On June 16, the Historical Society presented “Race and Reform: Police Brutality in DC and Its Consequences,” a conversation with historians George Derek Musgrove and Chris Myers Asch, authors of Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital, on the history of police brutality and police reform in the city. View the video here.
Recommended Reading
“Black and Blue: The D.C. City Council vs. Police Brutality, 1967 – 69” by John W. Hechinger Sr. and Gavin Taylor, Washington History, 11-2 (1999/2000)
When it was first published, this essay was adapted and updated from an account that Hechinger had written in 1971, two years after he stepped down as chair of the D.C. City Council. In addition to describing Hechinger’s personal work to end police brutality, the piece captures many details of city life as its governance transitioned from three presidentially appointed commissioners to an appointed city council and mayor (elections for these offices would take place in 1974, fully 103 years after elected city government was abolished by Congress). (Note for best reading experience, please download the pdf .)
Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital (2017), by Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove.
Purchase online
The history of Washington receives the attention it deserves, from the story of its native peoples to just shy of today, with race and democracy front and center. Law and order plays a major role. University of Maryland historian Alfred A. Moss, Jr., called Chocolate City “the definitive history of Washington, D.C.”
Democracy’s Capital: Black Political Power in Washington, D.C., 1960s–1970s (2019) by Lauren Pearlman.
Purchase online
The author focuses on the key moments when African American activists fought to wrest political control of their city. She connects issues of civil rights, law and order, and urban renewal to understand their continuing influence on how DC is governed.
Locking Up our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America (2017) by James Forman, Jr.
Purchase online
In Locking Up Our Own, Forman, who served as a public defender in DC during the 1990s, describes his experiences and deftly analyzes the roots of why so many African Americans are currently serving prison sentences. In addition to the federal government’s role, he shows—with haunting irony—how the legions of African Americans who lobbied for more punitive measures to fight gun violence and drug dealing in their own neighborhoods couldn’t foresee that their responses to current crises would lead to mass incarceration.
“Locked Up Inside,” by Wil Haygood
“Locked Up Inside” is a close-up look at former Chief of Police Isaac Fulwood, Jr., who resigned from the Metropolitan Police Department and went on to serve on the U.S. Parole Commission. The story focuses on the inherent conflicts of being a black man from Southeast Washington and a police officer charged with public safety in his community and across the city.
Additional Resources
“Community Policing in the Nation’s Capital Program: The Pilot District Project, 1968-1973”
In 2018-2019 the DC History Center and the National Building Museum collaborated on “Community Policing in the Nation’s Capital Program: The Pilot District Project, 1968-1973,” an exhibit that explored what turned out to be a volatile federal experiment in community-police relations. The Pilot District Project launched in the summer of 1968 with broad goals for police reform and citizen participation in the city’s Third District (now most of Ward 1). The five-year project introduced important innovations that are familiar today: 24-hour police stations, citizen ride-alongs, police sensitivity training, and public bulletin boards to share information about police work. Although community input was sought, it was invited very late.
Many District residents saw the project, led by white federal officials, as an attempt to exert control over black neighborhoods. Yet many of these same residents were active in public meetings and campaigned to sit on the project’s community advisory board. The exhibit featured posters and materials from these campaigns, including those for Marion Barry and his People’s Party, which won 16 of the 28 possible board seats in the first election. It also featured compelling footage of the community and project activities made for a government-commissioned documentary film that was never widely released.
The “Pilot District Project” exhibit introduced visitors to this important and timely story of urban policing, community participation and resilience, and federal intervention.
Resources relating to the “Pilot District Project”
Interview with exhibit consultant Professor Amber N. Wiley
Interview (audio) “The Pilot District: Looking Back At D.C.’s Fraught Community Policing Project” WAMU Kojo Nnamdi Show, with Sarah Leavitt, Robert Shellow, Marya McQuirter, and Eugene Puryear
The Pilot District Project 1971 (incomplete documentary by Guggenheim Productions) with introduction, National Archives via CSPAN, Reel America.
Project records compiled by Thomas J. Lally and other documents are found in the collections of the DC History Center. They will be available to researchers when the Kiplinger Research Library reopens. We are actively seeking to collect additional material from participants in the Pilot District Project; if you were involved in any capacity and have materials to share, please write to collections@dchistory.org with a description of the material you are interested in donating.
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