Washington DC Black History

This Juneteenth, our Community Day will honor the life, legacy, and enduring impact of Opal Lee, affectionately known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” as she celebrates her 100th birthday this October. Stop by for a joyful day of storytelling, music, art making, workshops, culinary offerings, and more.

Also, as part of our Juneteenth observance, we will debut two new fine arts exhibitions exploring how abstraction has shaped African American expression across painting, sculpture, printmaking, furniture, textiles, and lighting.

📸 Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Dr. Teletia R. Taylor and descendants of Geraldine A. Taylor, Proprietor, "Taylor's Playfair"

National Museum of African American History and Culture Celebrates Juneteenth With a Community Day Honoring Opal Lee At the heart of this year’s observance is the museum’s Juneteenth Community Day on Friday, June 19, a joyful, all-ages celebration honoring the life, legacy and enduring impact of Opal Lee, affectionately known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” as she celebrates her 100th birthday later th...

🔗: bit.ly/3L4iJuO

Seattle-based chef and restaurant owner Helen L. Coleman, also known as “Ms. Helen" to fans, died on Nov. 29. She was 90.

📷️: Ms. Helen's Soul Bistro/Facebook

CHARLES HAMILTON HOUSTON (1895-1950)

Charles Hamilton Houston, a renowned civil rights attorney, is widely recognized as the architect of the civil rights strategy that led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education. He was also a mentor to Thurgood Marshall who successfully litigated the pivotal Brown case.

Houston was born on September 3, 1895, in Washington, DC to parents William Houston, an attorney, and Mary Houston, a hairdresser and seamstress. He attended M Street High School (later Dunbar High School) in Washington, DC. Following graduation, he enrolled at Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he was the only black student in his class. Houston was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, the national honor society. Upon graduating in 1915, he was selected to deliver that year’s valedictory address.

After graduating from Amherst, Houston returned to Washington. He joined the U.S. Army in 1917 and trained at the all-black officers’ training camp at Fort Des Moines, Iowa in 1917. Houston was later deployed to France. While there, Houston and his fellow black soldiers experienced racial discrimination, which deepened his resolve to study law.

Following his military discharge in 1919, Houston entered Harvard Law School. He excelled in his studies and became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. As a law student, Houston was mentored by future Supreme Court Judge Felix Frankfurter. In 1922, as Houston graduated with high honors, Frankfurter nominated him for the prestigious Frederick Sheldon Fellowship, which allowed him to study law at the University of Madrid.

Upon his return from Spain in 1924, Houston practiced law with his father, William, at Houston & Houston, and began teaching in Howard University Law’s evening program. Eventually he became dean of the Howard University Law School.

Houston’s legal accomplishments eventually captured the attention of Walter White, the chief executive of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1935, Houston was hired as Special Counsel to the Association. Eventually, he brought Thurgood Marshall, one of his Howard University law students, into the NAACP. The pair traveled through the South in the early 1930s and noted the inequalities of black school facilities. In response, they developed the legal strategy which challenged school segregation, first calling for the equalization of facilities for black students and then eventually calling for full integration.

Houston and Marshall first applied their strategy in 1935 when they took the Pearson v. Murray case, one of the first challenges to racial exclusion in public universities. Donald Gaines Murray, an Amherst graduate, was denied admission to the University of Maryland School of Law on the basis of his race. Houston and Marshall successfully argued that the state had violated Murray’s rights by failing to provide an adequate law school for his studies while denying him admission to the sole state law school on the grounds of race.

Houston continued to work with Marshall for the next fifteen years, laying the groundwork for the eventual Brown decision. Charles Hamilton Houston, a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, died on April 22, 1950 in Washington, DC at the age of 54, four years before the Supreme Court handed down the fateful decision that he had spent a lifetime planning and pursuing.

Mary Edmonson (1832–1853) and Emily Edmonson (1835–1895) were enslaved African Americans who became prominent in the United States abolitionist movement after gaining their freedom. On April 15, 1848, they were among the 77 slaves who tried to escape from Washington, D.C. to New Jersey on the schooner The Pearl.

Mary and Emily Edmonson were two of fourteen children. Their father, Paul Edmonson, was a black man from Madagascar who was freed in his owner’s will. Their mother, Amelia (Milly) Culver was an enslaved woman in the Berry District of Montgomery County, Maryland. Paul Edmonson purchased land in Norbeck where his enslaved wife was permitted to live with him and work for her master. Four of the older Edmonson sisters bought their freedom with the help of their family and husbands.

The master would not allow the four older brothers and the younger siblings to buy their freedom. Two of the younger Edmonson sisters, Mary and Emily, age 15 and 13, were described as “two respectable young women of light complexion”.

They were hired out by their mistress to work as servants in two “better” private homes in Washington, D.C. The brothers were also “hired out” in DC. Under the lease agreement their wages were paid to their mistress.

These remaining Edmonson siblings were refused the opportunity to buy their freedom because their owners did not want to lose the income they generated. In the late 1840s the sisters would become icons in the abolitionist movement.

Daniel Bell, a formerly enslaved Navy Yard blacksmith was frightened that the widow of his former master was about to sell off Bell’s wife, Mary, six of his children and two grandchildren. For 15 years, the Bell family had been suing in court to have the widow abide by the writ of manumission signed by her husband before he died.

On April 15, 1848, Bell and Samuel Edmonson planned the escape of their families. The Edmonson siblings, Mary, Emily, and their four older brothers, Samuel, Richard, Ephraim, and John departed from a Washington, D.C. wharf on a sixty-five-foot Chesapeake Bay schooner, The Pearl.

Word spread through the enslaved community and the Pearl set sail with 77 escapees, not just the Bell and Edmonson families. It was the largest non-violent escape of runaways in U.S. history. They belonged to “41 of the most prominent families in Washington and Georgetown and were valued at $100,000.”

Stormy weather kept the ship stalled overnight at Point Lookout, the southern mouth of the Chesapeake. At dawn, multiple slaveholders discovered their “property” missing and sent 35 armed men by steamboat to recapture the escapees. The posse overtook the Pearl, locked the crew and passengers in the hold, and towed the ship back to Washington, D.C. The Pearl was met by a violent pro slavery mob which rioted for three days and threatened Washington abolitionists, the runaways, and the Pearl’s crew.

The six Edmonson siblings were purchased by the Alexandria slave dealer Joseph Bruin. Bruin used his property at 1707 Duke Street as a slave jail where he held Blacks before selling them, primarily to slaveholders in the Deep South.

All 77 runaways were sold to slave trader partners Bruin & Hill in Alexandria. They were sent South on the Brig Union to be sold in Georgia and New Orleans. The Edmonson sisters, just 15 and 13 were displayed in New Orleans on an open porch facing the street hoping to attract buyers for high-priced “fancy girls”.

While they were held in New Orleans, the Edmonsons met a freed cooper who was their older brother, Hamilton. A yellow fever epidemic struck New Orleans and forced Bruin & Hill to send the two light-skinned Edmonson girls back to Alexandria, Virginia, to protect their investment. The girls worked as laundresses while in captivity waiting for their return to New Orleans.

Since the escape attempt, the girl’s father Paul, had been trying to raise the $2,250 to buy Mary and Emily’s freedom. He traveled north where he met the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher whose Plymouth Church members helped to raise the ’ransom’ before the girls returned to New Orleans. The sisters were emancipated on November 4, 1848.

Henry Ward Beecher and his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe continued to support the sisters financially when they enrolled in the in*******al New York Central College and Oberlin College in Ohio. The girls became part of the abolitionist movement, appearing with Frederick Douglas at the 1850 Slave Law Convention in Cazenovia, New York to protest the Fugitive Slave Act. The Pearl incident was influential in the passing of the Compromise of 1850, which outlawed the slave trade but not slavery in the District of Columbia and strengthened the Fugitive Slave Laws.

The Edmonson’s older brother Hamilton and their father arranged for Samuel Edmonson’s sale to an Englishman as a butler and later bought the freedom of Ephraim and John Edmonson. Samuel Edmonson never abandoned his pursuit of freedom. In 1859 he escaped on a ship to Jamaica. From there he went on to Liverpool and, with his wife and child, sailed to a new life in Australia.

Mary Edmonson died of tuberculosis while at school in Ohio. Emily Edmonson returned to Washington, DC to Myrtilla Minor’s Normal School for Colored Girls, a teachers’ college.

Emily married Larkin Johnson and moved to Sandy Spring, MD. She continued her abolitionist activism and became a founder of the Hillsdale community of Anacostia in DC. Emily Johnson died on September 15, 1895, at her home on Howard Road in Hillsdale shortly after the death of her longtime friend and Hillsdale neighbor, Frederick Douglas.

Harriet Beecher Stowe included part of the Edmonson sisters’ history, the Pearl Incident, and other factual accounts of slavery in her book A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853). It was published to document the veracity of her depiction of slavery in her anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852).

The Edmonson sisters are memorialized in a 10-foot bronze statue of the two inspiring 19th Century Black women, which stands in front of a 21st Century office building at 1701 Duke Street in Alexandria, VA, near the former location of the Bruin & Hill Slave Traders where the Pearl escapees were imprisoned.

On April 15, 1848, the sisters and four of their brothers joined 71 other slaves on The Pearl in what was the largest escape attempt by enslaved people in U.S. history. A posse organized by Washington, D.C. area slave owners captured The Pearl on Chesapeake Bay at Point Lookout, Maryland, and towed the ship and its cargo back to Washington, D.C.

The Edmonson sisters and the other 75 slaves were sold and sent to New Orleans where their new owners, slave trader partners Bruin & Hill displayed them on an open porch facing the street hoping to attract buyers. A yellow fever epidemic struck New Orleans, forcing Bruin & Hill to send the two girls back to Alexandria, Virginia, to protect their investment.
Paul Edmonson meanwhile continued his campaign to free his daughters.

When Bruin & Hill demanded $2,250 for the sisters’ release, Edmonson traveled to New York City and met with members of the American Anti-Slavery Society who told him to take his plea to Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, a prominent abolitionist and pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York. Edmonson convinced Rev. Beecher and church members to raise funds to purchase the girls and free them.

The Edmonson sisters were emancipated on November 4, 1848. Plymouth Congregational Church continued to contribute money for their education. They were enrolled in the coed and in*******al New York Central College in Cortland, New York, in August 1850. While there, they attended the Slave Law Convention in Cazenovia, New York, to protest the proposed Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. There they met Frederick Douglass and were introduced to the abolitionist movement.

The Edmonson sisters continued their education at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1853. Six months after entering Oberlin, Mary Edmonson died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty. Emily Edmonson returned to Washington, D.C. and continued her studies at the Normal School for Colored Girls.

In 1860 Emily Edmonson married Larkin Johnson, and, after living 12 years in Sandy Spring, Maryland, they moved to Washington, D.C., purchasing land in the Anacostia neighborhood in the southeastern section of the city and becoming founding members of the mostly black Hillsdale community. Emily Edmonson maintained her relationship with fellow Anacostia resident Frederick Douglass, and both continued working for African American civil and political rights.

Emily Edmonson died on September 15, 1895, at her home in Anacostia, seven months after the death of her more prominent neighbor, Frederick Douglass.

Dr. Lena Frances Edwards was one of the first Black women doctors in the United States to be recognized nationally for her work, and she did it not for fame but out of love and duty.

Born in Washington, D.C. in 1900, she grew up in a family that valued education. Her father was a dentist, and young Lena knew early that she wanted to work in medicine too. She graduated from Howard University’s medical school in 1924, one of the few women let alone Black women there at the time.

She became an OB-GYN, delivering babies and caring for women’s health. But even with her skills and education, she faced many challenges finding hospitals that would allow her to practice. Still, she didn’t give up. She spent years working in mostly poor neighborhoods, often treating people who couldn’t afford to pay.

In the 1950s, she joined the staff at a Catholic hospital in New Jersey still facing barriers, but gaining recognition for her care and compassion. She later helped establish a maternity clinic for migrant women in Texas, bringing help where it was most needed.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded her the Presidential Medal of FreedomAmerica’s highest civilian honor for her service to public health.

Dr. Lena Frances Edwards passed away in 1986.

6 Little Known Black History Landmarks to Visit in Washington D.C. - WHUR 96.3 FM By Asha Moore-Smith Washington D.C. is rich with Black history, and filled with landmarks that honor the various cultural contributions Black Americans have made in the areas of art, activism, education, and so much more. They tell the stories of resilience, creative excellence, and the power of our...

Howard University Projects the Largest Graduating Class in its History Howard University's 157th Commencement Ceremony to take place May 10.

Incoming Howard University law professor killed in American Airlines mid-air collision Kiah Duggins was among the passengers on American Airlines Flight 5342 that collided with a helicopter on Wednesday night.

Mary Jane Patterson made history when she became the first black woman to receive a college degree when she graduated from Oberlin College in 1862.She was also the first black principal at America''s first public high school for black students. (Preparatory High School for Colored Youth known today as Dunbar High School, Washington, D.C.)—Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, she was the oldest of seven children.In 1856, she and her family moved to Oberlin, Ohio, where they joined a growing community of free Black families who worked to send their children to the college. Her father worked as a master mason.
For many years, the family boarded large numbers of Black students in their home.
In 1862, Patterson graduated from Oberlin College, earning her historic degree.
On September 21, 1864, she applied for a position in Norfolk, Virginia, at a school for Black children.
On October 7, 1864, E. H. Fairchild, principal of Oberlin College''s preparatory department from 1853 to 1869, wrote a recommendation for an "appointment from the American missionary Association as a ... teacher among freedmen."
In this letter, Fairchild described Patterson as "a light quadroon, a graduate of this college, a superior scholar, a good singer, a faithful Christian, and a genteel lady. She had success is teaching and is worthy of the highest ... you pay to ladies."
The following year, she became an assistant to Black educator F***y Jackson in the Female Department of the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia.
In 1869, Patterson accepted a teaching position in Washington, D.C., at the newly organized Preparatory High School for Colored Youth -- later known as Dunbar High School.
She served as Dunbar''s first Black principal from 1871 to 1874.
During Patterson''s administration, the name "Preparatory High School" was dropped, high school commencements were initiated, and a teacher-training department was added.
Her commitment to thoroughness as well as her personality helped her establish the school''s strong intellectual standards.
Patterson also devoted time and money to other Black institutions in Washington, especially to industrial schools for young African-American women, as well as to the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored People.
Her achievements as a leading Black educator influenced generations of African-American students and paved the way for other Black female educators.