Interviews conducted by Chanan Delivuk for "In Our 'Hood," joint exhibition at Pleasant Plains Workshop & ArtspaceDC on the topic of gentrification in and around the historic Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C.. Exhibition: May 25th – June 30th, 2012

Breton N

Cedric D

Daniel H

Dinora O

Ebby

Jeremy B

Jules and Kristina B

Kari C

Kenny G

Patrycja M

Steve S

Songs

A project by 
Chanan Delivuk & Alberto Gaitán

for

In Our 'Hood

A joint exhibition at Pleasant Plains Workshop & ArtspaceDC on the topic of gentrification in and around the historic Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C..

Exhibition: May 25th – June 30th, 2012

“After hours, Hughes would head for Seventh Street, where he found ‘sweet relief.’ There, ‘ordinary Negroes…played the blues, ate watermelon, barbecue, and fish sandwiches, shot pool, told tall tales, looked at the dome of the Capitol and laughed out loud,’ he recalled in his 1940 autobiography, The Big Sea. The life there inspired his poetry. ‘I tried to write poems like the songs they sang on Seventh Street—gay songs, because you had to be gay or die; sad songs, because you couldn't help being sad sometimes. But gay or sad, you kept on living and you kept on going. Their songs—those of Seventh Street—had the pulse beat of the people who keep on going.’”

"Remember Me to Harlem,
The Letters of 
Langston Hughes & Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964"

Edited by Emily Bernard (Knopf)

Songs DC Project

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