August 17, 2011 | 1:18 PM | By

Brad Pitt Producing Film About Black Man Kidnapped in D.C. and Sold into Slavery

Brad Pitt is producing an adaption of “Twelve Years a Slave.” The memoirs were written by Solomon Northup, who as a free black man in 1841, was kidnapped and sold into slavery in D.C.

Mladen Antonov / AFP/Getty Images

Solomon Northup was kidnapped in 1840s D.C. and held in a slave pen in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol.

The book chronicles how Northup was tricked by two men in New York who said they wanted to hire him to play violin for a circus stationed in D.C. The three traveled to the District, where funeral observances for President William Harrison were taking place. According to his account, Northup was drugged and resting in the back room of a hotel when he was taken to a slave pen close to the National Mall:

 

It was like a farmer’s barnyard in most respects, save it was so constructed that the outside world could never see the human cattle that were herded there.

The building to which the yard was attached, was two stories high, fronting on one of the public streets of Washington. Its outside presented only the appearance of a quiet private residence. A stranger looking at it, would never have dreamed of its execrable uses. Strange as it may seem, within plain sight of this same house, looking down from its commanding height upon it, was the Capitol. The voices of patriotic representatives boasting of freedom and equality, and the rattling of the poor slave’s chains, almost commingled. A slave pen within the very shadow of the Capitol!

Northup was taken to Louisiana as a slave and wasn’t able to escape for another 12 years. A film about his journey is being welcomed by those panning the recent film “The Help” as another “Noble White Ladies Meet the Civil Rights Movement” movie, as Alyssa Rosenberg of ThinkProgress writes:

It would be so useful and powerful to tell a story… that explains that the direction from slavery to freedom wasn’t always a one-way journey, that demonstrates the reaches of the vast jaws of the market for slaves, that situates bondage not just in a vanished, Spanish moss-draped Deep South, but on Mall in Washington, DC where we inaugurated the first black president.

FILED UNDER: History, Media, Brad Pitt, Slavery, Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave
August 17, 2011 | 10:25 AM | By

“Civil Rights Group Demands End to Car-Centric Transportation Policies”

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights released a number of reports that concluded transportation access is one of today’s major civil rights issues.


According to the Leadership Conference report, racial minorities are four times more likely than whites to lack access to a car and to rely on public transportation for their commute to work. African Americans make up 12 percent of the U.S. population but 20 percent of the pedestrian fatalities.

— dc.streetsblog.org

August 17, 2011 | 7:13 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – DCPS Principals Staying Put, Wendell Pierce on ‘The Help’

Good morning , DCentric readers! Here are your links:

SuperShuttle Driver: Most Drivers Work 24 Hours A Day, Something Worse Will Happen If We Ignore These Signs “When drivers are waiting for a fare, they stop at gas stations. It was there where five drivers told us they regularly work 24 hour shifts. One said he “works like a slave” 100 hours a week to bring home…only $700. He said the rest of it goes to pay SuperShuttle’s fees.” (WUSA Washington, DC)

Fewer principals flee from D.C. schools “On Monday, 24 of about 125 school principals will start in D.C. Public Schools, replacing leaders who fled the system or whom school officials said weren’t making the grade. That’s fewer than the 30 replacements needed last school year and the 26 the year before that.” (Washington Examiner )

Actor Wendell Pierce Takes To Twitter To Talk About ‘The Help’ “Pierce said his mother was hurt and insulted by the film, because her experience was, in fact, significantly worse than what was portrayed in the film (what he was referring to as ‘Jim Crow lite). ‘My mother said it was a good story,’ he said, ‘but she knows a different reality.’” (npr.org)

Minority Report: White Is The New Black (In Southeast Anyway) “Do I think it must be uneasy for some (see, didn’t say all) white folks to go from ‘majority rules’ to ‘Why is everyone looking at me?’ Sure. Do I think that is any different than what black folks have been experiencing in America for like forever? Nope. Welcome to our world (or a least a teeny tiny fraction of it). (Congress Heights On The Rise)

March Held to Honor Mississippi Hate Crime Victim “Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith says that seven teenagers left a party together with the intention of finding a black victim to assault. Anderson was the first black man the group saw upon exiting the highway, and they began to attack him in a motel parking lot. In the end, Deryl Dedmon, 18, allegedly ran over Anderson and is being charged with murder.” (The Root)

August 16, 2011 | 3:51 PM | By

“Gregory Kane’s Modest Proposal on Flash Mobs”

Conservative African American columnist Gregory Kane wrote about a solution to criminal flash mobs in the Examiner two days ago: “harder” white targets like a “Jack Dempsey or Rocky Marciano”, who might exercise their second-amendment rights. Rend Smith of the Washington City Paper responds:

People certainly have a right to self-defense, but hoping wrong-headed black youths encounter a hail of bullets instead of arrest is blood lust, maybe even hate, that could operate as the pretext for darker times.

Which brings up a point: If Kane is eager to expand the definition of “racist” so that it can be applied to black flash mobs, might it also apply to race-baiting black columnists?

— www.washingtoncitypaper.com

August 16, 2011 | 2:00 PM | By

Public Gets Sneak Peek of King Memorial

Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images

A view of the construction site for the new Martin Luther King Memorial on the National Mall.

The dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall is less than two weeks away, but locals can get a preview of the monument ahead of the Aug. 28 dedication.

DCist reports that “D.C. Residents’ Day,” originally only for District residents, is now open for all. Anyone who shows up between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m., Aug. 23 can see the memorial, regardless of their residency.

You can also mark the historic occasion by purchasing a commemorative Metro fare card. The memorial is the first on the Mall to honor an African American.

 

FILED UNDER: Culture, Martin Luther King Jr., Martin Luther King Memorial
August 16, 2011 | 1:05 PM | By

Ethiopian Restaurant Converts to ‘American’ Fare

avry / Flickr

Is Ethiopian food slowly disappearing along U Street?

Ethiopian restaurant Almaz is undergoing a renovation and will reopen in a few weeks with a new menu of “American” fare, reports Prince of Petworth.

The U Street restaurant is joining other Habesha eateries in “Little Ethiopia” that have repositioned themselves in an increasingly difficult market. The recession and the concentration of so many Ethiopian restaurants in such a small area has led other owners to also convert their menus, such as Queen Makeda. Other restaurants are opening their doors to new kinds of clientele and uses, including rock concerts. Almaz itself participated in a recent rock festival that brought country and western music to the U Street restaurant.

 

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Restaurants, Almaz, Little Ethiopia
August 16, 2011 | 10:40 AM | By

“D.C. enclaves reap rewards of contracting boom as federal dollars fuel wealth”

The proliferation of government contracts has led to increasing wealth in D.C.’s suburbs, particularly in Northern Virginia.

Talwar’s success — and that of hundreds of other contractors like her — is a key factor driving the explosion of the region’s wealth over the last two decades. It also has exacerbated the gap between high- and low-wage workers, which is wider in the D.C. area than almost anywhere else in the United States.

— www.washingtonpost.com

August 16, 2011 | 7:49 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – Renewal in Ward 7, Our Culinary Stature and Gandhi as Gandhi

Good morning, DCentric readers. Here are five things we’re reading today:

A hopeful moment as new H.D. Woodson High School opens its doors “’It says something to the students and to the community that the District is serious about preparing its youth for the new, technologically advanced job market,” said Principal Thomas Whittle. ‘They see hope.’ The reborn Woodson in Ward 7 is part of a long-awaited renewal for public high schools east of the Anacostia River. ” (The Washington Post)

Cops get ready to take on ‘flash mobs’ “In April, about 20 teenagers entered a G-Star Raw store in Dupont Circle and stole about $20,000 worth of merchandise. Store manager Greg Lennon told the Associated Press that he saw Twitter postings written after the theft, with one person describing plans to return for more goods.” (Washington Examiner )

D.C.’s culinary stature continues to rise “Though Washington, with an estimated 4,400 millionaires, always has had good restaurants, the local industry flourished during the city’s most recent period of economic prosperity, said Jeff Swedarsky of D.C. Metro Food Tours. ‘One of the fantastic things that’s happened in the last five years is that most of the neighborhoods have been getting nicer and more people are moving back into them,’ he said.” (Washington Times)

Moran Supports History Of Immigration By Co-Sponsoring National Museum Of The American People “More than four-dozen history scholars have expressed support for the museum, which Moran plans to create without any federal taxpayer dollars. He’s been a chief critic of building individual ethnic museums on the Mall. ” (wamu.org)

[VIDEO ]Gandhi Plays Gandhi “Normally, we see D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi in a coat and tie, wrestling with the city budget. But in his private life, Gandhi’s getting ready to play a role of a lifetime, as his non-violent hero, the famed Mahatma Gandhi.” (NBC Washington)

August 15, 2011 | 2:00 PM | By

“He served 10 presidents, but died alone in squalor: What happened to Theodoric C. James?”

James, who worked in White House under every president since John F. Kennedy, refused the help offered by D.C. social service agencies.


Theodoric C. James Jr. was clearly in trouble. He wasn’t showering anymore. He wore the same ragged clothing day after day. Rats rummaged through the weeds and mounds of trash in his yard. He started going to the bathroom in buckets on his front porch.

— www.washingtonpost.com

August 15, 2011 | 9:25 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – Blaming Black Culture, Coddling the Super-Rich and Challenging Lanier

English Historian Blames Black Culture for Riots “David Starkey, who has presented several documentaries on the Tudor period, said during a BBC debate: ‘the problem is that the whites have become black — a particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion — and black and white, boy and girl, operate in this language together; this language, which is wholly false, which is a Jamaican patois, that’s been intruded in England, and this is why so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country.’” (The Lede)

Why I Don’t Care to SlutWalk “This every day harassment on the streets, in our bookstores, restaurants, or walking through a park is not based on what people wear. Rather, the harassment is happening for a wide variety of reasons—mostly related to the theories of power and control” (Holla Back DC)

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich “I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people. They love America and appreciate the opportunity this country has given them. Many have joined the Giving Pledge, promising to give most of their wealth to philanthropy. Most wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering.” (The New York Times)

Security Gate Turns Deadly In Southeast DC “a security fence around the Wheeler Terrace apartments in the 3900 block of 13th street SE became a deadly barrier to paramedics when they responded. The gate delayed them for crucial minutes.” (WUSA Washington, DC)

Lawsuits challenge Lanier’s policies on discipline “Critics of the police department’s personnel policies say the threat of summary demotion is a blunt-force tool intended to intimidate ranking officials to fall in line with Chief Lanier’s edicts, including how to rule on the disciplinary matters of others.” (Washington Times)