Washington Walks

04/29/2025

During Public Service Recognition Week (May 3-11, 2025), author and tour guide Briana Thomas will offer a Black Broadway-themed walking tour that will be FREE for all federal employees. (Anyone can reserve a spot, but federal employees attend for free.)

U Street-Black Broadway
Tuesday, May 6, 2025, at 1:00 PM

RESERVE YOUR SPOT: https://blackbroadwaytravel.com/

Black Broadway Travel Partnership for Public Service

04/28/2025

We've partnered with our colleagues in D.C.'s walking tour community to celebrate our public service workers during Public Service Recognition Week!

Starting May 3, anyone employed by the federal government as of January 1, 2025, regardless of current employment status, can take walking tours free of charge! (Anyone can reserve a spot on these walks, but federal employees attend for free.)

Tim Wright, founder of Attucks Adams Tours, will offer:

Black History on Pennsylvania Avenue
Sunday, May 4 and 11, 2025 at 10:00 AM

RESERVE YOUR SPOT: https://www.attucksadams.com/

Partnership for Public Service AttucksAdams

04/21/2025

“How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants.”

“I appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear which only leads to isolation from others, but rather to use the resources available to help the needy, to fight hunger and to encourage initiatives that promote development.”

“These are the ‘weapons’ of peace: weapons that build the future, instead of sowing seeds of death.”

- Pope Francis, Easter Sunday, 2025

IMAGE: Pope Francis performs the foot-washing ritual at the Castelnuovo di Porto refugees center near Rome on March 24, 2016.

04/18/2025

We had the privilege of leading an evening walking tour of National Mall memorialsl for a group of sophomores from Baltimore's Carver Vocation-Technical High School. The tour was one of the activies included in their spring break trip to D.C.!

Baltimore City Public Schools Thread

04/16/2025

It's D.C. Emancipation Day! Unfamiliar with this official District of Columbia holiday?

Thanks to our colleagues at the DC History Center, we know not only the history of the D.C. Compensated Emancipation Act signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, but also how April 16 came to be a holiday in the nation's capital.

"While doing research, Loretta Hanes discovered that a celebration was held on April 16, 1901, marking the day that President Lincoln signed the act emancipating enslaved Washingtonians in 1862, nearly a year before the Emancipation Proclamation freed those enslaved in states at war with the Union."

"Inspired, Hanes spent much of the 1980s planning annual emancipation educational programs . . . . to raise awareness among D.C. government officials, local organizations, businesses, churches, and schools."

"Determined to make Emancipation Day an official city holiday, she organized a conference on D.C. emancipation, began laying a wreath at the Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park every April 16, and lobbied local officials."

"Thanks to Hanes, Mayor Marion Barry declared April 16, 1996, 'Emancipation Day' in D.C., and in 2005 Mayor Anthony Williams signed legislation making Emancipation Day an official public holiday in the District."

Thank you, DC History Center, for publishing the original blog post that inspired this Facebook post: https://dchistory.org/loretta-carter-hanes/

DC History Center

04/05/2025

04/04/2025

It’s the 2025 DC History Conference!

Appropriate and poignant to be at the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library because 57 years ago today, April 4, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, TN.

We’re having a great time greeting attendees and reconnecting with colleagues during the conference’s History Network!

04/01/2025

STARTS THURSDAY! The 51st annual DC History Conference will kick off this week, starting at the DC History Center with an oral history symposium. Then the conference continues through Sunday at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library.

Visit our table during Friday's History Network, where organizations that research, record, preserve, share, and celebrate Washington, D.C. history set up shop in the main lobby of the MLK Library.

On Sunday, Washington Walks founder Carolyn Crouch leads our walking tour, How Food Shapes a City, as part of the conference offerings!

LEARN MORE/REGISTER: https://conference.dchistory.org/

DC History Center DC Public Library Humanities DC DC History Conference

03/20/2025

Washington Walks is partnering with our colleagues in the D.C. walking tour community to celebrate our public service workers:

Attucks Adams, Black Broadway Travel, DC Design Tours, Off the Mall Tours, A Tour of Her Own.

During Public Service Recognition Week (May 3-11, 2025) anyone employed by the federal government as of January 1, 2025, regardless of current employment status, can take walking tours free of charge!

Anyone can reserve a spot on any of the 21 walking tours offered, but federal employees attend for free.

Explore the walks and reserve your spot: https://www.washingtonwalks.com/psrw/

Partnership for Public Service AFGE National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) AttucksAdams DC Design Tours Off The Mall Tours Women's Tourism D.C.

PSRW Walks logo by Carolyn Muraskin, DC Design Tours

03/10/2025

You can now find Washington Walks on Bluesky! Follow us there for updates on our walks.

03/03/2025

How a diverse group of American women worked tirelessly and courageously to ensure that the United States lived up to its highest ideals--that's the story told on our Women Who Changed America walking tour!

Women Who Changed America
Saturday, March 8, 2025
2:00 - 4:00 PM

RESERVATIONS: https://www.washingtonwalks.com/tours/women-who-changed-america/

03/01/2025

Washington Walks guide David Kaplan with the folks who attended our D.C. in the Green Book walking tour, a one-time-only experience exploring the connection between the "bible of Black travel" and Black-owned businesses in the nation's capital.

We started out with a tour of The Negro Motorist's Green Book exhibit at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library and then traveled by Metro to D.C.'s U Street neighborhood where David showed us sites associated with the Green Book, the indepensible Black travel guide produced by Harlem resident Victor Green starting in 1936.

The group stands in front of the former Whitelaw Hotel, an elegant Black-owned and managed accommodation that operated from 1919 through the 1970s. The building was renovated as affordable apartments in 1990 thanks to non-profit MANNA, Inc.

02/22/2025

All government workers, regardless of your employment status, receive a $5 discount off the regular Washington Walks public tour price. Select GOVT option at checkout.

AFGE National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE)

IMAGE: President's Day demonstration at the U.S. Capitol by WASH WALKS

02/21/2025

Join us for a guided tour of the “The Negro Motorist Green Book” exhibit now on view at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library followed by a walking tour highlighting sites in D.C.’s U Street neighborhood associated with the Green Book era.

See where Black travelers could find hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, and other businesses in the nation's capital that welcomed them-and kept them safe.

RESERVATIONS: https://www.washingtonwalks.com/tours/d-c-in-the-green-book/

DC Public Library Candacy Taylor