Guest post by Sarah Shank

Post updated

Before the widespread availability of the internet, communities were built in the streets and on porches. This is how and where neighbors connected, news was shared, and families celebrated. It was rare that neighborhood happenings would go unnoticed. Community leaders united the neighborhood by spreading neighborhood news, organizing neighborhood watches, igniting local activism, and welcoming new neighborhood residents.

Lamond-Riggs is a community of leaders. Our residents have done this for decades and continue to be a force in the District. Even the mayor got her start in politics living in this corner of the diamond–first as ANC, then councilmember, then mayor–before moving to Northwest.

After living in DC for more than 20 years – in many different neighborhoods across the District – I’m proud to now call Lamond-Riggs home. While I’m a newcomer to the neighborhood (going on only 2 years now), I picked to live in this neighborhood for a few reasons: its established community, commitment to its residents, and the neighborhood family feel that it retains. I’m continually amazed by the civic engagement that residents have and the rich history that surrounds us.

We are a neighborhood of firsts.

And while many of these firsts are from way before my time, but none are by any means small and I’m just naming a few!

• The first Summer Cultural Enrichment Program under the sponsorship of the Urban Services Corps was held at LaSalle Elementary School.
• The first comprehensive cultural enrichment program sponsored by the Neighborhood Planning Council and DC Public Schools was held at Bertie Backus Junior High School.
• The Lamond-Riggs Athletic Association was the first to organize little league football teams in DC.

We are a neighborhood of activists.

As the headline to a 1988 Washington Post article notes, “For a small neighborhood tucked away in a corner of Northeast Washington, Riggs Park has made a lot of noise over the years.” So from the creation of Bertie Backus Junior High School in the 1950’s, to the freeway fights of the 1960’s and 1970’s, to construction of Fort Totten metro station in the 1970’s, to construction of the neighborhood library in the 1980’s and now again today – throughout  time, residents developed and maintained a thriving, mixed-income community with strong civic participation.

Come to any Lamond-Riggs Citizens Association monthly meeting and you’ll see that civic engagement still happening to this day.

We are a neighborhood of families.

Young and old. Then and now. Our homes have yards and alleys. Our homes are filled with hard-working DC families. While accessible by metro, our neighborhood provides refuge from the daily grind. It has big open sky and it’s our home away from the city but still in the city – aren’t we lucky!

Founded in 1980, the Humanities Council of Washington, DC (HumanitiesDC) aims to enrich the quality of life, foster intellectual stimulation, and promote cross-cultural understanding and appreciation of local history in all neighborhoods of the District. They allow neighborhood organizations and individuals to apply for grants to help document and share their story of DC through oral histories. Through these DC Oral History Collaborative grants, HumanitiesDC aims to document and preserve the stories and memories of residents by making existing oral history recordings more accessible and giving residents the training and financial resources they need to conduct quality interviews.

With this type of financial support, we together can record the stories that bore witness to the neighborhood’s early years, allowing us the opportunity to capture key moments in the neighborhood’s history over the past seven decades. These stories should be documented and shared with our own community as well as have our civic pride touted to every other corner of DC.

I’m eager to apply on behalf of our neighborhood because I see tremendous value in the stories that we have in Lamond-Riggs. But to do this, I need the help and support of all my neighbors and friends. Our residents have a unique view of this Capitol city that I want that not only recorded, but also shared.

Send me your ideas.

Send me your photos (I promise to scan and return them).

Tell me your memories.

The grant application is due on January 25, 2019. This means there is still time to include as many of our community ideas into the grant application as possible. If we are awarded the grant, the funds will be used to record oral histories from five to ten Lamond-Riggs residents. We will supplement the recordings with photos. And if we have more people who want to tell their stories, we can always do more! Also, if we don’t win the grant, I still hope to begin collecting stories and documenting the legacy of our community and its residents so that this rich history can live on for generations to come.

I’m confident that by collecting and sharing these stories, we’ll be able to instill the same sense of community and activism in the next generation, so that they can continue to make this neighborhood one of firsts and families – much like it has always been.

Please feel free to comment below with comments and/or ideas. Or please send me a note directly here.