE LEGACIES

“If the trees could tell stories,” says Charles. “They would be able to say so much because they were here since before my time”

It’s Friday night in Barry Farm. The sky is orange and bluish purple. The hood of

Jay’s car is propped open; he’s hot wired the car battery to power the speaker connected to his phone. Robin Thicke’s Morning Sun is playing. He smiles and nods his head to the music. A few steps away Doc is in his expensive maroon polo, black slacks, and nice shoes dancing with Keisha. He holds her close and gleefully sways side to side. The

12 group of fifteen or so COGs – as they call themselves, Cool Old Guys – and several women partake in joyful conversation. It’s the beginning of the weekend in Barry Farm.

Barry Farm’s proud history as the first African American home-owning community in the nation’s capital is often overshadowed by stories of violence and murder. To the COGs, Barry Farm is home - even if they don’t physically live there. It’s where they grew up and formed strong bonds of friendship.

In 1961, journalist Jane Jacobs published a seminal book called “The Death and

Life of Great American Cities.” In her book, Jacobs suggested ways to “unslum” a slum – encourage a rise to the middle class, eradicate discrimination, and gradually diversify instead of wiping out neighborhoods. Mindy Fullilove clarified Jacobs’ most poignant remark in 2005: “A slum would endure if residents left as quickly as they could. A neighborhood would transform itself, if people wanted to stay. It was the investment of time, money, and love that would make the difference.”

While the physical aesthetic of Barry Farm deteriorates, the neighborhood itself thrives. The legacies – former Barry Farm residents who daily return to Barry Farm – are proof of this.

Fig. 4. James, former Barry Farm resident. 2016. Photograph by Joy Sharon Yi

“My mother moved here in 1962. I was 3 years old,” says James (see fig. 4). “My mother was an independent woman. She was a single parent. She made her struggle from here, and we made it.” James has since moved out of Barry Farm, but he returns at least once a week.

“It used to be a war zone,” says Miles, Commissioner of the Goodman League, a

Barry Farm basketball league that was created to keep young children off the streets.

“Everybody took care of everybody. Everyone watched out for each other.”

“We’re a family,” adds Sean, who still lives in the projects with his son, Little

Sean.

Off the side of the road - across the street where the COGs usually sit - is a man who hangs his head down. He stays in front of his old Barry Farm residence. After 25

14 years of living in a cell - convicted of murder - Charles returned to the only home he knew. He currently lives in a shelter but he makes his way to Barry Farm every day. The memories draw him back.

URBAN RENEWAL IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

A history of broken promises and failed policies has ingrained in African

American communities a reluctance to believe in redevelopment initiatives and promises.

The hope of a “new community” is dismal.

In Washington, D.C., during the period of urban renewal, 23,000 low-income

African Americans were displaced. Six thousand homes and 1,500 businesses were lost, replaced by 5,800 new homes and 13,000 middle to upper-middle class residents

(Kijakazi, et al 2016). Only one apartment complex was dedicated for low-income families.

The Pittsburgh-Washington Courier at the time of urban renewal wrote:

The plea that “thousands of Negroes will lose their life savings and become renters or objects of charity; hundreds of Negro business enterprises will be wiped out; hundreds of Negro churches will be destroyed and their membership scattered; Negro professional men will loser their clientele” is seen as a poor excuse for not making Washington the most beautiful city in the world. (Gilette 2006, Kijakazi, et al 2016)

In December 2008, as part of the New Communities Initiative, Temple Courts - a public housing project in Washington, D.C. - was demolished. Tenants were promised the right to return, but many found themselves in other concentrated areas of poverty east of the Anacostia River. Others, who were contacted by the D.C. Housing Authority (DCHA) for placement in different homes, were reluctant to do so for fear that they’d lose the

15 opportunity to return to the redeveloped homes, according to The Washington Post. Since

December 2008, no new buildings have been constructed. The space Temple Courts once occupied is a parking lot across from the new building for National Public Radio. It is rented to a parking lot company for approximately $15,000 a month, the Post reported.

Washington, D.C., is geographically split into four quadrants and eight wards, but racial and income stratification have sharply divided residents in deeper ways. D.C. now has one of the highest black and white income disparities in the United States. The average White household in D.C. has a net worth of $284,000 while the average Black household net worth is $3,500 (Kijazaki, et al 2016). Continuous “redevelopment” has pushed residents increasingly to the city’s edges - primarily to Prince George’s County in neighboring Maryland - changing the very demographics of D.C. In the 1970s, D.C. – referred to as Chocolate City – once had a population that was 70% African American.

Now, according to the 2015 U.S. Census, the population is 48% African American.

“Barry Farm is about to go through urban renewal. Is it going to be urban renewal or negro removal,” says historian Dr. Bernard Demczuk. “That’s the question we’re going to have to answer.”

Dominic Moulden of ONE DC, a nonprofit that advocates for equitable development in D.C. says, “There is already a mixed-income community in Barry Farm and a list of 70,000 families on the affordable housing list. Why can’t we create more affordable housing?”

Studies show mixed-income communities can lead to increased investment and security. However, in the District of Columbia, the rate at which former public housing residents return after new homes are created is extremely low. In D.C., for example, the

16 first plan to create mixed-income communities was in 1999 when plans were made to demolish the Ellen Wilson Dwellings. There was a promise for one-for-one replacement, but only 33 of the 134 public housing units were replaced and new units were rebuilt after

12 long years. While some made it back, most former residents did not return, reported the Washington City Paper. One hundred affordable homes were lost.

The failure of the New Communities Initiative - in regards to the Temple Courts

Housing Projects - has not derailed plans to demolish Barry Farm even while many residents claim neglect on the part of DCHA. Rat infestation, caved-in ceilings, and roaches are a few of the most recent complaints.

“It’s demolition by neglect,” says a Barry Farm Tenants Association ally.

The 2005 New Communities Initiative - notoriously considered an unfunded, unimplementable program - finally received funding for Barry Farm’s redevelopment in

September 2016. DCHA meetings became more frequent, but intense opposition by housing activists and residents stalled relocation efforts.

Today, families are in limbo. The homes themselves are falling apart, but with little to no affordable housing in the District, they are hesitant to move out.

This story is not new. In 2013, the Washington Post reported the affordable housing oldest application was “made when a gallon of gas cost 91 cents and Ronald

Reagan was president.” Many on the list are homeless, causing circumstances that have pushed families to cram into controversial places like D.C. General, a former hospital turned homeless shelter where a homeless child, Relisha Rudd, disappeared with a janitor in 2014. The search for her body continues today.

17 The temporary band-aids the DC government has created – such as rapid rehousing 7 and the voucher system - has exposed an unavoidable fact: there is a critical need for a long-term investment in both subsidized and affordable housing.

***

In November 2016, Donald Trump delivered a speech in North Carolina to unveil his plan for a “New Deal for Black America.” He began his speech, “It is great to be here in Charlotte to discuss an issue that means so much to me. That is the issue of urban renewal , and the rebuilding of our inner cities.”

Black communities were understandably alarmed. The term “urban renewal” has meant decades of government-sanctioned displacement in the name of progress. It has meant severe emotional and psychological trauma on the collective conscious of Black

America. It has meant “negro removal” and the deprival of the most basic human rights hidden in plain sight. While the movement of urban demographics and city planning are certainly complex, the ways in which African Americans and people of color have historically been “serially displaced” and abused by the government is undeniable.

What would equity look like in D.C.? How can a neighborhood recover from repeated trauma? In 2006, author Howard Gilette detailed how congressional leaders repeatedly chose to advance the aesthetic beauty of Washington, D.C.’s, memorial buildings while remaining silent about justice and equality. Indeed, as the only

7 For homeless families, many rely on the District’s rapid rehousing program. While the government has lauded the program as a success, a closer examination of data revealed the program actually “set families up to fail,” enforcing a cyclical pattern of poverty and homelessness, a May 2017 report by the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless found.

18 congressionally controlled city in America, the District of Columbia serves as a unique ground to which political leaders can set the standard for how urban housing policies are implemented. However, year after year, generation after generation, this has not been the case.

Architect Michel Cantal-Dupart believed that in the field of urban planning, beauty – if shared – could end poverty and injustice. Similarly, the author of this project believes to address racism and class inequality in urban development, it is first necessary to change the way people think about urban planning from a framework of aesthetic beauty for the rich to social justice and human rights for all. The actual, lived experience of public housing residents should be considered. Ordinary people must become involved.

In 1962, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights warned the creation of the I-75

Chrysler expressway in Detroit would displace 4,000 families, 87% of whom were

African American. Their warnings were ignored, and families were displaced. A similar incident occurred in Miami, Florida. A community of 40,000 African Americans was reduced to 8,000 people when the highway was completed (Rothstein 2017). In

Washington, D.C., activists, lawyers, and residents themselves are actively warning developers, government leaders, and the general public of impending displacement if certain development projects move forward. This is the case for future “development” projects in Brookland Manor, Congress Heights, and Barry Farm in Washington, D.C.

(see fig. 5). It will be up to the city’s people to listen or to ignore their pleas.

Fig. 5. Brookland Manor housing protest. February 2017. Photograph by Joy Sharon Yi

“I am a human being,” says Barry Farm resident Paulette Matthews to representatives of D.C.’s Housing Authority, as if to remind them of this particular truth.

Meanwhile, like clockwork, every night you can find COGs near the Barry Farm basketball court, Ave and Rochelle sitting in their beach chairs, and the neighborhood kids running around. Football – and occasionally dodgeball - is their game of choice.

Mostly, they roll around in the dirt. They wrestle. They run. They cry. They laugh.

“We’re going to get out of here,” says George, 12. “We just don’t know when.

20 Chapter Two: Visual Review

The multimedia component of this project celebrates the Barry Farm community.

Barry Farm is influenced by early and contemporary social documentary photographers and filmmakers such as Jacob Riis, John H. White, and Martin Bell.

PIONEERS OF SOCIAL DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY

Jacob Riis, an immigrant from Denmark, photographed tenement families in the slums of New York when photography was still in its infancy. He was 21 years old when he first arrived to America. Riis -- himself an impoverished immigrant -- intimately knew and understood the circumstances and challenges faced by the urban poor. His photographs etched into newspapers legitimized the existence of poverty and extreme inequality. One of his most famous photographs, for example, depicted unauthorized immigration lodgings in a Bayard Street tenement. The photograph, called “5 Cents a

Spot,” was used to enforce sanitary regulations (see fig. 6).

21 Fig. 6. Unauthorized immigration lodgings in a Bayard Street tenement. Photograph by Jacob Riis. “Five cents a spot.” LIbrary of Congress, 1890. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002710259/

When Riis died in 1914, an obituary in The Hartford read:

“Jacob A. Riis forced the construction of more schoolhouses. He exposed

the contamination of the New York City’s water supply. He forced the

destruction of the tenements thus relieving the hideous darkness and

density of life among New York’s pitiful poor... That was the record of

Jacob A. Riis. Seldom is America privileged to benefit by one so fine.”

Riis’s impact in the field of photography and social documentary photography is undeniable. He was a true pioneer in his field. However, the way Riis presented families in crowded and squalid conditions would mostly likely be viewed as victimization or

“poverty porn” today. Tenement residents were not displayed as dignified Americans, but rather as helpless second class citizens. In the digital age and the era of “if it bleeds, it leads,” images of poor families living in tenements and public housing has only served to stigmatize communities. In addition, the way Riis posed children in sleeping portraits would be extremely controversial today by journalistic standards.

Barry Farm carries the same spirit as Jacob Riis with the hope of igniting conversation about unequal societal conditions. However, it is the hope of the photographer to engage in deeper conversation not just about the physical conditions of the urban poor, but about deeply rooted societal inequity. Subjects will only be posed for formal or family portraits, and documentary photographs will stay true to the traditions of truthful photojournalism.

22 PHOTOGRAPHY AND NUANCE

Over the years, public housing has acquired a vile image. In 1982, however, one photographer chose to photograph a notorious, crime-ridden Chicago housing project differently. During this time, the United States entered a severe recession; unemployment rose to 10.8 percent, the highest since 1940. Poverty gripped America. In Chicago, seven people died after ingesting Tylenol capsules laced with potassium cyanide. That same month, in September, photographer John H. White stood in front of the Cabrini Green high-rise projects and intentionally chose to photograph two running children smiling widely with the high-rises in the background (see fig. 7). White bent low to take the photograph and allowed the children to be almost as large as the towering projects. This photograph - and the other photographs in his series - depicted ordinary people striving for a better life under the burdens of poverty and crime. The towering, monolithic housing projects would not overcome the residents. For his series, White received journalism’s highest award – the Pulitzer.

Fig. 7. Children running through Cabrini Green, one of Chicago’s most notorious housing projects, September 1981. Photograph by John H. White

23 “The purpose was to share a slice of life from all walks of life; to be the psalm of the people,“ wrote Heinz-Dietrich Fischer about White’s photographs. While other

Pulitzer photographers were awarded for “gripping, courageous, extraordinary, striking, emotional, powerful” images, John H. White is the only photojournalist to date who has won the Pulitzer for “consistency.” While White’s photographs may not be the most iconic or historic or visually compelling, his ability to share moments in the “in between” with extraordinary perspective demonstrates the value of ordinary human life. The way he portrayed children - not as helpless Americans marginalized by society - but as dignified American children, is the most important influence for the photographs in Barry

Farm.

Fig. 8. Dylan runs in front of his Barry Farm home. March 2017. Photograph by Joy Sharon Yi

In truth -- as was the case in Cabrini Green -- bad things happen in Barry Farm. Barry

Farm does not ignore the existence of these social conditions. The purpose of the project

24 is to use new media and photography to present a more nuanced version of daily life in

Barry Farm without stereotypical coverage and victimization.

CINEMA VERITE AND DOCUMENTARY FILMS

Martin Bell’s 1984 documentary Streetwise was created as an extension of the

Life Magazine article “Streets of the Lost,” photographed by his wife Mary Ellen Mark and written by Cheryl McCall. Streetwise portrayed the lives of nine homeless teenagers attempting to survive on the streets of Seattle.

Bell had extraordinary access to the film’s subjects. He filmed in extremely sensitive situations such as Tiny’s hospital visit to check if she had a sexually transmitted disease and Dewayne’s visit to his father in prison. Bell also filmed scenes of child prostitution and panhandling. Today, to be a grown white man with a camera in a 14- year-old girl’s doctor’s appointment may be considered a social taboo. With great care,

Bell allows Tiny to speak for herself. He does not sensationalize or pare down the characters as “homeless teens.” He portrays them as complex individuals with personalities, thoughts, and dreams.

The most fascinating part of the film is Bell’s craftsmanship. In the construction of scenes, the subjects never address the camera. The film is both character and action driven with a seamless interweaving of voice overs and scene progression. There are no lower thirds or captions that explain certain scenes or situations. Instead, Bell uses wide shots to take viewers in and out of scenes. The B-Roll is the A-Roll.

The documentary Barry Farm is also cinéma vérité in form and strives to have the subjects speak for themselves with minimal-to-no filmmaker interjection. The style will

25 allow for a non-judgmental third person point of view into the lives of young teenagers.

Unlike Streetwise, however, Barry Farm , will show policy implications in the

Washington, D.C., area and depict a bird’s eye view of homelessness and the lack of affordable housing in America. It will attempt to provide a balanced mix of personal and policy. Additionally, the film will be shot with digital cameras and have better picture quality than Streetwise. The ancillary interactive website will also serve to provide more relevant information to audiences.

Additionally, Barry Farm will be filmed mostly with a 50mm lens in order to visually remind viewers that we are seeing and listening to the inner reality of kids.

Unlike Streetwise, Barry Farm will be handheld in style, visually indicating the gritty nature of Barry Farm.

INTERACTIVE WEBSITES AND STORYTELLING IN THE DIGITAL AGE

While the advancement of technology has vastly changed the way we communicate, it has allowed humanity to do what we have always done- tell stories.

Journalists, designers, and photographers have adapted to these incredible technological changes by creating innovative interactive websites to tell deeper and more engaging stories. As it relates to children in public housing, in 2013 National Public Radio (NPR) created an interactive website called Demolished about Chicago’s Ida B. Wells housing projects.

The information architecture and design strategy of the website is one of the best components of their project. The website answers critical questions, challenges assumptions, and provides personal details about past residents. The website is

26 interweaved with important personal and policy implications. For example, there are graphic bird’s eye view maps that visually reinforces an important point -- high-rises were built in Chicago’s slums, reinforcing invisible boundaries. Additionally, the design team used squares to indicate windows into the lives of children while using longer rectangular designs to indicate research and information about high-rises. In this instance, the form equals content. Black and white portraits offer an intimate, personal view of previous residents.

While the interactive website provides a good perspective into the personal and policy of the Ida B. Well projects, it lacks immediacy and urgency about the current conditions and challenges of public housing residents. Demolished is reported after the

Ida B. Wells projects have been destroyed. In contrast, Barry Farm is a public housing project that will be demolished but currently has no set demolition date. There are plans to relocate current residents now. Disputes have risen locally. Activists have spoken out.

In the case of Demolished , significant time has passed. In this case, Barry Farm is more timely.

BARRY FARM

The multimedia elements of this project are not about deteriorating homes. Nor is it about public housing. It is about a neighborhood that has survived and thrived despite undergoing repeated trauma, forced displacement, and a pattern of extreme neglect. By form and content, Barry Farm documents an underserved community in a manner that respects documentary traditions, its subjects, and communicates a story. The project carries the same spirit as the documentary work of Jacob Riis, who sought to create real

27 and lasting change. Seared unto black and white film, the Barry Farm photographs physically assert the importance, value, and existence of the Barry Farm neighborhood.

Because the injustice of “urban renewal” has literally been hidden in plain sight, the work will be physically printed and exhibited in university settings and galleries east of the river as much as possible.

French philosopher Roland Barthes once argued shocking photographs have little to no effect on viewers; its “overconstruction” inhibits viewers from a freedom to respond. “We are in each case dispossessed in our judgment: someone has shuddered for us, reflected for us, judged for us; the photographer has left us nothing,” he said. While it is arguable that in the span of history, photographs have “left us nothing,” in the digital era, the oversaturation of shocking images has certainly desensitized viewers. The current situation in Syria is a testament.

The black and white Barry Farm photographs show daily life and in between moments so subjects are not typecast or tokenized. The aim is not to shock or surprise. It is to offer a simple glimpse into a community and to give viewers space to draw personal connections and conclusions for themselves.

A good example of this is Fazal Sheikh’s large format film portraits of Sudanese refugees (see fig. 9). Referring to Sheikh’s work, social documentary photographer Ken

Light wrote:

“In contrast to the often sensational, mass-media depictions of humanitarian crisis, Sheikh takes formal portraits of his subjects – living among them and earning their collaboration. With names printed prominently next to their images, mothers, children, wounded soldiers, and tribal elders assume stately poses, hold pictures of their loved ones, and gaze directly into Sheikh’s camera, producing what have been described as understated studies of human dignity under devastating circumstances.”

Fig. 9. Ajoh Achot and Achol Manyen, Sudanese refugee camp, Kauma, Kenya 1993 Photograph by Fazal Sheikh

The direct portaits in the Barry Farm project are also taken with a large format film camera (see fig. 10 and 11). This portion of the project is called the Legacy Project; it is a community engagement project intended to document the last residents of Barry

Farm before its demolition through large format film portraiture. Using a tool that has typically been used to photograph vast landscapes, the photographer hopes to capture human dignity and invite viewers to respond to people directly instead of perhaps perceived decay and physical deterioration of public housing.

Fig. 10 and 11. Dylan and Zion. 2016. Photograph by Joy Sharon Yi

While shocking images elicit short-term shock and victimization, images of daily life humanize. They are relatable. The documentary photographs in this project show life as it is in Barry Farm. The photographs depict small, ordinary moments such as Sean celebrating his 50 th birthday with his lifelong friend Lee (see fig. 12).

Fig. 12. Lee and Sean at Sean’s 50 th birthday party In Barry Farm. 2017. Photograph by Joy Sharon Yi

While the photographs in this project cast a wide net in to the community, Barry

Farm the documentary gives an intimate glimpse into the lives of teenagers and the pursuit of their dreams. Their stories and experiences of homelessness prior to living in public housing convey the critical importance of affordable housing in America. Subjects are interviewed in a nontraditional way; they are asked to directly face the camera when answering questions, causing viewers to confront and engage with the film’s subjects as if in conversation (see fig. 13, 14, and 15). The film is in black and white maintaining visual consistency throughout the entire project. The film also documents the larger narratives of disappearing affordable housing in D.C. and the history of blocked wealth to black communities in D.C. through interviews with experts, historians, and local activists.

Fig. 13, 14, and 15. Film stills from Barry Farm, the documentary. 2016-2017. Film stills by Joy Sharon Yi

The Barry Farm book is a physical, tangible, intimate reminder of the families that lived in Barry Farm once it is demolished (see Appendix F). The website exists to inform viewers not only of the community and its memories but also about the lasting effects of discriminatory housing policies in America (see Appendix C).

Barry Farm is about a community in peril -- Americans who struggle daily to make a better life for themselves and their children and who are at risk of losing their

32 homes. It’s about growing up. It’s about love, family, and relationships. It’s about the

American dream in the 21st century. Much has been documented after a housing project has already been torn down and residents have already been displaced. By reporting and documenting Barry Farm families today in a way that does not victimize subjects, the project hopes to ignite immediate conversation and engage the local community about affordable housing and social equity in the nation’s capital.

33 Chapter 3: Methods and Materials Used

Barry Farm is a multimedia documentary project that began in February 2016 and will conclude in 2018. It is a black and white photo essay, interactive website, book, and documentary.

The author attended numerous D.C. Housing Authority meetings, community programs, and protests in the completion of this project. The author visited Barry Farm over fifty times over the course of a year and a half and recorded interviews, birthday parties, baby showers, and daily events. The quotes in the paper were transcribed verbatim from audio and video recordings and hand written field notes. The author also interviewed experts, including historian Dr. Bernard Demczuk and Urban Institute fellow, Dr. Kilolo Kijakazi.

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39 Appendix A: Barry Farm Photographs

Zion

Dylan

The 295 Freeway and Barry Farm in the background

Sumner Road

Dre

Bejon

Elizabeth

“I want to live in a mansion,” says Dylan, 8. “Or someplace that’s not a football field or playground.” On this day, Dylan and Little Sean trespassed onto a school playground. The playground directly in front of their house was razed to create the Barry Farm Recreation Center, which is not open for children after hours.

Lee

Charles lived in Barry Farm when he was 9 years old, at a time when D.C. was considered the murder capital of the world. After 23 years of incarceration for homicide, he returned to Barry Farm as a homeless man. He stays at a nearby shelter, but he visits Barry Farm everyday. He says it will always be his home.

Drug arrest

Chase

Mason’s hiding place

Jordan

“Barry Farm is adventurous. When we were little we made bow and arrows and went to St. Elizabeth’s to hunt rabbits. We built wagons like the Little Rascals. We did things – adventurous things – and had fun. I’m one of the fortunate ones that haven’t been in jail even though my buddies have,” says Frank.

Lailah

Tikija, Dre, and Tyrell

Lee and Sean grew up in the Barry Farm Public Houses together. They are lifelong friends.

Zion

“My mother moved here in 1962. I was 3 years old. She moved here to get her first start,” says former Barry Farm resident James Roche. “My mother was an independent woman. She was a single parent. She made her struggle from here, and we made it.”

Sean “Maybon” Brown with his son Little Sean Brown

Friends

March 2017

Sean on his 50 th birthday

Dylan

64 Appendix B: Barry Farm in NEXT 2017, CSAD

A part of the Barry Farm project was on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in

Washington, D.C. from April 12, 2017 – May 21, 2017. A ten-minute version of the documentary was available to be viewed by the public in the Black Box Theater. The film was also screened at the inaugural student-run film festival called Corcoran One Day Doc

Fest.

The Barry Farm project was displayed In Washington, D.C.’s Corcoran Gallery of Art in 2017

The Barry Farm project on display In Washington, D.C.’s Corcoran Gallery of Art

The Barry Farm project was displayed on the left side of the Black Box Theater, where a ten-minute version of the Barry Farm documentary was available to be screened for the public.

A screenshot from the website promoting the Corcoran One Day Doc Fest.

67 Appendix C: Website

A screenshot of www.barryfarmproject.com

The website for this project is www.barryfarmproject.com . The interactive website is user and mobile friendly. There are three separate folders on the website: (1)

Stories, (2) News, and (3) About. The About Page gives a brief overview of gentrification and affordable housing in D.C. along with a synopsis of the different multimedia components of the project.

A screenshot of the About Page on www.barryfarmproject.com

The News section is a resource guide for users and serves as an aggregation of news articles both local and national. It includes information about the Barry Farm redevelopment and the status of urban housing policies in America. The newsfeed is an easy way to streamline relevant and pertinent information to a target audience. It informs readers how partnerships have affected communities and highlight what national and local leaders are doing to advocate equitable development and housing rights.

A screenshot the news section of the website that regularly updates and aggregates news articles about the Barry Farm redevelopment

There are six different panels in the Stories section. Stories is the homepage of the website and where the meat of the information and multimedia components from the project reside. The first panel is titled “Daily Life in Limbo” and showcases documentary

70 photographs and quotes from Barry Farm residents. The second chapter is “Portraits and

Words,” or the Legacy Project. The third panel is a trailer to the Barry Farm documentary and indicates the documentary’s completion will be in 2018.

A screenshot of the Legacy Project panel on www.barryfarmproject.com

A screenshot of the second row of panels on www.barryfarmproject.com

71 The second row of panels is a visual way to engage with audiences about the history of urban renewal and gentrification in America. The first panel in the second row is a visual history of Barry Farm itself. It explains that Barry Farm is the first African American home-owning community in the nation’s capital and also indicates that public housing was created there in the 1950s as a result of urban renewal. The second panel informs viewers about the second urban renewal and the background of the New Communities

Initiative. The last panel is an aggregation of news and social media notification from local activists. The second row is labeled Past, Present, and Future and gives a wider context to the issues of affordable housing and gentrification.

A screenshot from the Barry Farm website about the history of urban renewal in America and D.C.

72 Appendix D: Community Engagement – “The Best Part of Me” Workshop

In April 2016, I held a photography workshop for young girls at the Barry Farm

Recreation Center. The goal of this project was to equip and empower young girls to construct their own narrative through creative expression and photography. The girls photographed and wrote about the best part of themselves. The workshop was modeled after Wendy Ewald’s book Best Part of Me.

This is a behind the scenes photo of the “Best Part of Me” Workshop at the Barry Farm Recreation Center. Photo credit: Wendy Glenn

A behind the scenes photo of the “Best Part of Me” Workshop at the Barry Farm Recreation Center. Photo credit: Wendy Glenn

73 “What a great project to enhance the Afternoon Access-Aftercare program for our participants. Thank you for wanting to engage and be a part of enriching our children’s prospective on who they are and an appreciation of their own beauty.”

--Feedback from Wendy Glenn, Program Manager at Barry Farm Recreation Center

Student produced work from The Best Part of Me Workshop

75 Appendix E: Community Engagement – FotoWeek DC

In November 2016, I was invited to share some of my “in progress” work at

FotoWeek DC. The talk included discussion about the impact of gentrification on children and my experience as a photographer/ filmmaker in an underserved neighborhood. The event featured talks from several other local photographers.

A behind the scenes photo of my FotoTalk at National Geographic for FotoWeek DC. Photo credit: Bailey Edelstein

76 Appendix F: The Barry Farm Book

Because Barry Farm will be demolished, it was important to the author to have a physical photo book of the Barry Farm Project. The first iteration of the photo book was printed in

April 2017. It was available to be viewed by the public at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

The Barry Farm Book