On November 18, 2020 the DC History Center presented activist Samuel Jordan and journalist Martin Austermuhle in conversation about how civic activism defeated the plan for federal highways through DC.
The tension between local and federal Washington sometimes plays out on the streets of the city. In the 1950s and ’60s, one of these fights was literally about streets. As the federal government pushed its plan to construct miles of highway across and through the city—destroying whole neighborhoods and thousands of homes—community activists stood up, organized, and stopped the highways.
DC, home to the federal government and ultimately under its legal control, is often the laboratory for such federal experiments as the freeway plan. Citizens and local lawmakers have little say. But the activists who led the fight against the federal highways broke that mold.
What led to the plan for federal highways cutting through our city? How did those fighting the plan build a coalition from both Black and White neighborhoods? And how did this effort shape the city we know today?
Samuel Jordan, veteran of the DC freeway fights, and Martin Austermuhle, reporter for WAMU and DCist, discussed the structural racism behind the highway construction plan, the interactions with federal government overseers, and how the DC experience influenced other regional and national approaches to protecting neighborhoods from highway development.
Also joining the conversation were Bill Treanor and James Clark.
