DANIEL SMITH/THE HOYA
the guide FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 2016
Black Georgetown Remembered
KSHITHIJ SHRINATH Hoya Staff Writer
E
va Calloway was a lifelong Georgetown resident: Born in the neighborhood in 1899, she grew up on Prospect Avenue near the grounds of the university. Throughout her childhood, Calloway heard the ringing of the bells from the Healy Hall clock tower and organized her life around those tolls. Yet, for over 80 years, Calloway never crossed the front gates at 37th and O; she never found herself on the Hilltop; she never imagined that she would be welcome. Her first steps on campus came in the 1980s, when she — as part of the Older Georgetown Fellowship Group — was invited onto campus and was served by students at a Christmas party. As she stood outside Healy Hall, she took a moment to gaze up at its immense facade. “Georgetown University, during my childhood days was a great inspiration, [but] I never realized that I would ever get
an opportunity to enter that college,” said Calloway — who died in 2003 at the age of 104 — in an interview before her death. “As I stepped outside the college and viewed the clock, I never thought I would have a chance to stand under that clock.” Calloway’s story is one of hundreds compiled in the landmark 1991 book “Black Georgetown Remembered,” which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year with a special edition released by the Georgetown University Press. An exhaustively researched and illuminating work, “Black Georgetown Remembered” — authored by Kathleen Lesko, Valerie Babb and Carroll Gibbs, and edited by Lesko — tells the often-overlooked story of the black experience in Georgetown, from the town’s origins in 1751 to the post-emancipation days to the 1940s gentrification that substantively altered the racial makeup of the neighborhood. In no way can an article do justice to the extensive research conducted by Lesko, Babb and Gibbs to create this book, nor can it properly capture all the complexity of cultural heritage and economic disenfran-
chisement latent in the Georgetown neighborhood. Our presentation choice, then, is through pictures. We display pictures of buildings and community spaces that appear ordinary now but held great significance as cornerstones of the black experience in Georgetown. Then, on your next stroll through the neighborhood, perhaps you will pause at the tennis courts at Rose Park and marvel that the Peters sisters began their legendary careers in tennis there. Or you might pass by Mount Zion United Methodist Church and recognize the significance of its 200th anniversary this year. And perhaps, through these images, you will have a chance to glimpse the assured confidence that — according to history professor Maurice Jackson, who wrote the foreword for the 25th anniversary edition — characterizes black Georgetown. “When you saw the people at the [Feb. 24 Gaston Hall] program, you just saw such pride in the neighborhood,” Jackson said in an interview with THE HOYA. Georgetown University has been an insti-
tutional pillar of the neighborhood since 1789, and as Eva Calloway’s story demonstrated, no history of black Georgetown would be complete without an examination of the university and its relationship with the surrounding community and the workers that sustain its operations. “Black Georgetown Remembered” serves as a marker of the university’s complicated history; but in the year of Freedom and Remembrance Halls, and when these complex relationships rise to the forefront again in the form of the upcoming Campus Plan negotiations and Georgetown Solidarity Committee’s recent petition on workers’ rights, the book offers an even more salient reminder: this time, of the importance of remembering. “Remember the beauty of what once was, but also the beauty of what we went through, using that to understand our history and culture,” Jackson said. “Remember the institutions. Remember the bad times, along with the good.” See REMEMBERED, B2
THIS WEEK FOOD & DRINK
FEATURE
I Saw the Light
Hiddleston discusses role in Hank Williams biopic JIWON NOH
Hoya Staff Writer
Espita Mezcaleria
Mexican restaurant and bar Espita Mezcaleria recently opened its doors in the Shaw neighborhood. B5
ALBUM REVIEW
Domo Genesis
Odd Future rapper Domo Genesis released an impressive debut album. B7
THEHOYA.COM/ GUIDE @thehoyaguide
In January 1947, Hank Williams’ mother Jessie Lillybelle Skipper was driving her son back from a performance in Fort Deposit, Ala. Williams, drunk and asleep in the backseat, awoke to his mother’s declaration that she “just saw the light” of Montgomery in the distance. “I Saw the Light” would become the title of one of the singer-songwriter’s most iconic songs, and now, 68 years after the track’s first release, it is the title of the new biopic from director, producer and writer Marc Abraham. Based on the book “Hank Williams: The Biography” by Colin Escott, George Merritt and William MacEwen, the film focuses on the man behind the music, from Williams’ rise to fame as one of country music’s most popular and influential performers to his tragic death at the young age of 29. Tom Hiddleston, a British actor best known for his role as the villanous Loki in the Marvel universe, may seem like an unlikely choice to portray the American icon. Hiddleston himself admits as much. “I was born in London in 1981,” Hiddleston said in an interview with THE HOYA this week. “He was born in Alabama in 1923. … There’s a gap there.”
SONY PICTURE CLASSICS
Elizabeth Olsen and Tom Hiddleston play Audrey Sheppard Williams and Hank Williams in “I Saw the Light,” a biopic of Williams’ life and career as a musician. Hiddleston, eager to step outside his comfort zone, said he was eager to challenge himself with the uncharacteristic performance. He worked tirelessly to prepare for the part, and adopted an en-
tirely new persona. His suave, mellifluous British accent, one of his most distinctive features, is replaced by a charming See WILLIAMS, B3