New MLK Library exhibit celebrates D.C.'s Black feminists

A new exhibit at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library celebrates D.C.’s iconic Black feminists.

What’s happening: “We Who Believe in Freedom: Black Feminist DC” is being showcased as part of a partnership with the National Women’s History Museum. It’s NWHM’s first in-person exhibit and celebrates the achievements of organizers and theorists, including:

• Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has represented D.C. in Congress as a delegate since 1991;
• Loretta Ross, a reproductive justice activist who headed the DC Rape Crisis Center, the only Black-led crisis center in the nation, and;
• Mary Church Terrell, who taught at the nation’s first Black public high school, which is now known as Dunbar High School.

What’s it like: In addition to text and photos, the exhibit has an interactive screen that allows you to learn more about individual activists.

• It also invites visitors through interactive prompts to think about how they’ll strive for justice in their own lives.

Worth noting: The National Women’s History Museum, which is primarily virtual, is separate from the upcoming Smithsonian museum.

How to visit: The free exhibit is on the first floor of the library and will be open until September 2024.