DCPS 12th Grade D.C. History & Government Curriculum Connections Overview Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum Located in the historic Anacostia neighborhood in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum (ACM) was founded in 1967. Under the leadership of its first director John Kinard, the museum became a means for people in an urban neighborhood to voice their concerns about city life, examine their role in society, and encourage local cultural expression. Mission: Together with local communities, the Anacostia Community Museum illuminates and amplifies our collective power. Vision: Urban communities activate their collective power for a more equitable future. A Right to the City The history of Washington neighborhoods reveals the struggles of DC residents to control—or even participate in— decisions affecting where and how they live. Prior to passage of Home Rule in the 1970s, congressmen, private developers, appointed members of the local government, and even sitting presidents decided the course of the city’s development, often with little or no input from residents. In the mid-twentieth century, massive federal “urban renewal” projects, school desegregation, and major highways (both proposed and built) spurred civic engagement, protest, alternative proposals for development, and a push for self- government. By 1968, “White men’s roads through black men’s homes” became a rallying cry, pointing to the racism that afflicted the urban and suburban planning of the era. A Right to the City Digital Exhibit highlights episodes in the history of six neighborhoods across the city – Southwest, Anacostia, Shaw, Brookland, Chinatown and Adams-Morgan. In each neighborhood, ordinary Washingtonians helped shape and reshape their neighborhoods in extraordinary ways: through the fight for quality public education, for healthy and green communities, for equitable development and transit, and for a genuinely democratic approach to city planning. The exhibit also challenges young people to consider how they might Prepare to Participate in taking informed action about the District’s future. District of Columbia Public Schools 12th Grade D.C. History Curricular Connections The District of Columbia Public Schools 12th Grade curriculum devotes one semester to understanding the past, present and future of Washington, D.C. Following the DCPS 12th Grade History and Government Scope and Sequence and Unit Guides, the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum has created this annotated overview of the exhibit to assist DCPS faculty in using A Right to the City Digital Exhibit as a means of building content knowledge about the ways in which Washingtonians, in the past, have “activate[d] their collective power” in order to bring about “a more equitable future” for current residents of the District. By doing so, ACM hopes to assist DCPS teachers to inspire District students to evaluate how the lessons of the past might guide them in taking informed action in order to guarantee a “Right to the City” for the next generation of Washingtonians. 12th Grade DC History, Unit 2 Guide: Changing Neighborhoods, Changing City: Growth and Gentrification Inquiry Arc: Does growth benefit a city? A Right to the City Digital Exhibit Unit 2 Overview: DC Content A Right Prepare Compelling Supporting Adams- Power to the Southwest Anacostia Shaw Brookland Chinatown To Question Question Morgan Standard City Participate 12.DC.22.1 CQ3: SQ4 Explain the What does As the Great Migration unfolded, tension diversity look what does diversity look like in between like in Washington, D.C? gentrification Washington, x x x x x x x x and the DC? (According to A Right to the City, interests of what does diversity in DC look like long-term today?) residents. SQ5 How did the growth of the federal government during the eras of x xx x x x xx x World War I, the New Deal and World War II affect the District? SQ8 What is gentrification and how has xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx it effected long-term residents? Big Ideas Related to A Right to the City Digital Exhibit: • After years of population decline, gentrification has produced new forms of growth in the District as well as created tension among long-term residents and newcomers and forces District residents to confront difficult issues of race, class, power and history. Building Content Knowledge Using A Right to the City Digital Exhibit: • Use the maps in A Right to the City to explore geographic patterns of racial population distribution in the District. • Consider changing patterns in the racial makeup of Washington, D.C. and develop inquires as to why that shift occurred. Performance Task Using A Right to the City Digital Exhibit: • Explore Brookland to discover how Sam Abbott used slogans and the visual arts to advocate for neighborhood change. Have students consider how they can use these lessons learned in order to adapt them to their own social media campaign strategy. Alternatively, consider how Sam Abbott could be a source of inspiration for a traditional poster campaign around the school. Adapted from 12th Grade DC History Unit Guide developed by District of Columbia Public Schools 12th Grade DC History, Unit 3 Guide: Citizens Fight for Justice: Civil Rights in D.C. Inquiry Arc: What should resistance look like? A Right to the City Digital Exhibit Unit 3 Overview: DC Content A Right Prepare Compelling Supporting Adams- Power to the Southwest Anacostia Shaw Brookland Chinatown to Question Question Morgan Standard City Participate 12.DC.10.3 CQ1: How did SQ3: What role did educational, Explain how African economic, religious and/or cultural African- Americans institutions play in the African American survive and American community in x x x x x x x leaders thrive during Washington, most notably on resisted the Jim Crow historic U Street? discrimination. era? CQ2: How did SQ4: In what ways did African DC residents American residents challenge legal take the Civil segregation? x x x x x x Rights movement and make it local? SQ5: Why did riots erupt in 1968 and how did they affect x x Washington, DC? SQ6: Why were civil rights and home rule linked during the x x x x x 1960s? SQ7: In what ways did El Salvadoran immigrant residents x make their voices heard in the early 1990s? CQ3: When SQ8: What does effective change should people look like? x x x x x x x x fight for change? SQ9: How have past leaders tried to bring positive change to the x x x x x x x District? SQ10: What is the most effective way to address injustices in x x x x x x x today’s District? Adapted from 12th Grade DC History Unit Guide developed by District of Columbia Public Schools Unit 3: Citizens Fight for Justice: Civil Rights in D.C. Adapted from 12th Grade DC History Unit Guide developed by District of Columbia Public Schools Inquiry Arc: What should resistance look like? Big Ideas Related to A Right to the City Digital Exhibit: • As Jim Crow segregation took root, African Americans resisted racist violence in the Riot of 1919 and protected and nurtured their communities in a way that enabled them to thrive, particularly in the U Street area. • After World War II, African Americans used different methods to challenge legal segregation, including filing lawsuits and organizing protests and acts of civil disobedience. • While legal breakthroughs and reforms, including the expansion of home rule, brought positive changes to DC, underserved and marginalized communities resisted in ways that challenged city leaders—most notably in the 1968 riots and the 1991 Mt. Pleasant Riots. • A tradition of activism continues in the 21st century as DC residents of all backgrounds campaign for issues such statehood, a living wage, marriage equality affordable housing and civil rights, and more. Building Content Knowledge Using A Right to the City Digital Exhibit: What does resistance look like? • Explore what resistance looked like in each of the six neighborhoods. How did DC residents take the Civil Rights movement and make it local? • Compare and contrast the ways “educational, economic, religious and/or cultural institutions” played a role effecting change in each neighborhood as well as in various ethnic communities. Evaluate the short-term or long-term effectiveness of resistance as it played out in each neighborhood as well as in various ethnic communities. • Explore how African American residents in Anacostia, Shaw and Adams-Morgan challenged legal segregation in the schools. • Explore how the 1968 riots affected the Shaw neighborhood and how the citizens of the community were prepared to participate in initiatives to rebuild using community and faith-based partnerships. • Explore how a variety of ethnic communities in Adams-Morgan advocated for change. • Explore how the DC residents used the arts to advocate for change in neighborhoods such as Brookland, Chinatown and Adams-Morgan. • Explore how student activism made a difference in neighborhoods like Anacostia, Chinatown and Adams-Morgan. What does change look like in your neighborhood? • Utilize the maps in each neighborhood chapter to conduct a virtual walking tour by comparing how each neighborhood has changed over time • Lead students on a walking tour as a class group activity or assign as a homework activity. What does effective change look like? • Explore what change looked like in each of the six neighborhoods. Who can advocate for change? • A Right to the City Digital Exhibit highlights ordinary Washingtonians (even young people) who advocated for change in their communities? Though it is important to remember people like Marion Barry, Walter Washington and Walter Fauntroy, how did advocates like Roberta Patrick, Rebels With a Cause, and members of the Latin American Youth Center make a difference in the lives of the District’s young people? Performance Task Using A Right to the City Digital Exhibit: • In advance of developing a two-minute Project Soapbox speech, have students consider ways they might adapt the strategies employed by Washingtonians of the past by Preparing to Participate in effecting change in the District today and in the future.