UDC honors Black lives lost to white supremacy: Starting on Juneteenth, UDC President Ronald Mason led university and student leaders on a nine-night journey. On each night, they knelt for 8 minutes, 46 seconds. On the ninth night, the community was invited to join them for a candlelight vigil, and to kneel in remembrance of George Floyd and other Black lives lost to police brutality and racism. WJLA was also at the June 27th event. The first video on the page is WJLA’s report on the vigil. The second video shows the entire ceremony.
Sidwell grappling with a racist history: Enslaved people once worked at the house that now serves as Sidwell Friends administrative building. “Sidwell has been examining its campus’s past connection to slavery, grappling with events that preceded the school’s founding in 1883,” Washingtonian reports. The school has also been opening up about its more recent history of racial injustice. Sidwell was one of the last private schools in the District to integrate.
DC still grappling with Wilson High School’s name: A petition urging DC Public Schools to remove President Woodrow Wilson’s name from the high school has collected more than 19,000 signatures. At a news conference on Tuesday, June 30th, Mayor Muriel Bowser said the name should be changed. And DCPS Chancellor Lewis Ferebee told WAMU/DCist in a statement that “the mayor is formulating a working group to explore a District-wide renaming policy.” Wilson was a segregationist who promoted Jim Crow policies. His name is being removed from another Wilson High School in Camden, New Jersey this summer.
Surprise parade for Murch 5th graders: Murch Elementary couldn’t celebrate the 5th graders moving on the middle school with the usual pomp and ceremony, or the traditional “clap out,” when students in the lower grades line the halls to applaud for them. So Murch teachers surprised the kids with a parade. (WAMU)
More news:
A Murch inclusion teacher tells WAMU how she stays connected with her students.
A 1950s freeway plan would have sent one through Forest Hills. (GGWash)
DC’s only public university pitches parents on an affordable alternative to the area’s many private schools. (Washington Post)
Captured by a Fox 5 photographer:
4400 block Connecticut Ave. NW DC. #BlackLivesMatter #BlackLivesMatterDC @foresthillsnews @VanNessMainSt @marycheh pic.twitter.com/sdZnpGW2FN
— C on the scene (@Conthescene) June 25, 2020
Neil Berger says
Many Americans now living may not be aware of Woodrow Wilson’s racial policies. He was a Democrat and like many in his party supported segregation.
Lincoln comes to mind as an appropriate name for the high school and a reminder that the Republican party not only pushed for the abolition of slavery but also ensured that the Civil Rights Act became law..