The nation’s capital is home to key moments in Civil Rights history, and a new interactive map highlights the cultural, political, and social impact of those moments and the Black leaders that called D.C. home.
Anita Cozart, director of the DC Office of Planning, told WTOP that the agency has been working on the project for a while.
“We see it as our mission to help advance knowledge both for District residents but also the nation,” she said.
Among the places featured on the map is the Lincoln Memorial, where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, and the Anacostia home of Frederick Douglass, now a national landmark.
But there are also locations whose historic importance are less widely known — schools, shops and churches were activists lived, built community and fought for their rights, including the Truist Bank location on Massachusetts Avenue NW, near Union Station. The stately building was once a restaurant where, in 1949, civil rights activists held a sit-in protest that Cozart said helped desegregation efforts.
You can read more in an article in the WTOP web site at: http://tinyurl.com/msvvtyr4.