“How History Matters” with David Thelan, Spring 2010.
Public historian and visiting scholar David Thelan came to AU in the spring of 2010 to teach a graduate course on how history matters in the public. The students were given the assignment of creating a theoretical project that would engage the public in the interpretation of our past.
I proposed an interactive, dynamic website that would investigate the DC riots of 1968 from a variety of perspectives. The main question I’ve asked is how do we navigate the challenges of investigating a past that is claimed by multiple groups. My website would attempt to address some of these issues while encouraging and creating space for a multi-perspective dialogue to take place among witnesses, participants, scholars, and the general public. This proposed project will examine how, by providing a forum for these perspectives, we will reframe the historical discourse of the 1968 riots by including the experiential authority of non-dominant members of society.
From Static to Dynamic: Producing a Multi-Perspective Interpretation of the Past into the Present Through an Interactive Website, Our Home, Many Voices: Washington, D.C. in 1968.
Figure 1: The day after the King assassination, riots tore through Washington — eroding the hope of a few years before.
Figure 2: H Street, shown between 12th and 13th Streets in 1968 and today.
Figure 3: Major areas of destruction.
Figure 4: Destruction of U Street.
Figure 5: Burned and looted storefront.
Figure 6: Ben’s Chili Bowl, the only business that remained open during the course of the riots.
Figure 7: Arial view of Washington, D.C., Apr. 5, 1968.
>Figure 8: Damage to a storefront, 16 April 1968.
Figure 5: Stokely Carmichael.
Figure 10: Storefronts that were Black owned or staffed attempted to stave off looters with signage announcing that they were a Black-owned and supported business.
Figure 7: Suspected looters are stopped and questioned near the intersection of New Jersey Avenue and P Street, NW. Some businesses lost everything in the rioting and looting.
Figure 8: National Guardsmen march through the streets of Washington.
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