DC Emancipation Day, 1862: It Was Slaveowners Who Got Reparations.

On April 16, 1862, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed an act freeing the 3000 enslaved people in the District of Columbia. This was nine months before he signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in the Confederate states, many of whom actually remained in bondage until the the war’s end in 1865, and 20 months before ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which definitively outlawed slavery everywhere in the United States.

Tomorrow Saturday, April 16th, the District of Columbia will celebrate District Emancipation Day, with speeches, concerts, fireworks and parades. There’s a bit of rain on that parade, though, if you take a closer look at history. That 1862 act was called the Compensated Emancipation Act, and it authorized payments to DC slaveowners rather than liberation of enslaved people on moral grounds. It even sought to promote emigration of former slaves outside the borders of the United States.

In any case, Black Washingtonians had their freedom. That’s definitely worth celebrating.

More:

“When Slaveowners Got Reparations,” Tera W. Hunter, New York Times

“D.C. celebrates Emancipation Day,” Cuneyt Dil, Axios Washington D.C.

“D.C. celebrates its 160th Emancipation Day this weekend,” Elliot C. Williams, Alexya Brown, and Rachel Kurzius, WAMU News

“Bondage to Freedom: Commemorating DC Emancipation Day,” Karl Racine, Medium

“The DC Emancipation Day Celebration Is Back After Two Years. Here Are the DC Street Closures for Saturday’s Parade and Concert.”  Damare Baker, Washingtonian

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John Oliver on the District of Columbia’s Missing Political Rights

Americans who live in the District of Columbia pay Federal taxes, die in U.S. wars, but have no vote in Congress. What they have had, for over two centuries, is Taxation Without Representation. Sound familiar? John Oliver explains it all to you:

Faith

Faith Dane, who played Mazeppa in the play and film Gypsy, is running for DC Mayor again. She takes her trumpet to campaign events because, in politics, You Gotta Have a Gimmick.

Newspaper Boxes

Q: How many newspaper vending boxes are on DC sidewalks?

A: No one knows. They spring up like toadstools.

The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) has published a proposed rulemaking which will regulate the placement and maintenance of publisher boxes on public space. Among other things it requires registration of boxes, imposes a registration fee for them, requires their maintenance, and mandates removal of abandoned newspaper boxes.

There are no existing DC regulations for these streetscape features, and problems have been resolved by a complaint-driven ad hoc process. DDOT Public Space staffers hear about abandoned boxes from angry neighbors, and wheelchair users file ADA complaints when new boxes block the sidewalk. The proposed regs aim at creating a more pro-active situation and a better pedestrian environment. And we’ll even find out how many news vending boxes there are out there.

DC Tattoo Cooling-Off Period

The DC Department of Health has proposed regulations that would require a 24-hour waiting before customers could get tattoos or body piercing in Washington’s body art parlors. There’s a public comment period. Maybe someone will ask if there should be compulsory breathalyzer tests instead.

Uline Arena. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.

It hosted the Beatles’ first American concert, boxing, hockey, speeches by Malcolm X, and Dwight Eisenhower’s first inaugural ball . It was an ice house and a trash transfer station. Now the Uline Arena will be redeveloped as offices, retail, parking, and possibly performance space.

More:

“Uline Arena, Washington Venue Where Beatles Played First U.S. Show, To Become…Offices And Retail,” Will Wrigley, Huffington Post

“Uline Arena, get ready for your next phase,” Rachel Kaufman, Elevation DC

“Pictorial History Of Uline Arena,” 1959 BHS Mustangs

“Uline Ice Plant,” HAER No. DC-66

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DC Councilman: ‘Change That Shameful Name’

District of Columbia Councilman David Grosso has introduced a resolution that Washington’s professional football team should change its racist, derogatory name, the one beginning with “R.” It’s a non-binding resolution, to say the least; the team doesn’t even play in DC anymore.

Removing Native American slurs and stereotypes from sports nicknames and mascots has been a nationwide trend, but the second part of Mr. Grosso’s resolution is a bit arcane, and puzzles lots of folks. He suggests changing the team’s name to “Washington Redtails.” This is in honor of the Tuskegee Airmen, African American pilots of World War II. While more people should know about the Airmen, even the few who do don’t know that “Red Tails” was their nickname, unless they saw the flop movie of the same name.

Giant Machine Tunnels Under Nation’s Capital

Lady Bird, a 400-foot-long, $30 million, 1,300-ton German-made tunnel boring machine, will soon be carving miles of 22-foot-wide tunnel 100 feet below the Potomac riverbed. It’s part of DC Water’s Clean Rivers Project, the second-largest civil engineering project in DC history (only Metrorail is bigger). When completed in 2025, the $2.6 billion EPA-funded dig will keep raw sewage from flowing into the Potomac and Anacostia when it rains hard. That’s what happens now (it’s called CSO, “Combined Sewer Overflow”).

Lady Bird will be underground and out of sight, but you can follow her on her own Twitter account.

Tattoo Frontier: Washington DC

“If you’re a barber in the District, you have to be licensed and regulated by a city board. But if you’re a tattoo artist or piercer, a certain libertarian ethos seems to govern your trade within city limits—currently, the District remains one of the last places in the country in which tattooing and piercing are wholly unregulated.”

More:

“Regulations on Horizon for D.C. Tattoo Artists,” Martin Austermuhle, DCist

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DC Streetcar, 40 NW Route

This is great 1950s footage of Washington DC’s streetcars. The system shut down in 1962, and the car barn you see here has gone condo. The District is building a new electric surface transit line but, sadly, it won’t be taking this route.

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