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  • Harlem Renaissance in Washington: A Literary Walking Tour

Harlem Renaissance in Washington: A Literary Walking Tour

  • 10/25/2015
  • 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
  • Plaza in front of 1250 U Street NW
  • 2

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THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED FROM ITS ORIGINAL DATE TO OCTOBER 25 (2PM-4PM) DUE TO WEATHER. PLEASE NOTE THIS NEW DATE.

The Harlem Renaissance in Washington: A Literary Walking Tour of the Historic U Street Neighborhood with Kim Roberts

Sunday, October 25 at 2:00 pm
Limited to 25 people
$15 members; $20 non-members

The tour takes approximately two hours, and will take place rain or shine. 

We will meet at the plaza in front of 1250 U Street NW, which houses the offices of the DC Department of Parks and Recreation, and is across the street from the Lincoln Theater. Take Metro to the U Street/Cardozo station and exit at 13th & U (not the Vermont Ave. side). Please wear comfortable shoes and bring a bottle of water. For those with mobility issues, the tour involves a lot of walking and standing, but there are no stairs.

This walking tour sweeps us back to the historic U Street neighborhood of the 1920s, a time of blues, jazz, Prohibition, and—amid the cruel oppression of segregation—a time of great aspirations.  The literary and arts movement we now call the Harlem Renaissance was just starting and (despite its name) it was starting here!  

We will visit former houses, clubs, and businesses of such luminaries as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Duke Ellington, and Carter G. Woodson, and talk about the way the neighborhood has changed over time.

The focus will be on books written by Harlem Renaissance authors, and participants will be asked to take turns reading excerpts. A list for further recommended reading will be provided.

Kim Roberts is a literary historian who specializes in the writers from Washington, DC.  She is the author of four books of poems, most recently Fortune’s Favor: Scott in the Antarctic, a series of blank verse sonnets based on the journals of British explorer Robert Falcon Scott (Poetry Mutual, 2015). She is also editor of the anthology Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC (Plan B Press, 2010).  Roberts co-edits the literary journal Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and the web exhibit DC Writers’ Homes.  Her website: www.kimroberts.org.

Location: 1250 U Street NW, Meet at the plaza
Nearest Metro: U Street
Event contact: Linda Jarschauer Johnson, ljj1@cornell.edu

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