Welcome to the first of five sections of the exhibition We Who Believe in Freedom: Black Feminist DC on the first floor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. Bright greens, blues, and pinks contrast against wood panels, and collages of photographs and objects fill the 10-foot-high walls of the exhibition. The exhibition is laid out in concentric circles. The introduction section leads you on a path through four covered, curved passageways that share the intimate stories of those in the exhibition. On the exterior of these circular paths are large, historical images with brightly colored backgrounds that span halfway to the ceiling, sharing the public lives of the people in the exhibition. The final section is at the center of the curved, covered passageways, forming a center circle that explores the present and future of Black feminism. Though there is no one way to explore the exhibition, this overview chronologically tells the stories of Black feminists in DC throughout the 20th century. 

This first section is located on the farthest east end of the exhibition, where you enter the first covered passageway. A collage on the right side shares the introduction text and images as you enter. On the interior left-hand side of the covered passageway is a second collage with a touch-screen interactive that shares short biographies of the people in the exhibition embedded in a photograph.   

 

Collage 1: Introduction

Description:  

As you enter the passageway, this vivid blue introduction label is on the right side of the covered passageway. To the right of the main introduction label, a collaged map of DC spreads from floor to ceiling of the covered passageway. Marked on the map are important locations that appear in the exhibition. The collage also includes a graph of DC’s demographic population change over the 20th century. 

Introduction Label: We Who Believe in Freedom: Black Feminist DC 

We Who Believe in Freedom showcases the history of Black feminist activism and theorizing in Washington, DC, during the long twentieth century. This diverse set of Black feminists and the organizations they built reveal the connections between Black feminism and the long Black freedom movement. 

Many of the women whose stories are told here migrated to DC as young adults, and it was here that they discovered their voices and began to build political movements. They fought mightily against segregated lunch counters, lynching, and sexual violence. They struggled for voting rights, equitable education, and reproductive justice. Working in broad coalitions, they shaped the course of Black feminist struggle across the nation. 

The phrase Black feminism captures the emancipatory vision of those who experienced interlocking oppressions. Black feminists never confined their goals to ending oppression only for Black women. They sought to end all forms of injustice and worked tirelessly to liberate everyone. 

 

Image: Map of Important Locations in the Exhibition Label Text 

1. S Street Salon, Georgia Douglas Johnson House 
2. National Association of Colored Women (NACW) from 1896 to 1904, later National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC) 
3. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 
4. Phyllis Wheatley YWCA 
5. Howard University 
6. M Street School 
7. Parklands Neighborhood Clinic, Planned Parenthood (1956–68), later renamed Parklands Planned Parenthood Center and moved to 3320 Stanton Road 
8. DC Rape Crisis Center 
9. Lincoln Memorial 
10. White House 
11. Black Panther Party (1970–72) 
12. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) (1960–65), later moved to 1234 U Street NW and 228 14th Street NW, closed in 1968 
13. Free DC movement 
14. Pride, Inc. (1967–81) 
15. Education and Liberation Bookstore 
16. Southeast Settlement House  
17. Barry Farm Dwellings 

 

Image: Population of Washington, DC, 1800–2020 

Graph created by George Derek and Michelle Musgrove
Source: U.S. Census Bureau 

 

Collage 2: Touchscreen Interactive

Description: 

On the other side of the covered passageway, across from the introduction label, you’ll find a touchscreen interactive that shares the stories of women in the exhibition. Through this touch screen, you can learn how different Black feminists are related to each other across time and institutions or organizations. The touch screen is embedded into a large picture of the US Capitol Building seen from the roof of a building down Pennsylvania Ave., NW.  

 

Entering the Exhibition 

Description:  

As you leave the covered passageway and enter the exhibition, a larger-than-life image directly in front of you stretches from the ground to over 8 feet in the air. This is an historic photograph is of Etta Horn (front row, third from left) and other National Welfare Rights Organization activists marching in the Mother’s Day March that helped launch the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, DC, May 12, 1968. 

Below you are three colorful, arrow pathways on the ground that take you to different sections of the exhibition. These brightly colored arrows show where you can go next, depending on which section you’re interested in.  

• One path is a dusky blue, leading to the right to a section called Black Feminist DC: The Post Emancipation Era. 

• One path is a pomegranate pink, leading to the left to two sections called Black Feminist DC: The Civil Rights and Black Eras. 

• One path is a sea foam green, leading to the center of the exhibition called Black Feminism: Where Do We Go from Here? 

Turn to your right to move toward Black Feminism: The Post Emancipation Era. As you continue forward, you’ll pass a tall donor panel on the right that thanks those who contributed to the exhibition. This panel includes a touch screen that lists donors who contributed to the National Women’s History Museum. 

 

Donor Label 

The National Women's History Museum would like to thank the following founding investors for their generous contributions to this exhibition: 

Morgan Stanely 

Chicago Pacific Founders 

Kaiser Permanente 

AARP 

Mary Tolan 

Meryl Streep, Silver Mountain Foundation for the Arts 

Susan D. Whiting 

Mari Snyder Johnson 

Dr. Nancy O'Reilly Women Connect 4 Good Foundation 

Jon S. and Kerrie Bouker 

 

Thank you to the team that brought this exhibition to life:                                                               

Dr. Sherie M. Randolph, Associate Professor of History, Georgia Institute of Technology; Curator                                                                           

Dr. Kendra T. Field, Associate Professor of History and Studies in Race, Colonialism and Diaspora, Tufts University; Curator                                                                                          

Zoe Schoen, Exhibition Researcher  

Tessellate Studio, Exhibition Designer  

Capitol Museum Services, Exhibition Fabricator                                                                                                

Blue Telescope Labs, Interactive Exhibition Designer  

Susan Gail Johnson, SGJ Consulting LLC                                                                    

The Exhibition Advisory Committee                                                                                          

Susan Danish, Treasurer, NWHM Board of Directors  

Dr. Lori Ann Terjesen, VP of Education, NWHM 

The NWHM Exhibition Team 

The DC Public Library 

Lee Murphy                                                                                                                       

NWHM acknowledges the early contributions of Holly Hotchner and Dr. Aleia Brown.  

 

Next Section 

Continue traveling to your left to the next covered passageway. You’ll find the next section, Black Feminism: The Post-Emancipation Era. Once you enter this next covered passageway, the next QR code is on the first panel to your right.  

Go to next section: Black Feminism: The Post-Emancipation Era