Sylvester was the Chief of Police in Washington, DC, during the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913. The women were harassed by a large crowd of mostly male onlookers. Instead of protecting the marchers, the police failed to intervene and at times joined…
Alethia Browning Tanner was an enslaved woman who ran her own vegetable market in Lafayette Square in front of the White House during the late 1700s and early 1800s. She was highly successful, counting President Thomas Jefferson among her customers.…
The United States Marine Band was established by an Act of Congress in 1798 and has been based in Washington, DC, since 1800. They are known as "The President's Own," and played at the first Inauguration in Washington (1801), the first Inaugural Ball…
Authorized by The Residence Act of 1790 to select a site along the Potomac to be the home of the new national government, President George Washington was heavily involved in the planning and development of the new federal city. He chose the area…
Formed in 1833, the Washington National Monument Society took charge of creating a memorial to George Washington on the National Mall. They raised money through public donations and awarded the design contract to architect Robert Mills. In 1854,…
In May 1932, Walter W. Waters, a World War I veteran, led a group of his fellow veterans to Washington, DC, to demand immediate payment of bonuses which were not due to be paid to the soldiers until 1945. This group was dubbed the Bonus Expeditionary…
Richard West was the founding Director of the National Museum of the American Indian, serving from the museum's opening in 2004 until 2007. West is a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and a Peace Chief of the Southern Cheyenne.…
Roy Wilkins was a prominent civil rights activist who held leadership positions within the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from 1931 until 1977. In 1941, he helped coordinate staff and financial support from the NAACP for…
From 1961 to 1971, Whitney Young was the Executive Director of the National Urban League (NUL), a civil rights organization which emphasizes economic parity and self-reliance. In March 1963, A. Philip Randolph asked Young and the NUL to participate…
