Set within the backdrop of 1968’s racial tension and the rioting that enveloped Washington D.C., the National Park Service (NPS), launched an innovative, community-based enrichment and recreational program called Summer in the Parks (SITP). This collaborative effort, designed to bring local residents into the national parks and other sites across the city, was created by a coalition of NPS officials, local Black leaders, volunteer organizations, and public space experts. SITP offered a variety of free, structured programming including concert series, children’s enrichment programs, and recreational opportunities. From the NPS institutional perspective, SITP succeeded in its mission to correct the organization’s history of segregation and exclusion while providing a diversion to mitigate future violence. However, the perspectives of participants were not captured or documented, resulting in a one-dimensional historical account.
As the 50th anniversary of SITP (1968-1976) approaches, NPS funded, under a grant from the African American Experience research program, a three-year historical study for the cultural documentation of the voices of administrators and participants in order to generate a more comprehensive story of SITP. George Mason University – Department of Folklore Studies-was chosen to conduct the study because of its methodological expertise in cultural documentation and oral histories. Felicia Garland-Jackson, a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology served as the Research Project Manager and led the study in collaboration with Professor Debra Lattanzi Shutika, Chair of English/Folklore Studies Department, who served as the study’s Principal Investigator. The project employed qualitative data collection methods including in-depth interviews to capture the experiences and perceptions of SITP participants and administrators regarding the program and life in Washington D.C. in the aftermath of the 1968 riots. The data collected reflected themes of nostalgia, community and cultural identity, as well as institutional failures and the long-term effects of racism and segregation. The study also offered Mason’s public sociology graduate students the unique opportunity to participate either through employment as research associates or as hands-on scholars through SOC 633 The Field School for Cultural Documentation course that took place during the Summer A semester 2017. The NPS SITP project offered students a rich learning experience, as well as ultimately adding to the Library of Congress collection of missing African American voices, further contributing to the oral history of the African American Experience.
- Image on main page: Robert Stanton - the only African American Director of the National Park Service-Frederick Douglass House 6/1/2017
- Image on this page: Courtesy NPS/ Undated photo of Summer in the Parks White House Children's Reception