Thursday, October 17, 2013

African American History is Georgetown

Nadia, Eliza- Jane, and I at the first church 

"BOUTTA GO HIT UP G-TOWN OR WHATEVA!"  Georgetown is home to 13,880 people currently.  In the 1800s, it was home to 5, 120 people, 1, 449 of whom were slaves, and 227 of whom being free blacks.  This was where we were going to spend our second Metro Journey.
"Unity is Key," this is what Ms. Anna, our instructor warned us before our first metro journey, and on this Metro Journey (MJ) we
learned how important this lesson was.
Let's first start out by saying that this MJ was definitely more complicated than the last.  More stops, more preparation, less time.  On Monday, when Ms. Anna sent out the email with out itinerary, Nadia and I jumped right into it encouraging the class, setting up phone conversations, and researching.  Although some of the class was late responding, with minuscule hints from Ms. Anna, we found what we thought was all of the information and prepared to disembark on our second MJ that Thursday.

My classmates at the second church 

I. AM. NOT. A. MORNING. PERSON! At 5:15 am, I was supposed to wake up - 5:15 AM!! "This will get you into college. This will look good on your resume. You will have fun. Everything will run smoothly." These are the phrases I had to continue to repeat to myself to keep me from turning right back over and falling asleep.  Upon arriving at Ms. Anna's house, we found out how to 'roll with the flow.' Something came up where instead of us going to the Greenbelt Station to then continue to Foggy Bottom, we went to Silver Spring.- A totally different line.  "We're going to be so late," I kept thinking as we set in the rush hour morning traffic.  When we finally arrived at the station and got on the train, we got delayed... at every single stop.  Calls and calls came in on Nadia and my phones from our fellow classmates already at the station, "Where are you guys?"
"We've been here for an hour!"
and finally, "We're leaving you guys."

Wait, wait, wait, what? LEAVING? Without us? Breathe, they're probably just kidding.
When we got to the station and on ground level we realized..... wait for it..... THEY WEREN'T KIDDING! Nowhere to be found. They left us. Nadia called Gyasi and found out that they went to the first church. (church 1, St. John's Church)

When we first saw each other at 11:30am. Notice how
spread apart we are. We were all super annoyed. LOL

 Looking at our map, the first church that we had to visit was Church number 2, St. Zion's Church. A new law in 1765 prevented seven or more slaves or free black men from congregating except at church on Sunday. At church, they were not allowed to co-mingle with their white brethren, so a group of free black men founded their own church. They founded Mount Zion United Methodist Church in 1816. The church was not allowed a black pastor until another half a century.The church later brought a cemetery at the intersection of R Street and 29th Street Northwest. The cemetery crypt was one of the stop on the Underground Railroad ran by Harriet Tubman. She led slaves to freedom in the north. 

Do you see the contradiction? They went to Church number 1, and we went to the first church assigned in our MJ.  You can probably guessed what happened next. We arrived at the church and they weren't there.  Great! It was now 10:19 am, so we wasted two hours and 19 minutes because we weren't together.  After calling Ms. Anna, explaining our situation, and praying, we decided to take pictures of the churches and meet at Dean and Delucas, another stop of our day.  This was a cute and quaint grocery store in  Georgetown. It was adorable! While waiting on our peers, Nadia, Eliza- Jane, and I got gelatos to calm ourselves down ( LOL) and pass the time.

McCandless' Tavern 

11:30am: This is the time when the entire group finally met at Dean and Delucas, three hours behind schedule. I had to keep telling myself to smile, breathe, and let it go. I never thought forgiving someone could be so hard.


After stopping for lunch, we headed to McCandless' Tavern on M street.  This building had slave pens.  Today, despite a few changes, in building -- except on the ground floor where retail uses have entailed major alterations -- there are mantels, railings, hearths and whole rooms that now span four centuries.

Our creepy picture on the Steps of Exorcism 

After taking a picture in front of the tavern, we walked across Key Bridge. There are times where I feel fat and lazy. This would be one of those times. Let me tell YOU something, if you EVER want to lose weight, walk across this bridge. If you want to have fun, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT walk across this bridge. You better not do that to yourself. We were so mad. Nobody talked, nobody asked questions. All we could think was, "Ms. Anna, when I get home..." and "Are we there yet?"

Once we walked there and back, we walked up and down the Exorcist staircase. OUR PHOTO CHALLENGE!! Again, ONLY CLIMB IF YOU NEED EXERCISE! WHOO! I felt like jump roping was enough, let me tell you, it's not.

Lol at our dysfunction! Us in front of John F. Kennedy's House 

After taking a picture there, we made our way to John F. Kennedy's house on N street.  Because it is occupied, we could not go inside, but it was really cute! The deed of the house is tied to the "Civil Rights Address" Kennedy wrote in 1964.

"UNITY IS KEY" This is a lesson we will definitely remember on our next Metro Journey.