Registration now closed

Barry Farm: Community, Land and Justice

Film Screening and Talkback

Join us for a special screening of the documentary "Barry Farm: Community, Land, and Justice" to celebrate Black History Month, featuring a talkback with the creators and the community.

This screening and talkback presents a local example of a community that consistently persisted in the face of insurmountable obstacles and always created and found home in place and one another.

Following the film screening of Barry Farm: Community, Land, and Justice there will be panel discussion on the history of liberation, independence and struggle at Barry Farm. The central focus of our exhibit is to enlighten residents of the District regarding the significance of the history and the impact of trailblazers that came from a neighborhood that has been neglected and held in ill regard since the 1960s.

You can learn more about the film and the panelists below.

About the Film

At the outset of the Civil War, the United States was at a crossroads. Having survived the deadliest war ever waged in the country’s history, the nation had a choice: to reject the remnants of the confederacy and their mythology of a lost cause; or to do right by the Africans who had been enslaved in the country since 1619 and their descendants. For a glimmering moment, the nation chose a path of repair and redress. Despite the failings of reconstruction, the Freedmen's Bureau remained determined to stay the course. In 1867, under the leadership of General Oliver O. Howard, the Bureau purchased farmland from a wealthy plantation family. The Barry Family had previously sold a large parcel of land in 1808 which became the Government Hospital for the Insane (later known as St. Elizabeth’s Hospital). 

Juliana Barry sold 375-acres to the Freedman’s Bureau for $52,000. The land was then parceled up and sold to the newly emancipated African American residents of Washington, DC and those who continued to migrate to the city from further South. It is through this act that the community of Barry Farm was born. This new community, erected immediately next to the segregated suburb of the Federal city would become a bustling, self-sufficient Black enclave. Refugees from the south and Black folk residing elsewhere in the district flocked to Barry Farm. Some of the earliest residents included Fredrick Douglass’ children, Georgianna Simpson (one of the first Black women to receive a Doctorate degree), Emily Edmonson (survivor of the “Pearl Incident”), and Garnett Wilkinson (superintendent of the Black school system prior to integration). In the 1940’s, the Barry Farm Dwellings were built, bearing the name of the original community. Similarly, this community was also home to freedom fighters like Etta Horn, the Jennings Sisters, and cultural icons in the Junkyard Band.

About the Panelists

Sabiyha Prince

Dr. Sabiyha Prince is a cultural anthropologist, filmmaker, visual artist, and author who uses art, activism and information to uplift African American history and culture. A DC-native, her books include Constructing Belonging, on Harlem's Black middle class, and African Americans and Gentrification in Washington, DC. Prince also wrote and directed the award-winning documentary Diminished Returns: The Black Wealth Gap in Washington, DC and co-directed Barry Farm: Community, Land and Justice in Washington, DC with Samuel George. Her paintings and digital collages have been exhibited across the DMV and in New York City. Her media appearances include MSNBC, NPR, Al Jazeera English, WHUR, WOL, WPFW, WYPR, and Sirius XM. 

Bi’Anncha Andrews

Bi'Anncha Andrews has completed her PhD in Urban and Regional Planning and Design at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she studies neighborhood change patterns and the dispossession and displacement of Black Women and their families from historically and predominantly Black neighborhoods across DC - through exclusionary development projects like gentrification, urban renewal, and public housing demolition. 

Her dissertaton investigated the long-term impacts of gentrification and displacement on low-income Black Women in Barry Farm and how they managed to navigate their transition out of the neighborhood, and began to rebuild their social service and neighborhood-based support networks in their new environments. In doing so, it seeks to provide academics, practitioners and policy makers a foundation for strategizing on ways to improve urban redevelopment and restoration practices, social service distribution and support network access to account for the losses that vulnerable populations often suffer as a result of exclusionary development.

Bi'Anncha has taught Advanced Planning Courses at the University of Maryland including URSP673 - Community Development which she served as the lead instructor; and URSP 708 - Advanced Community Planning Studio course which she served as the Teaching Assistant with Dr. Clara Irazábal. Additionally, she recently taught a PNC-grant funded course entitled Community Economic Development and Advocacy at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) for small business owners and entrepreneurs facing displacement in Dundalk and Turner Station. 

Her specializations include: Residential and Commercial Gentrification, Anti-Displacement Policy and Practice, Dispossessions through Targeted Displacement, Public and Affordable Housing Demolition, Racialized Disinvestment, Residential Segregation, Concentrated Poverty, Black Feminist Theory, Access to Social Services and Social Support Networks, and Restorative and Reparative Planning Practices.

Corey Shaw, Jr.

Corey Shaw, Jr is a DC native with lifelong roots in Ward 7. As a graduate of both Anacostia Senior High School and the University of the District of Columbia (UDC), Shaw has a passion for comprehending the needs of communities and helping them advocate and mobilize for structural change. In his current role at Empower DC, Corey works to bridge the gap between the issues of today and the history of Black communities and the policies that shaped them.

Corey first got his start working with communities in Washington, DC as the Co-Founder of the Black Broad Branch Project. In his capacity as an oral historian and chair of the policy implementation working committee, Shaw has advocated for reparations for two families whose ancestors were displaced from Chevy Chase, DC in 1928. He continues to support the project, engaging with descendants to mobilize a coalition of scholars, DC residents, and community organizations toward the goals of Acknowledgement, Compensation, and Education. With the collective efforts of the coalition, the Black Broad Branch Project has succeeded in constructing educational curriculum for 3rd, 6th, and 12th grade students in DCPS, testified before the DC City Council, and presented in many forums ranging from the realm of academia to the United Nations. 

His passion for reparations drove him to join the African American Redress Network where worked to assist with local level reparations efforts across the United States as the volunteer Director of Community Engagement and Strategic Planning. Shaw worked closely with residents from communities like Freemantown, Georgia; Brown Grove, Virginia; and Africatown, Alabama.

Upcoming events