The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories

Capitol Hill Community Foundation

1315 Independence Avenue SE, #23
Washington, District of Columbia 20003

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 202-543-4544

Repository URL: http://www.capitolhillhistory.org

Repository description (extant): In keeping with our goal of building a stronger, kinder, more thoughtful community, the Capitol Hill Community Foundation has established the Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project in order to give our neighborhood a better knowledge of its past and a deeper understanding of the everyday lives of its citizens.

The Project collects oral histories and other relevant materials and information from longtime Capitol Hill residents and former resdients, to create a permanent, accessible, ongoing record of the people and events that have shaped our community. As a first priority, the collection effort is focusing on elderly residents whose stories may soon be lost, but its ultimate goal is a many-voiced narrative from across the generations, representing all walks of life and all races and backgrounds, that will illustrate the richly inter-connected life of our neighborhood over time.

The Project will form partnerships with academic and other organizations to collect this material and to preserve it in a form that is readily accessible to the public far into the future. The accumulating archive will be actively promoted and publicized, the better to educate our community about its own history and social fabric.

We undertake this Project in the spirit of its namesake, Ruth Ann Overbeck, who devoted much of her life to the exploration of our neighborhood's history and the preservation of its historic treasures. We share her strongly held belief that a community must know its own past in order to plan wisely for its future, and that the life of even the humblest citizen is worthy of study, understanding and respect.

Repository type: Local History Organization

Collections:

Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project