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Throughout June, WETA marks LGBTQ+ Pride Month with a special collection of history, biography and culture programming. ...
06/01/2026

Throughout June, WETA marks LGBTQ+ Pride Month with a special collection of history, biography and culture programming. Check out our curated Pride Month collection on WETA+ — featuring titles such as American Experience: Stonewall Uprising, In Search of Walt Whitman, American Masters profiles of Janis Ian, Keith Haring and Little Richard, and the miniseries Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution. Look ahead to broadcast premieres later in the month, including Lou’s Legacy: A Reporter’s Life at The Washington Blade and Independent Lens: Assembly.

Explore the full lineup at the link in the comments.

On this day 46 years ago, a local band called Tiny Desk Unit took the stage in a cramped basement on F Street NW and pla...
05/31/2026

On this day 46 years ago, a local band called Tiny Desk Unit took the stage in a cramped basement on F Street NW and played the first show at the 9:30 Club. The headliner that night was a New York punk-jazz band called the Lounge Lizards. The room (legally) held 199 people.

The keyboardist for Tiny Desk Unit was a young man named Bob Boilen, who would go on to spend decades as the director of NPR's All Things Considered — and eventually lend his name to NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series. But on May 30, 1980, he was just a DC musician playing the opening night of what would become one of the most important music venues in America.

The 9:30 Club, tucked into the basement of the historic Atlantic Building, went on to host Black Flag, R.E.M., Cyndi Lauper, Minor Threat, and a teenage Dave Grohl — years before he joined Nirvana and founded the Foo Fighters. "As a kid growing up in the D.C. punk rock scene," Grohl later recalled, "your first show at the 9:30 Club might as well have been Royal Albert Hall or Madison Square Garden."

WETA's Boundary Stones has the full story at the link in the comments below.

104 years ago today, thousands gathered on the National Mall for the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial.Robert Todd Linc...
05/30/2026

104 years ago today, thousands gathered on the National Mall for the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial.

Robert Todd Lincoln, the president's only surviving son, was guided up the steps at 79 years old, making his last public appearance. Warren Harding delivered the keynote and William Howard Taft, now Chief Justice, presented the memorial to the nation. The Navy broadcast the ceremony by radio to an estimated two million listeners.

But the day carried a shadow that most newspapers chose not to report. Black attendees were forcibly directed to a segregated section by a Marine guard. And the ceremony's sole Black speaker, Robert Russa Moton — president of Tuskegee Institute — had submitted a speech calling for racial justice. The Lincoln Memorial Commission found it too radical and made him rewrite it. The mainstream press barely covered what he said at all.

WETA's Boundary Stones has the full story at the link in the comments below.

DC/DOX 2026 is almost here! Washington, D.C.’s premier documentary festival is back with WETA as a proud media sponsor! ...
05/29/2026

DC/DOX 2026 is almost here! Washington, D.C.’s premier documentary festival is back with WETA as a proud media sponsor! DC/DOX returns June 11–14, 2026, bringing boundary-pushing films, vital conversations, and an incredible community of filmmakers and documentary lovers to the nation’s capital. Also check out our curated collection of past DC/DOX films on WETA+, our new free streaming service.

There’s still time to buy tickets or purchase a pass! Learn more at dcdoxfest.com.

We look forward to seeing you at DC/DOX!

94 years ago today, thousands of World War I veterans began descending on Washington — broke, desperate, and determined ...
05/29/2026

94 years ago today, thousands of World War I veterans began descending on Washington — broke, desperate, and determined to collect what their government owed them.

They had been promised a bonus for their military service, payable in 1945. But it was 1932, the depths of the Depression, and they couldn't wait. So they came to Washington — veterans and their families, setting up a sprawling camp of tents and shacks along the Anacostia River and marching up and down Pennsylvania Avenue to pressure Congress. At its peak, more than 40,000 people lived in the camp.

Congress passed the bonus bill in the House but the Senate killed it. Most of the men stayed anyway. President Hoover's response was to send in the Army — cavalry in gas masks, infantry with fixed bayonets, and five tanks, commanded by General Douglas MacArthur, with a young Major Dwight Eisenhower at his side. They burned the camp to the ground.

The spectacle horrified the country — and made a particular impression on Eleanor Roosevelt, who would spend years trying to make it right. WETA's Boundary Stones has the full story at the links in the comments below.

63 years ago today, a 21-year-old woman from Arlington sat down at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi —...
05/28/2026

63 years ago today, a 21-year-old woman from Arlington sat down at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi — and refused to move.

Joan Mulholland had grown up in Arlington at a time when Black and white residents had almost no contact. But something about the contradiction between what she'd been taught — in Sunday school, in civics class — and what she saw around her wouldn't leave her alone. By the time she joined the Jackson sit-in in 1963, she had already been arrested twice, ridden the Freedom Rides into Mississippi, and helped integrate lunch counters across northern Virginia.

Her white skin was both a tool and a risk. She used it to scope out demonstrations, buy tickets to segregated venues, and pass food to Black friends at lunch counters. Other times, she rode on the floor of a car with a blanket over her. She helped organize the March on Washington that same summer. She was, by her own account, in the movement by invitation — and she showed up fully.

WETA's Boundary Stones has the full story at the links in the comments below.

54 years ago today, Washington was the center of the world for Black activists and organizers who filled the streets fro...
05/27/2026

54 years ago today, Washington was the center of the world for Black activists and organizers who filled the streets from Malcolm X Park to the Washington Monument grounds in one of the most significant demonstrations in modern DC history.

It was May 27, 1972, and between 10,000 and 25,000 people marched through DC for the first African Liberation Day, joining 60,000 more across cities in the US, Canada, and the Caribbean. The march wound past the Portuguese Embassy and the South African Embassy before converging at the Sylvan Theater on the Washington Monument grounds, where speakers including Ralph Abernathy, Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, and Jesse Jackson committed to a sustained fight against colonialism and white minority rule — both abroad and at home.

The event was organized by Owusu Sadaukai, a Black Power activist whose 1971 visit to anti-colonial rebels in Mozambique had convinced him that Black Americans had a direct role to play in African liberation. Marion Barry chaired the local steering committee. J. Edgar Hoover dispatched FBI agents to spy on the organizers. And an annual tradition was born — African Liberation Day continued to draw crowds to Malcolm X Park every May until 1991.

Did you march, or do you have memories of African Liberation Day in DC? Share them in the comments.

105 years ago today, a group of Washington women founded a chapter of the League of Women Voters — and promptly gave the...
05/26/2026

105 years ago today, a group of Washington women founded a chapter of the League of Women Voters — and promptly gave themselves one of the most ironic names in political history.

The Nineteenth Amendment had passed in 1920, guaranteeing women the right to vote. But D.C. residents had no electoral votes, no elected local government, and no representation in Congress. The women of Washington had marched, picketed the White House, and fought for suffrage — and won nothing for themselves.

So on May 26, 1921, they organized anyway. Their chapter's unofficial nickname said it all: the Voteless League of Women Voters. WETA's Boundary Stones has the full story at the link in the comments below.

On this day 49 years ago, Star Wars opened at the Uptown Theater in Cleveland Park — one of fewer than three dozen theat...
05/25/2026

On this day 49 years ago, Star Wars opened at the Uptown Theater in Cleveland Park — one of fewer than three dozen theaters where 20th Century Fox quietly booked it, fully expecting their real summer hit to be a romantic potboiler called The Other Side of Midnight.

Four of the Uptown's six opening-day showings sold out. About 2,000 people were turned away that evening, and management added a midnight show on a Wednesday night. The first-day box office broke the Uptown's all-time record.

By mid-June, the crowds had so thoroughly transformed Cleveland Park that residents were complaining about parking wars and midnight lines. The theater's management was considerably less troubled. They grossed $350,000 in the first month alone.

WETA's Boundary Stones has the full story at the link in the comments below.

TONIGHT at 8pm: The National Memorial Day Concert airs live from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. The 90-minute progra...
05/24/2026

TONIGHT at 8pm: The National Memorial Day Concert airs live from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. The 90-minute program honors America’s military men and women, and their families, for their courage and sacrifice across 250 years — and pays tribute to all who have given their lives in service to the nation.

Featuring musical salutes and powerful stories of American heroes who have defended the United States since 1776, the 37th annual concert includes performances by pop artist Andy Grammer and country music stars Mickey Guyton and Jamey Johnson, along with the National Symphony Orchestra led by renowned pops conductor Jack Everly.

Tune in to WETA PBS at 8pm, or stream the concert with WETA+ (link in comments).

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