D.C. history’s pivotal 12-year span is highlighted in exhibit
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Version 0 of 1. The rapid changes that have swept through the nation’s capital over the past decade are nothing compared with a 12-year period from the early 1960s to mid-1970s, when uprisings, protests and social shifts culminated in the citizens of the District of Columbia being able to elect their own mayor and city council for the first time in a century. The exhibition “Twelve Years That Shook and Shaped Washington: 1963-1975,” at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum, chronicles those political, social and cultural changes. Here are numbers putting them into context: Population of Washington, D.C., in 1963. City’s population in 1975. The amendment in the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1961, that extended the right to vote in presidential elections to D.C. voters. People who died in the 1968 riots after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Percent of D.C. residents who were black in the 1970 Census, when it was the largest black-majority city in the nation. Candidates competing for 11 positions on the school board in 1968, the first D.C. local election in a century thanks to an executive action by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Years Walter E. Washington served as presidentially appointed mayor-commissioner before he took office as the mayor elected outright in 1975. Tracks on the 1975 Parliament album “Chocolate City” dedicated to Washington. Sales of Parliament’s 1975 “Chocolate City” album in the District alone. Years that the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum has been open in Southeast Washington. Length, in months, of the “Twelve Years” exhibition. Cost, in dollars, of admission to the museum. Catlin is a freelance writer. Twelve Years That Shook and Shaped Washington: 1963–1975 Through Oct. 23 at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Pl. SE. 202-633-4820. anacostia.si.edu. Free. |