Humanities Truck Community Archive

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Art All Night
The Humanities Truck made appearance at Art All Night 2019 in Tenleytown at Citizen Heights Church. In partnership with the DC Punk Archive in DC Public Library’s Special Collections and community curators, Marc Minsker and Ray Barker, the Humanities Truck displayed an exhibit using flyers and newspaper articles to explore the history of punk music in DC, specifically at Fort Reno Concerts. This collection includes photos from the event.
American University 1968-1969: Year of Protest, Year of Reform
Student journalists for The Eagle named the American University academic year 1968-1969 a year of protest and reform. Campus drinking laws loosened. Students created a new experimental, interdisciplinary course called University and Revolution. AU’s ninth president, George Williams, was inaugurated. Members of AU’s campus fought for university reform through the Tripartite committee and student-led groups such as OASATAU, a New AU, and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Throughout the year, AU students took an increasing interest in local, national, and international events. Beginning with Orientation and Registration and ending with Commencement, the exhibit highlights campus life and major events during the academic year. The Humanities Truck interviewed alumni coming back to campus for the Class of 1969 50 year reunion. This collection contains photos and interviews from the Class of 1969 50 year reunion and exhibit.
Cleveland Park: Site of Imagination
A neighborhood landmark, the Park & Shop is viewed as innovative by some and outdated by others. On April 27th, 2019, the Humanities Truck joined the Cleveland Park Farmers Market and gave visitors an opportunity to learn about the history of the Park & Shop and development in Cleveland Park. Along with an exhibit inside the Truck, viewers also drew neighborhood maps, and listened to and left stories about the neighborhood. American University Public History Master's students Isaac Makos, Maren Orchard, and Katie McCarthy researched and designed the Cleveland Park: Site of Imagination exhibit for their Spring 2019 Practicum class under the guidance of Professor Malgorzata Rymsza-Pawlowska. This collection contains photos from the event.
American University Class of 1968: 1968 Retrospective
As part of the Golden Eagles Reunion, the Humanities Truck partnered with the American University archives to present the Class of 1968 exhibit on the AU quad Friday, October 19th, 2018. Archivists Leslie Nellis and Austin Arminio collaborated with Graduate Fellow Maren Orchard and Humanities Truck Director Dan Kerr to create the exhibit. In addition to numerous captioned photos, a slideshow of nostalgic photographs played while an infamous speech by Hubert Humphrey sounded throughout the grounds. This collection contains photos, exhibit information, and oral histories from the event.
Adams Morgan Day 2018
To celebrate the festival anniversary, DC Public Library has also collaborated with Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum and American University to highlight the history of the neighborhood through exhibitions, activities and performances. “We will strive to honor the decades of creativity, activism and diversity of Adams Morgan that continue to shape the community today,” said Washingtoniana librarian Michele Casto of DCPL. The Humanities Truck presented an exhibit about Adams Morgan using content from Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum’s “A Right to the City” exhibition and historic photos of Adams Morgan from the Nancy Shia Collection at DCPL. This collection contains photos taken from the event.
Jornaleros: Manos Invisibles / Day Laborers: Invisible Hands
Faculty Fellow Ludy Grandas worked with Trabajadores Unidos de Washington, DC (TUWDC) to document "hard to count populations" (by the Census Bureau) specifically, day laborer and Afro-Latino immigrant lives. One component of this project, Jornaleros: Manos Invisibles / Day Laborers: Invisible Hands, is a group exhibition of ten day laborers who photographed their own everyday lives as jornaleros using their cell phone cameras. Through their eyes, the day laborers’ goal was to open an invisible yet all too present world to us; to take us through their day, to share their reality, one that for some is hopefully temporary but for others is a whole way of life. Put together, the photos take us from morning to evening and all that happens in between. The other part of this project aims to make more visible Afro-Latinos in DC through panel discussions and interviews. This collection contains documentations from the various exhibit showings and related events. This collection contains documentation from the different exhibit showings and related events.
DC History Conference 2019
The annual D.C. History Conference provides a dynamic, friendly, and rigorous forum for discussing and promoting original research about the history and culture of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The Humanities Truck took part in the 2019 Conference on Friday, November 22nd, presenting the exhibit “Downtown Displaced: A Case Study of Gentrification in Mount Vernon Square 1840-Present.” The exhibit emerged from a four month collaboration with Street Sense artists, and it explores the social costs of neighborhood change in a long temporal context. On Saturday, November 23rd, the Truck returned for a “performance” that included Street Sense artists Reggie Black, Angie Whitehurst, and DC filmmaker Bryan Bello. The artists/vendors provided their own interpretation of the neighborhood change and the meaning of Apple moving into Mt. Vernon Square. Also on Saturday, AU Public History students shared about their experiences collaborating with DC community partners for this project at the “Collaborating for a Community History” conference panel. This exhibit contains photos from the event.
Historic African River Road Connections
The Historic African River Road Project is a collaboration between students and faculty of the AU anthropology department and Montgomery County, MD communities originally founded during the Reconstruction Era by free and formerly-enslaved people of African descent. Begun as a class project aimed at using the tools of ethnography to support the River Road, Scotland and Tobytown communities in their struggles against displacement and the desecration of their cemeteries, it has grown into a collaborative effort to document and celebrate the rich histories of these communities on a larger scale. In 2018, the AU Library Archives opened its Historic African River Road Connections (HARRC) Collection. In 2019, project participants are excited to make use of the Humanities Truck in the interactive, on-site analysis and curation of community documents, artifacts, and oral histories, and in conducting other forms of ethnographic research in preparation for curating the Summer 2019 Katzen Museum Historic African River Road exhibit.
Community Voice Project Collaborative Film Initiative
Faculty Fellow Laura Waters Hinson used the Humanities Truck to run a community engagement project to take the 2019 Community Voice Project (an organization that produces short documentaries and digital stories that capture the voices of DC community storytellers too often unseen and unheard) Film Series to non-profits across the city. The aim is to honor each specific community and to promote critical dialogue among these DC storytellers, their communities, and our students, arriving at a community interpretation of what these stories mean on a collective level. This collection contains documentation from the screenings and events.
2019 "Celebrate Petworth" Festival
“Celebrate Petworth” is an annual free neighborhood festival organized by and for the residents of Petworth and surrounding neighborhoods, celebrating the creativity, diversity, culture, people and quality of life of the neighborhood through storytelling, live entertainment, fare from local restaurants, clinics, contests, crafts, and more. This collection features interviews and images from the 2019 "Celebrate Petworth" Festival.
Homeless Memorial Vigil 2019
The People for Fairness Coalition hosted its 7th annual Homeless Persons Memorial Vigil took place overnight between December 19 and 20, 2019. The event honors those who have died while homeless in the nation’s capital and elsewhere. The Humanities Truck attended the vigil, presenting an exhibit titled Downtown Displaced, about gentrification in Mount Vernon Square.

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