This ticket option includes a lecture and a follow-up tour. Other options are:
NOV 15 Program
A city with a thriving literary tradition, Washington, D.C., has been home to many of our nation’s most acclaimed writers. From Joel Barlow and Francis Scott Key in the early years of the District; to Walt Whitman during the Civil War; the new African American intelligentsia of the Reconstruction era; Henry Adams during the Gilded Age; through Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and the District’s equivalent of the Harlem Renaissance along the U Street corridor, the story of Washington has been a story of writers.
For literary enthusiasts, amateur historians, and anyone who wants to learn more about their hometown, local literary historian, writer, and editor Kim Roberts offers a lively cultural overview of our nation’s capital through a literary lens.
All participants receive a copy of Roberts’ book, A Literary Guide to Washington, D.C. (UVA Press).
NOV 17 Tour about Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Dunbar-Nelson in LeDroit Park
Kim Roberts leads a walking tour focusing on two remarkable writers, Paul Laurence Dunbar and his wife, Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson. She provides context for their life in D.C., discussing the African American intelligentsia who were drawn to LeDroit Park and the surrounding Shaw neighborhood in the years between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War II.
Tour participants meet at the Shaw/Howard University Metro station, 1701 8th St., NW.
Photo caption (upper right): Zora Neale Hurston, 1938, by Carl Van Vechten (Library of Congress)
