Danuelle Doswell and Mignon Hemsley are laying down roots east of the river. They’re the co-founders of Grounded Wellness Studio—part plant shop, part cafe, part therapeutic facility—opening in Anacostia on Saturday, Oct.12. Their mission is simple: cultivate a harmonious sanctuary where nature, wellness, and community converge.

“We’re just two Black women who want to be of service to people who look like us,” Doswell says. 

The project started as an online plant shop on Earth Day 2020 and has grown thanks to the founders’ love of their community and the brand’s strong social media footprint. The co-founders are committed to community work across the city, and Doswell says their presence in Anacostia has grown significantly. 

“We’ve built strong relationships with local organizations [and] high schools,” she says, adding that they’ve donated over 500 plants to Ward 8 residents. “In Anacostia, unlike other parts of the city, there’s a lack of green space.”

Hemsley is a multi-hyphenated creative—she DJs and does graphic design work for D.C. brands and creatives. Doswell, who spent a year working in communications for New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, also has prior experience running her own brand consulting company. The two friends met in 2015 through one of Doswell’s clients and connected over their shared love of plants.

They started this whole thing with press releases and prayers.

“The Friday before our launch, an editor from DCist interviewed us, and when the story was published, it went viral on Twitter,” Doswell says. “By the end of our launch week, we had over 10,000 followers [on Instagram].” 

Grounded’s Instagram feed makes plant care education and the wellness benefits of plants feel accessible to Black people in a space dominated by White social media influencers. Now it has more than 28,000 followers on Instagram and has partnered with brands such as Topo Chico and Arc’teryx, and local streetwear boutique Somewhere. 

“Instead of just selling plants, we focused on helping people feel more ‘grounded’,” Doswell says. “Whether through our outdoor hike club, which connects people with nature, or our Grounded Radio playlist designed to enhance the experience of plant care, we’ve made it about cultivating a deeper connection to nature and well-being.” 

“We wanted people to feel like they’re walking from outside into nature again,” Hemsley says. 

Like a traditional plant shop, Grounded sells a variety of plants, as well as a pegged wall of merchandise. The wellness studio, which is secluded in the back, will offer yoga classes, Reiki sessions, sound baths, mat pilates classes, and breathwork exercises. Classes are available for every fitness level, and they’re all taught by people of color. Grounded also offers a membership program that includes perks such as free beverages from the cafe before or after classes, as well as a new plant every month.

To bring their vision for a serene plant oasis in Anacostia to life, the founders collaborated with Drummond Projects, a D.C.-based architecture firm led by Jimmie Drummond that has also worked with NUUAge, a multifamily housing development, and Bronze, an H Street NE Afro Caribbean restaurant with an ode to Afrofuturism. There are natural elements incorporated throughout the design that invoke the feeling of being outdoors. A rock material wraps around the cafe counter and the walls are painted a serotonin-boosting sage green. Concrete bleachers wrap around the space providing a 1970s conversation pit experience. 

D.C. chef and restaurateur Erik Bruner-Yang, who is behind Maketto and the recently opened cocktail bar Providencia, helped the founders develope the cafe’s food menu. “When we were first thinking of our space, we considered the food inequities that exist in Ward 8,” Hemsley says. “We are doing our part by offering healthy food options in our space.” 

Grounded Wellness Studio was partially funded by a grant from D.C.’s Neighborhood Prosperity Fund. It’s a part of real estate development company the Menkiti Group’s two-part MLK Gateway project that’s meant to connect downtown D.C. to a revitalized Anacostia. The second phase of the project was completed earlier this year.

For Hemsley, this is a homecoming of sorts. She attended Thurgood Marshall Academy just four blocks from where the new community hub will open. They have plans to offer programs dedicated to teenagers in the neighborhood through a nonprofit arm of their business.

“It was such a full circle moment creating a space where the people of Anacostia can come and treat Grounded as a third space,” she says.

Grounded Wellness Studio’s grand opening will take place on Saturday, Oct. 12,  from noon to 6 p.m. Programming will include DJ sets, a performance by TOB, plant giveaways, and an aurora reader photo booth. The event is free and open to the public. 1913 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE.

“Li’l Liza Jane” and its bright, catchy folk lyrics are a piece of American history. Also known as “Little Liza Jane,” “Liza Jane,” and “Goodbye Lizzy,” the song stems from the antebellum South and spans generations, genres, and cultures—from Nina Simone’s 1960 emotional arrangement to David Bowie’s 1964 rock ’n’ roll rendition. To this day, the one-verse song, with no original sheet music, continues to travel across time and space, but it has a sturdy root or two in the D.C. area.

The “Liza Jane” songs are believed to have originated among enslaved people, who used the folk tune at celebratory dances, according to D.C. native Dan Gutstein, author of Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane. During the Civil War (1861 to 1865), the tune spread, picked up by traveling regiments, and, after the war’s end, these “one-verse songs” became embedded in popular culture, passed down for decades despite being improvised for each dance or celebration. 

“There was no organized ancestor, meaning there was no sheet music, songbook publication, etc. before the Civil War ended,” says Gutstein, who’s also a former punk and jazz vocalist. “It was all word of mouth, and ‘Liza Jane’ songs had spread around the South by the time the war concluded.” 

According to Gutstein, the greatest single “Liza Jane” D.C story involves the 43rd United States Colored Troops Regiment. Organized in Philadelphia and comprised entirely of Black men, the regiment moved south on foot and via railroad in April 1864 to encamp for a few days in Annapolis, where some of its soldiers were overheard singing the refrain “Goodbye Liza Jane” to a group of women who had come to wish them well.

Variants of the song were used in popular culture, which adopted some “Liza Jane” songs, including “Goodbye Liza Jane,” which was published as sheet music in 1871. Some versions of “Liza Jane” were recorded from the late 1890s into the early 1900s. Another version circulated among Tin Pan Alley, a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City, which spurred recordings, sheet music sales, and performances. But the most important sheet music publication for “Little Liza Jane” was done by songwriter Countess Ada de Lachau in 1916. The publication led to a slate of new recordings as well as the song’s placement in a songbook given to all of the soldiers headed to World War I. The songs also appeared in films such as 1929’s Coquette and early Mickey Mouse cartoons in 1930.

Beyond the formal publication of sheet music and features in films, Black folk tradition is also responsible for keeping “Little Liza Jane” alive. Gutstein notes, “I believe that Nina Simone learned her rendition of the song through folk tradition and not pop culture.”  

Ultimately, the Federal Writers’ Project, a subsidiary agency of the Works Progress Administration—established in 1935 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt—formally documented the songs’ history. In the late 1930s, the FWP conducted interviews for the Slave Narrative Collection, which led to nearly a dozen people sharing memories of singing “Liza Jane” songs while they were enslaved. 

“Virtually all of the women and men recalled singing these songs at dances or celebrations,” Gutstein says. “While these interviews were conducted in the South, it was the machinery of government here in Washington, D.C., that created the program, to begin with.” 

Unfortunately, there isn’t clear documentation on whether Liza Jane was an actual person. Gutstein’s six years of research found that the song chronicles a reluctant lover of courting age—roughly between 18 and 20. “Liza Jane became a sort of ubiquitous to ‘every woman’ who resisted courtship,” says Gutstein. “The singer keeps promising her things—a ring, a house, all sorts of clothes, etc.—if only she’ll say yes. But she often never says yes.” 

Gutstein’s interest in the “Liza Jane” songs began while he was DJing at Adams Morgan’s now-defunct Black Squirrel in 2017. “I would play music from this wild period in American music between the arrival of Elvis and the Beatles—I call it the Shaker era because many songs just shake you,” Gutstein says. He found himself digging for vinyl when he came across the Art Neville recording of “Little Liza Jane” from 1965. Immediately intrigued, Gutstein started looking into the song’s layered history, uncovering different variants of the song while also doing archival research; it eventually led to Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane, which came out in November 2023, courtesy of University Press of Mississippi.   

Beyond Poor Gal, Gutstein is also working on a documentary about the song. The film, which is currently still in development, features Phil Wiggins, a D.C. native and National Heritage Fellow for his Piedmont blues harmonica playing, as well as DMV jazz radio host and producer Bobby Hill, and the late Faye Moskowitz, a former George Washington University professor. Using the working title Li’l Liza Jane, Gutstein hopes to release the doc in 2025 or 2026 once funding is secured.

The vibrancy and joy of Black life flow through Uzo Njoku’s paintings. According to the 27-year-old artist, Black art often depicts suffering, but she is working to paint life from a varied and jubilant point of view. The Nigerian American artist uses bold hues and animated facial expressions to capture the essence of Black communities through portraiture. 

Her latest show, The Neighborhood, opened Feb. 26 at the Arena Social Arts Club’s West End location and runs through April 7. “Even after moving to New York and all that has happened, the DMV is still my strongest market,” she says. Njoku may have moved to New York, where she currently lives, in 2021, but her local roots still run deep: More than 400 attendees packed into Arena Social Arts Club for the opening of Njoku’s current exhibit, which revolves around D.C. row homes. 

The Neighborhood group show closes Njoku’s ongoing project that began with her 2020 D.C. row house work that was also titled The Neighborhood. Apartment 26, her summer 2023 exhibition, was her first interactive space that focused on bringing to life one of the homes in her ongoing Neighborhood series. She was inspired to create The Neighborhood series in 2019, when she started working as a nanny. The colorful row houses of Logan Circle, a once-Black neighborhood, stood out to her. 

“I went on Google Maps and began to see just how much has changed and I was like, this used to be a predominantly Black area. I just started to focus on how we’ve been pushed out,” she says. Instead of capturing gentrification-producing pushout, her series envisions unadulterated Black neighborhoods, painting Black people fully enjoying where they live without everyday life being policed. Her previous series turned a similar focus on Brooklyn, including Marcus Garvey Park, which offers various pieces of workout equipment for the community to use for free. “Most people can’t afford gyms,” says Njoku. “However, I’ve seen people call the cops on people simply using the equipment,” she says. 

Born in Lagos, Nigeria, and raised in Charlottesville, Njoku bridges her Nigerian culture with her American upbringing by incorporating designs such as the traditional Ankara patterns into the background elements of her pieces. It’s reminiscent of American portrait artist Kehinde Wiley. But while Njoku’s love for creating patterns through fashion design began in high school, she didn’t learn to paint until college after switching majors from statistics to studio art. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 2019. 

In addition to being an artist, Njoku is an entrepreneur set on bridging the gap between fine art and the commercial world of design. Keen on making sure her work is accessible, her buzzy twist on French toile-inspired wallpaper made a splash when it was released last year with Otto Studios. She also offers prints, puzzles, and apparel. 

“I think that as Black people we’re just so colorful. The way that we dress, the music we listen to, and even the names that we give our pets. I feel the best way to capture that is by using bright bold colors,” Njoku says. “When you look at my work I want you to feel content and happy,” she adds. 

Adding to the community-centric focus of her work, Njoku invited 13 emerging artists from the D.C. area, New York, and London to display their art at the Arena Social Arts Club exhibition. More than 200 artists submitted applications to take part in The Neighborhood and Njoku whittled it down to a baker’s dozen. Her ultimate goal was to create an opportunity for emerging artists to showcase their work without jumping through financial loopholes and elevate their platforms. Njoku is all too familiar with galleries taking more than their fair share of profit and wanted to create an opportunity for rising artists to not feel exploited. 

“The art world can be successful because of how it exploits artists and that’s the truth of the matter,” Njoku says. “Most of these galleries are taking 50 percent. There is no reason to take 50 percent, but it’s industry standard. Most people don’t fight it, most people aren’t business savvy,” she continues. 

Mediums on display in The Neighborhood include photography, sculpture, and painting. Artists in the show will also have the opportunity to produce merchandise available to purchase on Njoku’s website, everything from T-shirts to prints. 

“Curating a show as a practicing artist required a special level of care,” she explains. “I needed to create an opportunity for conversation and support, which I found many group exhibitions lacked.”

The Neighborhood by Uzo Njoku runs through April 7 at the Arena Social Arts Club. arenasocial.org. Free.

The internet might be fashion designer Anifa Mvuemba‘s greatest asset. In 2020, her Pink Congo Instagram Live runway show sent 3D models, mimicking femme bodies, down the runway wearing her curve-friendly silhouettes. The show went viral, turning the fashion industry on its head. Not only did it create greater excitement around her Hanifa brand, but it also encouraged the industry to rethink digital presentations of fashion collections. A year later, once the ban on in-person events was lifted, she did it again by transforming the National Portrait Gallery into a whimsical reality for her first ever in-person show. The show, titled Dreams, offered a meditation on her career journey since launching Hanifa in 2011 and showcased her commitment to the D.C. area.

Always ahead of the curve, Mvuemba was exploring the digital world of fashion prior to the pandemic and was seeking out the ideal situation to combine her love of graphic design with technology. The 30-year-old always enjoyed exploring the many facets of design, and virtual reality, she notes, was naturally the next realm to conquer. And conquer she did. Following her 2020 Instagram show, Hanifa saw increases in sales and an expanded audience base.

Although New York is considered America’s fashion capital, Hanifa is headquartered in Baltimore. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Mvuemba migrated to the nation’s capital with her family in 1993. While attending Gaithersburg High School, where she took part in a fashion program, Mvuemba began to develop her fashion point of view. Today she credits her high school program director for inspiring her career in the fashion industry. But her study of fashion truly took flight in Baltimore, where she enrolled in fashion courses at Morgan State University and learned to sew.

Shortly before her birthday in 2011, Mvuemba tells City Paper she was unable to afford a new dress. Instead of wearing a recycled outfit for her party, she made a chartreuse tube dress. She shared—and modeled—her work on Instagram, and suddenly requests started flooding in. Her friends wanted Mvuemba dresses and Hanifa was born. 

A decade later and the brand is shaping the industry, from how collections are showcased to who wears Mvuemba’s designs. Today, Hanifa is worn by A-list celebrities like Beyoncé, Gabrielle Union, Ashley Graham, and Sarah Jessica Parker. However, women of all body types and economic classes are wearing her designs, thanks to its inclusive sizing and accessible price points. The prices of her latest collection range from $179 to $2,400. “We consider the fit and lifestyle of everyday women for each of our collections. We have more in common with each other than social media may portray,” she says.

Regarding Hanifa’s 28-piece summer 2022 collection, Live Out Loud, Mvuemba says, “I strongly believe that fashion should not be limited.” Like the majority of her pieces, which are known for being ultra-feminine, bold in color, yet approachable in design, Live Out Loud features ruffled and feathered dresses, baggy cargo pants, and sexy cutouts.

In June, Live Out Loud was presented via Hanifa’s YouTube channel, marking another first for the designer. While the collection took months to produce, the digital show, complete with a green screen catwalk, was cast and filmed over a week in a Brooklyn studio.

“We like to have options and versatility. Whether in 3D or in real life, we prefer whichever platform will tell the story of our collection at that time, while expressing the women behind the clothes,” she says.

In Mvuemba’s eyes, the people who wear her clothes are multifaceted and highly passionate about life, a meaning that transcends celebrity status. “She’s unstoppable in any capacity or field of interest. Most importantly, she’s a girl’s girl who loves to see women win,” Mvuemba says.  

Her spring/summer 2022 collection continues to explore themes of women’s empowerment. “Living out loud means to live freely, authentically, and confidently,” she says. “Our brand ethos is a distinct call-out to women who are limitless, and bold in every aspect of their lives, not just their fashion choices.”

The collection is an “explosion of color” that embraces texture, and movement. The designer notes that the warmer months symbolize growth and blossoming, akin to Hanifa’s more than 10 years of influence on millennial women who are evolving in their lives and their careers. “We inspire each other to pursue more,” she says. 

And like the women who wear it, Hanifa continues to evolve. Under the brand, Mvuemba plans to continue cultivating her mentorship program, which she started in 2020. Concepts by Anifa M. aims to equip emerging designers in every capacity with the tools they need to launch and build a successful brand. The program launched with an eager class of 15 young designers ready to learn. “We’re currently working on refining the program to guide emerging talent on what they need to launch and/or scale their design business, fashion or otherwise,” Mvuemba says. As she continues to expand her fashion dynasty with Hanifa, Mvuemba is also looking to debut collections in both bridal wear and beauty. 

Growing up in the D.C. region and making her home base in Baltimore remains part of what makes Mvuemba and her brand unique. She wants to show designers and fashion lovers alike what’s possible to build in your own backyard when you’re dedicated to putting in the work. “I want emerging designers to know that they can launch and scale their business from the place that grounds them,” says Mvuemba.

New York and L.A. are often the first cities that come to mind when you think of big names and mega-art entertainment, but not this time. HOORAE, Issa Rae’s multi-faceted entertainment media company, is taking over D.C. this weekend, March 25 to 27. 

“D.C. isn’t like other markets. [The city is] often overlooked and people feel like if they aren’t in L.A., N.Y., or some of these other major markets, then they won’t have the same opportunities,” says Morgan Davis, the director of brand partnerships, events, and artist relations at HOORAE. The company, which Rae founded in 2020, houses HOORAE Film & TV, ColorCreative Management, and the audio arm, Raedio. 

“I remember our company before it was HOORAE, when it was just Issa Rae Productions,” Rae, who grew up in Potomac, told the audience during the VIP HOORAE welcome event at The Gathering Spot on I Street NW Thursday. “It was about four people and we took pride in having ideas and ideating—felt like we had the world in our hands and we would spit them out and we would execute them.”  

A central message of Rae’s HBO series, Insecure, which concluded late last year, is the power of making underrepresented communities feel seen. Episodes like season four’s “Lowkey Feelin’ Myself,” which revolves around an Inglewood block party, where Rae highlights local businesses, and those gentrifying her neighborhood, is a perfect example of her reaching back to pull up her community as she continues to succeed. (To celebrate various seasons of the show, Rae has also hosted her own Inglewood block parties along L.A.’s Market Street.)

Now she’s sending a similar message to D.C. by partnering with several local creatives to bring the HOORAE x Kennedy Center Takeover to life. During a red carpet interview during the 2017 Emmys, Rae made the viral statement, “I’m rooting for everybody black,” and she’s continuing to live this out by making sure communities feel seen on and off screen. 

Rae’s company tapped THFCTRY, a D.C.-based radio show airing from the lobby of the Eaton Hotel, to help curate activations for the weekend.“Morgan reached out in the fall to learn what was going on, and who was making things happen in D.C.,” says Matt Jackson, co-founder of THFCTRY. “You never know when something major like this will come to D.C., so we were lucky to be in good shape creatively.” THFCTRY will co-host Raedio Silence, a party happening Friday night, as well as a Saturday afternoon Eaton Radio takeover with local women DJs such as DJ Heat. 

Dominique Wells, aka Domo, a music and culture editor at Spotify, originally from the DMV, played a key role in introducing D.C. talent to Rae’s team.  

“For me, this was a look through Domo, me and her have done parties before and we always do parties well together, so she had the opportunity to do this party and she brought me along,” says KMeta, DJ and creator of the popular Everything Nice party series. He will be DJing Friday’s No Weird Shit Party at the Kennedy Center along with Domo. “It’s a great look for the city and the creators in the city. We have so many talented people who sometimes don’t get a shot to show people what they can do,” KMeta continues. Along with his and Domo’s set, DJ Little Bacon Bear hosted Thursday night’s welcome party, and Malcolm Xavier hosts the Find Your People Party on Saturday.

Beyond a bevy of parties taking over the Kennedy Center, the now sold out weekend includes film screenings and discussions and supporting activations at the Eaton Hotel. There’s also Short Film Saturday, which will feature works by creators of color. On Sunday there will be The Read Comedy Album Live Preview. Closing out a weekend of programming is A Sip, a “fireside chat” with Rae and actor Keke Palmer taking place at the Kennedy Center . 

“It’s kind of like trying to plant a flag here and tell people you can flourish where you are. We see you, and we recognize you,” Davis says. 

Instead of people feeling like they have to leave D.C. to have rich creative experiences, Davis notes that HOORAE wants to have a presence in D.C.  

D.C. is a talent rich city, HOORAE sees this wealth, and is dialed in. 

HOORAE x Kennedy Center Weekend Takeover runs through March 27. kennedy-center.org. Sold out.

“One out of 10 residents of the metropolitan Washington region is food insecure, and nearly a third of them are children,” according to the Capital Area Food Bank. Food insecurity is a longstanding problem, made even more visible during the COVID-19 pandemic, as individuals and organizations put in work to supplement a food system that fails to meet growing needs.  

The Anacostia Community Museum’s outdoor exhibition Food for the People: Eating and Activism in Greater Washington—which will be joined by a more extensive indoor exhibition when the museum reopens later this year—confronts this reality by focusing on food, from farming to preparation to access, and ultimately on the impact it has on health. The exhibition is a part of the museum’s larger theme this year, “Our Food, Our Future.” 

The project welcomes visitors with a huge red fork, alongside the question: “What is food justice?” Answers are provided on a series of towers that break down the life cycle of food, from where it comes from to where waste goes. Woven between these towers are portrait-style photographs of 12 changemakers printed on medium size tarp and mounted against wire structures that are weighed down by baskets of rocks. Included are local activists, community leaders, and food and medical industry professionals. 

The project highlights the work the 12 individuals are doing to ensure food security and equity across the city while also educating people about how to get involved in their local community, like joining a local food policy council or donating to a food justice organization. The exhibition ends with a large sculpture of open hands holding an interactive feature that allows people to leave notes on tags, sharing their experiences or thanking food workers, who were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. 

The exhibition exposes processes within the food system that all intersect but are often made invisible. “If we can’t name and understand those processes, then we can’t create a more equitable and just food system,” says Samir Meghelli, Ph.D., senior curator at the ACM.

Meghelli spearheaded the research and curation of the exhibition. He spent the last two years conducting over 100 interviews with a combination of activists and community leaders. He even took some of the portraits that accompany quotes from his interviews. During his research, he spent time looking at food systems across D.C., documenting moments like the Grocery Walk of 2017, where people marched to bring awareness to food deserts east of the river at a time when there were only two grocery stores in Wards 7 and one in Ward 8. 

“We wanted to raise awareness about these issues, so people can both have their interest sparked and their curiosity sparked about these issues, while also getting informed about some of the data and content that come with that history,” Meghelli says. “We wanted people to leave the exhibition inspired by what everyday people are doing to transform our injust food system into one that is more just and sustainable.”

Lea Howe, the director of school food initiatives at DC Greens, is featured in the exhibition. Howe hopes to bring attention to DC Public Schools’ food system. “Students cannot be expected to learn and get through the academic day without the proper nutrition fueling them,” Howe says. “As D.C. residents, our tax dollars, both local and federal, fund these programs and, therefore, should align with our values as they pertain to food.” 

The work of leaders dedicated to food justice and community health functions in tandem, despite their varying entry points. One of these leaders is Dr. James Huang, who is an instrumental player in the Produce Rx program, which DC Greens originally ran from 2012 to 2017. In 2019, DC Greens began working in partnership with the D.C. Department of Health, Giant, and AmeriHealth Caritas to create the current grocery store model. The program allows medical professionals to prescribe fresh fruit and vegetables to patients experiencing diet-related chronic illnesses. This program takes a “food-as-medicine” approach by integrating produce prescriptions as one intervention in the overall plan of care.

“I was first connected to the program by doing family health visits at Upper Cardozo Health Center,” Huang says. “Parents and their kids would come to me with the diagnoses of being overweight or simply wanting to learn more about healthy eating, so we held these types of visits once a week and we held nutrition classes.”

The first iteration of the program allowed families to receive a certain amount of money each week to spend at farmers markets with the goal of trying to address health issues like diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Now, participating patients receive $80 per month loaded onto a Giant bonus card, plus nutrition information from Giant’s in-store nutritionist and their insurance provider.

“It’s also important that we’re acknowledging food access and putting our families who experience food insecurity in the position to access food; you can’t do one without the other. How do you stay healthy if you can’t afford fresh fruits and vegetables?” Huang continues. 

“By highlighting the stories of community leaders and activists, we hope change to community health and ensured well-being feels less far-reaching and more accessible to everyone regardless of zip code or socio-economic status,” Meghelli says. 

At the Anacostia Community Museum Plaza through Sept. 17, 2022. 1901 Fort Place SE. (202) 633-4820. anacostia.si.edu.

Ten months after the killing of George Floyd sparked a summer of protest and reckoning with America’s recurring anti-Black racism and aggressive policing, the trial of Derek Chauvin is underway. Juxtaposed against startling images of police violence and reiterating the truth that Black lives matter is an exhibition titled Men of Change: Taking it to the Streets, a powerful photo project in Deanwood illuminating the achievements and contributions of African American men. The project features historical figures like Duke Ellington and Kendrick Lamar, as well as local community change makers. 

While visitors haven’t stepped foot in the Anacostia Community Museum since March 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions, this hasn’t stopped the small but mighty museum from continuing to build. The ACM literally took the exhibition planned for its indoor exhibit area and brought it to the streets. The project is an adaptation of the Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibition Service’s Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth.

“Bringing culture to people and the community is profoundly significant. It’s very much in keeping with the reasons for the exhibition being born in the first place,” Melanie Adams, the director of the Anacostia Community Museum, says during a conference call. Multi-photo panels stand against fences around the Deanwood Community Center and nearby Ron Brown College Preparatory High School, D.C.’s only all-male public school. The exhibition is open 24/7, and it’s boldly prophetic.

“The draw to the neighborhood was Ron Brown College Preparatory High School because they specifically enroll African American boys and other people of color. Their whole model is built around restorative justice,” says Andrea Jones, the associate director of education at the ACM, who worked on exhibition programming. Students from the school narrated the audio tour of the exhibition. 

The weatherproof black and white images are a mixture of stately portraits and full-body shots that capture the gravitas of these men’s lives. They feature everyone from historical figures like Bayard Rustin to more recent change makers like Kehinde Wiley. They’re emboldened by text written by Isaac Perry that reads, “Have you seen them? They are bold. Powerful. Tragic. Beautiful. And true. They are icons often rendered invisible by a country, yet uplifted by a culture. They are men whose stories are the legends of the past, the inspiration for the now, and the beginning of the future.” 

The exhibition is divided by themes, with men sorted into sections on storytellers, myth-breakers, fathering, community, imagining, catalysts, and loving based on their particular work and impact. The section on storytellers, featuring the likes of Carter G. Woodson, Dick Gregory, and Alvin Ailey, sits right next to the Deanwood Library, and the section on community is right next to the Deanwood Community Center. Everything is profoundly intentional. 

David Smith, an entrepreneur with deep roots in the community, his father, Anthony Smith, and his late grandfather, Lloyd D. Smith, president of the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization, are all featured in the exhibition. That representation speaks to the cross-generational conversations the exhibition is fostering. “When my father was president of the Deanwood Citizens Association I was really young, and I remember working with the community. At the time, my grandfather Lloyd Smith was the CEO of Marshall Heights Community Development Organization and he was working on this major development on Minnesota Avenue.” When asked what it means to be represented in the exhibit along with his father and late grandfather, he responded, “We all worked together to build a community, so I would say Sankofa. You always have to remember your past, understand it fully, be honest about it, and let it guide you as you move forward. Hopefully, this Sankofa message goes forth for the next two or three generations,” David says. 

David’s participation in the exhibition further propels his work as a community activist. He’s also a part of the Deanwood Economic Development Corporation, and he’s working to ensure the community is involved in conversations about development. He’s also working to shift the concentration of poverty in the neighborhood. 

“East of the River communities have 2 to 3 times the national rate of involvement with the criminal justice system when factors of concentrated poverty, failing schools, no [or] low economic opportunities are present, it’s a pipeline to prison,” David says. 

As a part of the exhibition, the Deanwood Citizens Association nominated their own past and present Deanwood men of change. On April 2, the exhibition unveiled men who have made bold and important contributions to the local community. A participatory component is included in this section, allowing visitors to share messages on hanging wooden tags, to honor the men (or people) of change in their own lives. “Working with Anacostia Community Museum and the Deanwood Citizens Association in and off itself makes it an honor, because the process of engagement was done in a way that empowered the community and included them in it,” David says. 

This hyperlocal approach is a testament to the Smithsonian’s commitment to further its community engagement, Adams notes. “We have all really learned a whole lot from the experience, because I think at first we wanted to make sure we were engaging the community. Going to the people instead of having people go to us had a profound effect,” says Marquette Folley, content director for SITES. “First of all, you are opening up the content to anyone walking by so they don’t have to be going to a museum to see it. They could just be going along their everyday business, and some of these people may not have even come inside of the museum,” Folley continues. 

Although the exhibition currently inhabits Deanwood, there are plans to expand its impact throughout Ward 8 in larger-than-life projections illuminating building façades after dark beginning April 2. Those pop-up sites will feature historical excerpts from the current outdoor show and art images from the original exhibition. Throughout the months of April and May, projection sites will be announced via social media on the day of the occurrence. Viewers discovering the projections are invited to take a picture and share their images using the hashtag #MenOfChangeDC. 

In another expansion, on April 24, Men of Change programming will be brought to the Union Market neighborhood for a drive-in movie event showcasing original short artistic films from the exhibition. The films include Alvin Ailey by Cary Fagan, Jazz Greats by AG Rojas, James Baldwin by Hank Willis Thomas, and Dick Gregory by Shaunte Gates. The evening concludes with a film by former Halcyon fellow and local DC artist Kokayi, entitled On Dreams.  

“There are folks out there who are having neighborhood meetings around the exhibit because it really is as much theirs as it is ours, which is great,” Jones says. Later this spring, the exhibition will also expand to feature Deanwood families of change. 

“I got a chance to show what the culture is as a family from Deanwood. This is how we survived, because we believe in family,” David concludes. 

Men Of Change: Taking It To The Streets. At and around 4800 Meade St. NE to May 31. menofchange.si.edu.