Commemorating the 250th Anniversary of the Republic Locally in Chevy Chase DC
As we approach the 250th anniversary of our republican experiment, our thoughts will naturally gravitate to grand themes. But the central story of our republic is also manifest locally in our neighborhood. And we can contribute to a more perfect union by considering that history.
In September 1787 Philadelphia with the text of the US Constitution just agreed, Benjamin Franklin said: “we have a republic, if you can keep it.” There was skepticism in his remark. He was aware of the gap between the aspirations of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 proclaiming that “all men are created equal, endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and the institution of slavery accepted in the text of the constitution eleven years later. And so, the American story has been aspirational and ongoing, to realize a more perfect union inspired by the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence.
Eighty-five years after the Declaration, the country descended into civil war over the issue. On the Gettysburg battlefield President Abraham Lincoln called on the nation to rededicate itself to closing the gap: “It is for us the living…to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced…—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Progress in realizing the Declaration’s promise has been uneven. After a decade of Reconstruction, new forms of oppression based on exclusionary thinking undid the liberating impact of the civil war. American society became aggressively segregated by race. Legal limitations were anchored by social practices and ideologies of exclusion. The Civil Rights movement of the mid-twentieth century made substantial progress, but rising economic inequality associated with globalization facilitated mobilization of anxieties and diverted attention away from the aspirations embodied in the Declaration.
As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, let us take to heart the obligation of citizenship in our passage through history to leave the republic in better shape than we found it and redeem the promise of our founding document. These panels invite you to consider the arc of American history through the lens of our displaced neighbors on Broad Branch Road. Knowledge gained through historical research expands our sense of responsibility for addressing legacies of inequality today. Together, through local action inspired by the radical message of the Declaration, we can contribute to a more perfect union.
Unique Setting for Local Action
As the nation’s capital, DC is a unique setting for local action. Until the enslaved DC residents were emancipated in April 1862, DC was far from a beacon of freedom. And from the relocation of the federal government here in 1800, DC’s status as a territory, not a state, has made the US Congress sovereign in our city. The contests of the nation have always been reflected locally. Congress has intervened in shaping outcomes in DC, circumscribing the will of its residents to suit the tastes of its shifting majorities.
In the 19th century, the capital city designed by Pierre L’Enfant extended, with minor exceptions, only to present-day Florida Avenue. Georgetown and (until 1846) Alexandria were also part of DC. The rest of DC was rural Washington County.
Chevy Chase
In 1725, Lord Baltimore patented Col. Joseph Belt (1680-1761)) five hundred acres of farmland, later expanded to 1,000 acres, which he named Chevy Chase Plantation, in reference to fox hunting in the Cheviot Hills along the Anglo-Scottish border. Belt had other holdings in Maryland, but the Chevy Chase holding straddled what later became the DC/Maryland border. It was worked by dozens of enslaved African Americans.
Some free Black families inhabited Chevy Chase and its immediate environs in Washington County. Around 1840, Mary Ann Plummer married Thomas Harris and together established a farmstead on Broad Branch Road in Chevy Chase. Their neighbors on the Dry Meadows plot were other free Black people as well as the enslaved people belonging to the Belts and other slave owners, along with independent white farmers. Later, the Shorter/Dorsey family joined the African American community. That meant that two families on Dry Meadows were descended from enslaved Black people connected to George Washington. Plummer was the granddaughter of George Pointer, born enslaved in 1773 and hired out to George Washington and his Potomack Canal Company for work on the newly independent country’s first major infrastructure project. Pointer purchased his freedom in 1792 at age 19 and over the coming decades rose to become a supervising engineer of Washington’s canal project. Together with granddaughter Mary Ann Plummer, he piloted President John Quincy Adams on the C&O’s festive opening, July 4th, 1828.
Rosa Branham Shorter descended from Caroline Branham, born into slavery in 1764 and a house servant at Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. She was present at the first US President’s deathbed. The families prospered at Dry Meadows. At least two Harrises enlisted in the US Colored Troops, joining 180,000 African Americans, a decisive contribution to Union victory, comprising about 10% of the Union Army.
The African American population of DC grew rapidly during the Civil War, as thousands of enslaved people fled the Confederate states. Many of them sought work in and around the city’s defensive fortifications, including those in and around Chevy Chase: Forts Reno, DeRussy, and Stevens. Family, associational, and commercial networks developed between Reno, Broad Branch, and Georgetown in the decades after the Civil War. Some Pointer descendants found their last resting place in Mt. Zion Cemetery in Georgetown, one of the oldest African American burial grounds in DC.
Jim Crow in Chevy Chase DC
The second founding of the republic aiming to close the gap between the principles of the Declaration of Independence and racial oppression during the Reconstruction years died by the end of the 1870s. Aggressive racial displacement was organized in DC and involved expelling Black populations from all three – Chevy Chase, Reno, and Georgetown. A major driver of this population engineering involved commandeering white space for newly conceived suburbs.
Chevy Chase is a leading example and served as a model for this nation-wide phenomenon. The key figure in Chevy Chase was Francis G. Newlands. Born in Natchez, MS, and spending the latter part of his youth in DC where he got a law degree, Newlands joined thousands moving west to seek his fortune. In San Francisco, he was lucky enough to marry the heir of the Nevada silver fortune and become son-in-law to one of Nevada’s first US senators. Thus, catapulted into Gilded Age society, Newlands chose to develop his talents with a scheme to purchase 1700 acres of land along Connecticut Avenue and create a wealthy white utopian community on either side of Chevy Chase Circle. The year the development opened in 1892 Newlands was elected to Congress representing Nevada. Ten years later he became a US senator. Newlands aggressively propagated his white supremacist views. Ahead of the 1912 general elections, he endeavored to get the Democratic Party to adopt a plank rescinding the XVth Amendment to the Constitution, which guaranteed the right to vote to African Americans.
He was similarly exclusive when it came to migration. Washington DC had a Black bourgeoisie and willing investors in Newlands’ scheme. They were denied. The Chevy Chase DC citizens association in Newlands development enshrined racial exclusion in its constitution. It stayed that way until the 1970s. The CCLC and another major developer, Fulton Gordon, introduced racial covenants in their property deeds on the perverse but effective assumption that segregation increased property values. The Chevy Chase Bank participated in the red-lining practices forcing the African American population into zones where prices and rents were driven up by the exclusionary practice. Newlands died in 1917, but his racial cleansing scheme was realized by 1940, when the US Census showed no Black residents…except for live-in servants and custodians of the newly constructed apartment houses on Connecticut Avenue. The Reno School was the last institution of public education left in the area serving the non-white population. Opened in 1903, it closed in 1950, as there were no more Black children.
As the segregated white settlement expanded, the Citizens Association of Chevy Chase steadfastly patrolled the color line. Vertiginous growth required more schools. With racial separation and exclusion uppermost in the thinking of decision-makers in Jim Crow DC, Black communities were targeted for displacement to expand the all-white institutional space. In 1928, exactly one century after Mary Ann Plummer Harris ferried President John Quincy Adams up the C&O Canal, her descendants and all her neighbors at Dry Meadows were expelled by the public act of eminent domain to make way for a whites-only school and park.
Rediscovery, Reunion, Acknowledgment
See No Evil
Fifty years ago, as part of the preparations for marking the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the first DC home-rule government in a century incentivized historical research into our neighborhoods. Supported by small stipends, a group of high school students undertook summer projects to produce a first retrospective, ORIGENS and ORIGENS II. These were important steps in the recovery of neighborhood history. However, though ORIGINS has a short article on Reno School, the racial composition of the neighborhood was otherwise unaddressed among entries on architecture, gardens, and green spaces, the various schools, and churches in Chevy Chase DC and only in one line in the entry about the Citizens Association. In ORIGINS II there is one line mentioning the Belts slaves in the article on that family, and nothing about African Americans in the entry on Chevy Chase in the Civil War. With celebrations to mark the Millenium underway 25 years later, there was no mention of the racially charged origins of Lafayette Elementary School in Lafayette Life, except for a vague line in the book’s preface referencing the fact that some people had lived on the site before the school was built. In 2003 Fleming and Zich published Small Town in a Big City, which focused on the Chevy Chase DC commercial strip. Managers and staff were quite diverse…and almost all commuted to their jobs from somewhere else in the city and region. This was plain to any rider of the crosstown E4 bus. A century ago, African American domestic servants rode the trolley line to their jobs in Chevy Chase residences from their alley homes in downtown DC. The lack of interest in the relative absence of African American neighbors in Chevy Chase in a city that in 1970 had a Black population of 70% is curious. The restoration of partial home rule in 1974 immediately transformed the political dynamics of the city and the relative political influence of the neighborhoods. Against this background it is striking that the concerns of Historic Chevy Chase DC at its founding in 1990 were all about the celebration of its architecture and hagiographic treatment of developer-politician Newlands. It paid no attention whatsoever to who lived here and who was displaced to construct the all-white community. An important moment of change came in 2008 with the failure of HCCDC’s campaign to have Newlands’ Masterwork designated as a historic district based on architecture and streetscapes Alone.
By this time, overt vestiges of Jim Crow had vanished, thanks to the Civil Rights movement success in drawing attention to the evils of segregation and other forms of discrimination, the courts banned offending practices and legislation expanded opportunities for political participation. As partial home rule became a reality, the Chevy Chase Citizens Association deleted exclusionary language from its constitution and three distinguished African Americans have served as president of the organization since 1990. While the Chevy Chase residential population has remained overwhelmingly white, the neighborhood has become somewhat more demographically diverse.
Collective Rediscovery
Black Broad Branch families were dispersed and fragmented in the decades after their displacement in the years 1928-1931. For descendant generations family history and traditions were submerged by the exigencies of survival.
Following the historic district defeat, Historic Chevy Chase DC, while not abandoning its interest in streetscapes and preservation issues, developed an ever-deepening interest in neighborhood history. New members with no connection to the campaign joined the HCCDC board. Innovative programs were now considered, even as national politics recast the setting in the Obama and Trump years. The new agenda had very modest beginnings in a program of oral histories of Chevy Chase residents. With this and other additional research a picture gradually began to emerge of the Black neighbors and their displacement. A turning point came in 2015 when local historians Barbara Torrey and Clara Green encountered genealogist Tanya Hardy and eighth generation direct descendant of George Pointer, James Fisher. The Pointer descendants were scattered, and family networks disrupted after their eviction from Dry Meadows. Fisher and Hardy were stunned by the Pointer connection revealed by Green and Torrey. The news set in motion a family reunion in picnic format on the grounds their ancestors inhabited for 80+ years. In early 2016 Fisher and Hardy met HCCDC board members and in March they sat for an oral history interview, published in the spring of that year, right after the publication an article by Torrey and Green on the Pointer descendants in Washington History. As new members joined the HCCDC board in 2017, the appetite for reflection and action on the Dry Meadows story deepened. Public meetings on the renovation of Lafayette Recreation Center in 2018-2019 provided an opportunity to educate neighbors and city employees about the park’s history. A campaign was launched to change the name of the park to Lafayette-Pointer Park and Recreation Center in acknowledgement of the unique position in the arc of American history. By 2020, Fisher and Hardy accepted invitations to join the HCCDC board to signal community commitment to pursuing the story, acknowledging the history, and seeking redress for wrongs Done.
Campaign
In April, May, and June of 2019 HCCDC board members set up tables with informational flyers and blank petitions at the Lafayette farmers market and on Connecticut Avenue asking to have Lafayette Park renamed to acknowledge the experience of the displaced Pointer and other Black Broad Branch descendants. Over five hundred signatures were collected from Chevy Chase neighbors. They became the basis for placing the matter on the agenda of ANC 3/4 G for its meeting in July 2019. With no dissenting votes, the ANC adopted a resolution in support of the name change and requested the DC Council to take up and support the issue.
Pandemic, Floyd murder and BLM, ANC TF and RASE. The covid-19 pandemic led to mass closures from March 2020. In-person meetings were cancelled for most organizations. Civil society organizations were immediately challenged to migrate to virtual meetings or cease functioning. HCCDC and ANC 3-4G along with other neighborhood organizations quickly leapt into this space. Meanwhile, facilitated by eyewitness videos of police killings of Black people went viral on social media and helped generate nationwide condemnation and protests, which peaked after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. In June 2020 DC Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered the rededication of a two-block stretch of 16 th Street just north of the White House as Black Lives Matter Plaza. HCCDC migrated online with a webinar series “Race Matters Locally.”
The ANC created a task force on racial and social equity (RASE), later attaining the status of a standing committee, which recommended action in education, housing, and community engagement. This windows panel project is a direct outcome of the partnership strategy proposed by the taskforce and standing committee. At the city level, hearings were held by the DC Council in September 2020 on a raft of re-naming’s in DC, including Lafayette-Pointer Park. Testimony was given by the ANC 3-4G chairperson, HCCDC, Lafayette students, and a Pointer descendant. After several months of deliberations, the name change was adopted into law. In the same period, Torrey and Green expanded their treatment of free Blacks in Washington County into a book on Pointer and his descendants, Between Freedom and Equality, published by Georgetown University Press in 2021. Meanwhile, a committee worked with the city and design experts to produce signage for the newly renamed park and recreation center, so that anyone strolling through the park can acquaint themselves with the history. All this activity culminated on June 12 th , 2021, when more than three hundred citizens gathered at the site with the mayor, council members, ANC members and representatives of Lafayette School, HCCDC, Friends of Lafayette-Pointer Park, Civil War reenactors and other city officials for a ribbon-cutting and unveiling ceremony. Eighth generation Pointer descendant James Fisher stood alongside Mayor Muriel Bowser splicing the ribbon and unveiling the signage.
UDC Parternship & Black Broad Branch
Rediscovery proceeded on a parallel track when an HCCDC board member approached faculty at the University of the District of Columbia with the concept of incorporating training in oral history techniques in a special seminar on Black Land Loss using the Broad Branch experience as a case study. The collaboration was funded by a HumanitiesDC Soul of the City grant in the autumn of 2020 and ran during the spring 2021 semester. Seminar participants undertook recorded interviews of eight Black Broad Branch descendants and their genealogist. Transcripts were produced in the summer of 2021 with the help of fourteen high school interns. The UDC team in consultation with the Howard/Columbia University-sponsored African American Redress Network, produced a report identifying three areas of work: acknowledgment, compensation, and education. Two seminar participants launched careers in local public history with the formation of the organization, Black Broad Branch. And they began work on education, seeking to have the Black Broad Branch story find its way into lesson plans in the DC public school system. Encounter (June 2023) ANC/descendants.
The awakening was bilateral. Black Broad Branch descendants experienced historical rediscovery as a life-changing process. Eighth-generation Pointer descendant James Fisher rapidly grew into a public speaker, addressing school classes, professional associations, and legislators, and was the subject of many media interviews.
A series of four events in 2023 was designed to amplify the history that was being re-learned. There was a book talk by Torrey and Green and a session on restitution and reparations in conversation with the director of the African American Redress Network. All of this was designed to support an encounter between the Chevy Chase community and Black Broad Branch descendants. Working with Black Broad Branch descendants a new set of autobiographical statements was developed and integrated with a conversation about the meaning and impact of the rediscovered history was moderated by the Rev. William Lamar IV, pastor of DC’s Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. The recorded segment became the introduction to a live online and recorded interaction with descendants and Chevy Chase neighbors the evening of June 6 th co-sponsored by ANC 3/4 G and HCCDC. On October 7 th the National Park Service in Great Falls, Virginia organized a commemoration of the 250 th anniversary of George Pointer’s birth. The festivities there were followed by a family reunion at the new recreation center in Chevy Chase named in honor of the Black Broad Branch families. It was to be the last reunion for James Fisher, who passed away in January 2024.
Acknowledgment to Action
A Phantom Limb
As we celebrate the egalitarian aspirations of the Declaration of Independence on the verge of the 250th anniversary of the American republic, the memory of a class of displaced neighbors stirs like a phantom limb. So, our celebration looks to forms of reintegration as a contribution to making us whole.
Community Engagement: Responsibility & Enlightened Self Interest
With the advent of the Civil Rights movement, tremendous progress was made in ending legal disabilities of African American citizens. It is within our grasp to make further progress. A sense of responsibility and enlightened self-interest drives neighborhood interest and willingness to build a better city for the future. Based on a historically informed understanding of patterns of inequality resulting from policies that continue to exclude populations from benefits that should be shared.
Chevy Chase neighbors acting through their neighborhood organizations at all levels, from students to seniors, in the interfaith network, historical society, ANC and ad-hoc civic groups, are exploring our history and acting to create a vibrant, more demographically diverse and welcoming community, stepping forward with creative ideas and resources to address critical city-wide issues.
Towards a More Perfect Union
In December 2022 ANC adopted the recommendations of its new standing committee on racial and social equity. They offer a starting point for meaningful local action in the areas of community engagement, education, and housing. One legacy of past displacements and legal discrimination is the limited opportunity for home ownership in DC. A related issue is the lack of affordable rental housing. These cut across several legacy issues. Affordability is linked to poverty, health, safety, and even homelessness. Empirical studies have shown that in the area of educational achievement income integrated neighborhoods make a significant difference in outcomes. Chevy Chase can be part of the solution to the housing problem.
The Time is Ripe
In 2020 the DC Office of Planning initiated a review of development possibilities for Chevy Chase focusing on the Connecticut Avenue corridor between Livingston Street and Chevy Chase Circle. This Small Area Plan process was advocated by ANC 3-4G in light of the renovation of the library-community center campus. With community engagement that included a citizens advisory committee as well as a program of public online discussions sponsored by neighborhood organizations including the ANC itself, a vision statement was worked out by the Office of Planning in 2021. The ANC adopted it, and it was adopted as part of the city’s planning horizon by the DC Council in 2022. The document embraces a more inviting, diverse, and vibrant Connecticut Avenue corridor anchored by a mixed-use civic campus that includes affordable housing.
Animated by a fuller understanding of our neighborhood in the arc of national history, let us contribute locally to building a more perfect union.