Anacostia Community Museum
The Evolution of a Community, Part 2: 1955-Present
September 1, 1972 – December 31, 1972
Anacostia, a neighborhood in southeast Washington, D.C., faces challenges familiar to many contemporary urban communities. A survey of community residents revealed five major topics of deep concern, including housing, unemployment, education, crime, and drugs. This exhibition, The Evolution of a Community, is in essence a cultural-history study of Anacostia, D.C. It concerns a specific community and its involvement in self-education. We believe it to be an exhibition of some importance because today the communities of urban America are changing so rapidly that material dealing with their nature is of great value to those who must deal with the people, and who must attempt to solve people-problems here and now. Anacostia, D.C., is one of the many communities that have become an area of old and new urban problems. We must understand the nature of these problems in order to deal with them effectively, and in a short span of time.
The city of Washington, D.C., as seen from the southeastern neighborhood of Anacostia, in the 1970s.
