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CULTURAL
ACTIVATIONS
Don't Mute DC:
1,500 CELEBRATE DON’T MUTE DC FIVE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY
More than 1,500 people joined the daylong celebration Saturday and supported Black vendors at the Don’t Mute DC party at Sycamore & Oak with live music by Crush Funk Brass Band, Backyard Band, District Kings, and Creole cuisine by DC Triceys, Dionne’s, Glizzy’s Vegan Food Company, and Tres Creole.
#Stop the Move:
Don't Mute DC:
Protest/Petition on MLK Day of Action January 15, 2024
5 Years after its inception, the Don't Mute DC movement is celebrating another win with a tweet by another CEO: Ted Leonsis, caving to Don't Mute DC petition to stop the move of Washington Sports Teams from Virginia.
#Don't Mute DC:
An Oral History
in collaboration with the
Smithsonian Folklife Festival
In this unique collaboration, key figures in the Don’t Mute DC movement video recorded interviews about go-go, DC, the “Chocolate City” and describe the significance and origins of the movement. Don’t Mute DC published a draft version of the Oral History and distributed it at the 2019 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. This cartoon history by the Smithsonian’s Xueying Chang was published on the festival blog on June 29, 2019. The transcripts and video will be available at the Ralph Rinzlerer Archives.
Dont MUte Dc CRAnk THE VOTE presents:
The Cultural Equity Candidates Forum
May 25, 2020
The Cultural Equity Candidates Forum will be held May 25, at 8Pm. The discussion will include the leading candidates from Ward 2,4,7,8 and At large Primary Races. This event will be held exclusively on Facebook live.
GO-GO AWARDS
Ballou High School
November 17, 2019
After a nearly decade-long hiatus, the Go-Go Awards made its triumphant return to the state-of-the-art 750 seat theatre at Ballou High School at which Mayor Bowser delivered a proclamation kicking off Go-Go Awareness Week.
EU’s Sugar Bear, Mayor Muriel Bowser, and Ronald “Mo” Moten at the 2019 Go-Go Awards and “Go-Go Awareness Week.
Don't Mute DC
CALL TO ACTION CONFERENCE
Historic Anacostia
November 16, 2019
Don’t Mute DC activated four locations in Historic Anacostia at this first-of-its kind conference, where hundreds of artists, academics, and activists came together to discuss 9 different panels including how “Whiteness” mutes DC culture, Mapping Racial Inequity in DC Schools, and Wills, Trust & Estates and a plan for what else is needed to stop displacement 2020.
Battle of the Bands & BBQ:
DC meets New Orleans
(Mumbo v. Gumbo)
Sept. 20, 2019
The Gateway Pavilion, St.
Elizabeth East.
In July 2019, #DontMuteNola became a trending topic on social media after New Orleans police arrested trumpeter Eugene Grant while playing with the Young Fellas Brass Band after a Frenchman Street business owner called 911. Later that summer, more than 2,500 people came out to Don’t Mute DC’s showcase of food and culture of DC and New Orleans, two gentrifying cities whose musicians are on the front lines of fighting back against cultural displacement, featuring Big 6 Brass Band and DC’s Black Alley and Proper Utensils.
Two chefs from the two cities engaged in a playful competition about cuisine from their two cities and ultimately fed hundreds of people:
First Ladies of
Go-Go Concert
Sept. 19, 2019
A series centering the essential place of women in Go-Go.
Sounds of Chocolate Cities:
Smithsonian National Museum for African American History
Sept. 22, 2019
Panel discussion with Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture curator of music,
Smithsonian music curator, Dr. Dwandalyn Reece. Dr. Natalie Hopkinson, Tulane Hogan Jazz Archives Curator Melissa Weber and Dr. Maurice Hobson, author of the Myth of the Black Mecca.
