Bipeds of Brookland: Rick Edwards

Rick Edwards moved into Brookland in 1950 when he was four years old. His mother purchased a house in what was then a primarily white neighborhood.  Many houses at that time had racial covenants written into the contracts that Rick recalls, “Prohibited sale or rent to people of African blood or Jewish faith. Those racial covenants were binding until the Civil Rights era.  But you can still read them in many of the old deeds.” Rick says his mother had very light skin and “They didn’t know she was black until I came.  It was completely white when we moved in, the area I was aware of.  Many of the whites were antagonistic but many weren’t.  Murray and Paul had a delicatessen.  I remember parking my bicycle and going in

Bipeds of Brookland: Susanne Horn

Bipeds of Brookland:

Bipeds of Brookland: Susanne Horn

Susanne Horn came to Brookland in 1997. "One of the things I remember most was that we had a city recycling bin but the city wouldn’t actually pick it up. We used to drive our recycling out to a paper center on Blair Rd. I went to college in Vermont where it was all recycling all the time. And I was like, 'What do you mean you don’t recycle in the nation’s capital?'"

Susanne worked in the neighborhood as an AmeriCorps volunteer at Mary House that year and “I never left. I decided that Brookland was a great place to live. So I stayed and did my Masters in Social Work at The Catholic University of America."

Susanne started working at Bread for the

Bipeds of Brookland: Hamid Elaissami

Hamid Elaissami  came to DC from Morocco to study economic development at GWU.  “Some people think it is inevitable to be poor. To figure out why that is and then find a solution has always been a driver for me. People abroad don’t understand that there is extreme poverty in the United States, and it really shouldn’t be: it’s the richest country in the world.”

“I work for an organization (Year Up) that helps provide opportunities for disconnected youth. We look for youth who are really motivated and want to break the cycle and we train them and then place them in jobs. I don’t see what I do as a job, helping other people really reach their potential. I see it as a moral obligation. It makes

Bipeds of Brookland: Brian Lounsbury

Brian Lounsbury teaches 4th grade at Yu Ying Public Charter School, less than a mile from his house, and tells friends “if I decide to drive to work, I could break down, walk, and still be early. My wife teaches there, my son goes there, so our daily commute does not take us far out of Brookland.”  He is proud to work at the International Baccalaureate School with a Chinese immersion program, which seeks to make its students global citizens.

Although he first studied environmental science, Brian finds teaching very rewarding. “I’m very much an experiential hands-on teacher, I like to have kids learn by doing. My philosophy is to teach with and learn with as opposed to teach at students.”  He has taught

Bipeds of Brookland: Amanda Alexander

Amanda Alexander, a first generation American whose family is from Panama, was born in NJ and came to DC because she "always wanted to go to a historically black college in a major city." Thus, she finished her Bachelors and Masters at Howard University in 1998, and began teaching for DCPS, saving money to buy a house in Brookland in 2001.

“I guess it was the combination of the suburban feel of Brookland and the strong Catholic presence that really solidified my decision to live here. I love the fact that I can attend daily mass in the neighborhood at St. Anthony's, the Monastery, or the Shrine at any hour of the day.”

Frustrated with some of the opportunities not being provided for students she joined New

Bipeds of Brookland: Azadeh Rabbani

Azadeh Rabbani managed her own architectural firm in Iran before she moved to the US to complete a master’s degree in Architecture at Penn State University. She moved to DC in 2013. “It is a very beautiful city, there is a lot of human interaction, there’s a lot of surprises, there’s a lot of diversity.  So when I was in Penn State, every time I said I was from Iran to everyone, there was a long pause followed by ‘cool’ and the conversation wouldn’t go further than that. But in DC it was accepted and people knew about Iran and didn’t think that it was just some desert country.”

After exploring some “terrible houses” advertised online, she found a room for rent in Brookland and said, “Wow this looks great, I

Bipeds of Brookland: Keith Thomas

Keith Thomas was born in Brookland and worked for 25 years as a paramedic with the DC Fire Department. When he retired in 1999 he was supervising all of the city’s ambulance teams. “I covered the whole city. When I first started, back in 1974, we had a total of 10 ambulances for the whole city, but they said we needed 54 ambulances to cover the city.  So everybody worked very hard. Today I think there are 34 ambulances. There are Medic units at every firehouse.”

He explains that paramedics work 12 hour shifts and   “DC ambulances ran more calls than any ambulances in the world, per capita.”  He recalls that ambulances respond to calls more than once every hour, at least 12 to 15 calls in 12 hours.   “I spent most my

Bipeds of Brookland: Jackie Young

Jackie Young became involved in progressive politics in high school. In the 70s, her love of travel combined with her progressive politics. This led her to join a group who traveled to Cuba to help with the sugar cane production and to protest the US blockade of Cuba. She lived there for 3 months, cutting sugar cane, living in a tent, and traveling. "I am so glad the blockade may soon be officially over; the people of the USA and Cuba will benefit."

After college, Jackie became a union organizer. She went to graduate school, earned a doctorate in labor relations and a law degree, and went on to teach labor law. Jackie moved to DC and worked with the National Labor Relations Board for 30 years. "I retired in

Bipeds of Brookland: Rohulamin Quander

Rohulamin Quander served for 20 years as an administrative law judge for the District of Columbia, then retired and became a tour guide.  He enjoys leading tours of the memorials, as well as tours that are focused on African American history in the DC area, which is a personal passion. Judge Quander explained that the Quander Family has been in the DC area since the 1600s and some of his ancestors “were George Washington’s slaves at Mt Vernon.”  The family was recently featured in a Washington Post article A thorny question for African American museum: Whose story do we tell? “We have an exhibit opening at Mt. Vernon October 1st, called Lives Bound Together: Slavery at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. History

Bipeds of Brookland: Ed Lazere is the founding director of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute whose mission is to reduce poverty and expand economic opportunity. “We focus on the fact the city is increasingly unafordable.  Everyone needs a place to live and you can’t afford to live in DC on minimum wage now, even with the minimum wage going to $15 an hour. So we work on issues like job training to help adults get the education and skills they need to stay in the city.”

“I've lived in Brookland 24 years. I’m proud to have built a life and raised my family in Brookland. The reason I do the work that I do is, in part, from my time starting a family, getting married, buying a house and starting to raise a family and send my kids to public school.  I had