Countless Black people — board members and staff, residents, community leaders, supporters and friends — have shaped Jubilee Housing into what it is today.  We realize this is a story not often told, and 2021’s Black History Month seems like the perfect time for us to focus on doing just that.

Lonnie Bunch, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and founding Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, said recently that “the great diversity within the Black community needs the glue of the African American past to remind us of not just how far we have traveled but how far there is to go.”

We agree and intend to lift up our African American past and have it inform our diversity, equity and inclusion journey moving forward.

Adams Morgan in 1973 was a neighborhood in flux and, for many, in distress. The city was rebuilding after years of riots and racial uprisings brought on by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, and white flight had opened the door for Black residents. Many building owners and landlords — some quite wealthy and well-known — let buildings deteriorate into slums, creating living conditions that were harmful to thousands of Black families. Jubilee Housing’s founders, Terry Flood and Barbara Moore, both part of the Church of the Savior, managed to purchase two  apartment buildings — The Ritz and the Mozart, and began building relationships with residents in the buildings to create safe, healthy housing for these families.

Jubilee Housing’s Black history begins with those building purchases; It was also the beginning of a journey of intentional community building. Like today, that journey was not always easy. 

Jubilee’s history is full of stories of Black leadership. Shortly after the organization’s founding, resident leader Rosa Hatfield was hired as Jubilee’s Property Manager and became a vocal, courageous champion of Jubilee. Residents like Margaret Wanjui, Donald Cooper, Queen Esther Miller, and Brian Adams joined Jubilee’s Board of Directors, leading through jubilant times and times fraught with challenge. Black business and community leaders like Loretta Argrett and Harold Nelson, David Bowers and Maria Payne, led outreach and fundraising.

We’ll also highlight leaders such as Alieu Kargbo, a member of Jubilee Housing’s Property Management team. Alieu began his connection to Jubilee as an unpaid volunteer. He’s gone to serve in many other capacities for Jubilee, and is the longest tenured employee ever to work for Jubilee. The names and their stories abound, and we will tell them. 

In these rich conversations, we hope to weave together our past and present and look to the future through the voices of young Black leaders.

We hope you will enjoy this new initiative, as we are excited to continue to celebrate and uplift the stories of Jubilee’s Black History this month and for years to come.