This month, I am highlighting commemorative works in DC that feature youth. The physical form of commemoration needs not be a statue, although many are. I'm looking to see if a young person is included as part of the commemorative narrative, or that a young person is central to the story of commemoration.

Old pump house converted into a learning center.

Let’s start next to the Anacostia River in Southeast DC, looking at a different type of commemoration. This place honors a young man and a young woman, both who served DC residents by improving the natural environment. Unfortunately, each of their lives was cut short by acts of violence.

On the Anacostia River, the Earth Conservation Corps has had a substantial impact on the health and appearance of the Anacostia River, as well as on the people who work to improve it. The ECC is an AmeriCorps adjacent program that engages DC teens in environmental service projects, almost exclusively centered on rehabilitating the Anacostia River. The Anacostia River intersects with the Potomac River after branching through Prince George's County, Maryland and the eastern part of the District of Columbia. The ECC was technically founded in the late 1980s, but since 1994, it has inhabited an old restored pump house that juts out into the Anacostia River. The pump house is just south of the Navy Yard complex and almost in the shadow of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge.

After making the pump house home in 1994, the ECC has seen tremendous change in the built environment around it over the next 25 years. Dozens of new residential and commercial buildings have risen around the pump house, including adjacent apartment and office buildings as well as the Nationals Park baseball stadium. All the while, hundreds of DC youth have worked on the river, learning about, cleaning, monitoring, and improving the Anacostia little by little. With the work of ECC teens alongside infrastructure and policy advances related to cleaning up the river, we’re at the point that development is now ongoing on both sides of the riverfront. This particular segment of the Anacostia River has become a residential, commercial, and green space destination for area residents.

Diamond Teague Park on the Anacostia River.

In between the ECC pump house learning center and the baseball stadium sits Diamond Teague Park. The park was dedicated in 2009 to honor Diamond Teague. Diamond was a teen who grew up in DC and worked in the ECC cleaning up the Anacostia River. Specifically, he worked a seven month program helping to bring the bald eagle, sturgeon fish, and the barn owl back to the river shed. In October 2003 a still unknown person shot Diamond on the front porch of his own home. Diamond died at age 19 years. He was known as one of the hardest working members in the corps and a friend to all. After graduation from the corps, Diamond was set to attend the University of the District of Columbia where he had just been accepted. He would have been attending with a scholarship achieved through his work on the Anacostia River during his ECC AmeriCorps service. Corp members and staff grieved after his death as Diamond's passing seemed to go unnoticed by the city and underreported by the media. It was the student media at the ECC who produced a video tribute shown at Diamond's memorial service. The day after the memorial service the mayor visited with Diamond's mother and ECC members.

Five years later, a Major League Baseball Park was built across from the ECC pump house, supercharging development around the area. Six years later, in 2009, then DC Mayor Adrian Fenty spoke at the groundbreaking of a new 1 acre park that was officially dedicated to Diamond Teague. Diamond Teague Park includes a new approach to the riverside and the ECC learning center, direct access to the river with a new boat landing, piers for water taxi and kayak access, and acts as a connector between two residential areas along the much improved Anacostia River. A river Diamond himself helped to rehabilitate. The park also incudes a tiled memorial sculpture to Diamond by artist G. Byron Peck, although it has fallen into some disrepair. The area around the park has seen incredible change over the past 15 years, but the commemoration for Diamond Teague remains. There are plans to enhance and enlarge the park with new features and landscaping, but that is tied to future real estate development on the waterfront. More recently, there has been a proposal to restore, preserve, and protect the memorial sculpture to Diamond specifically.

Diamond Teague memorial by artist G. Byron Peck.

Most tiles are missing from the top side.

At the end of Diamond Teague Park is the aforementioned, repurposed pump house. Now renovated and used for programming by the ECC, the pump house is named to honor Monique Johnson, one of the founding Earth Conservation Corps members here in DC. By 1992, Monique had transitioned into a leadership role as a young adult and was on an environmental rehab trip in Texas when a Houston man took killed her just days after her arrival. The Earth Conservation Corp group was there ostensibly to help clean up a local bayou, but primarily to be honored by then President Bush as participants in the Thousand Points of Light community service initiative. It was a celebration that did not happen. Monique was lost to us as she was exporting the challenging but important work on DC’s natural environment all the way to better another community in Texas. Yet, violence followed.

Two years later, the old pump house gained a new life as a learning center as well as a new name, the Monique Johnson River Center. Monique was one of the inspired young leaders who helped make that part of the river inhabitable for the Corps as well as all the development that continues through today. ECC members did eventually get to visit the White House in 1999 as invited by then President Clinton and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt.

Naming buildings and places after people is not new, of course. Place names can be purchased via sponsorship, or as an acknowledgment of philanthropy. We honor people foundational to institutions, or people who are widely admired. Sometimes it's a combination of reasons.

Diamond Teague and Monique Johnson were both foundational to advancing the mission of the ECC, but they also did so in this exact place within the District of Columbia, in service to the people — and flora & fauna— of the District of Columbia. These commemorations are multi-faceted; 1) to remember Diamond and Monique as people, 2) honor their contributions to the organization, and 3) through those contributions, honor their service to the community at large.

Over the past years, the Corps has lost many participants to violence. For anyone enjoying a walk on the rehabilitated riverfront or enjoyed looking over blue heron, turtles, and ducks on the river after a baseball game, much is owed to these teens, young adults, and their educators at ECC. The built and natural environments should not be separated from the human experiences of people who live amongst them. Being able to enjoy the river is important, but so is mitigating the violence that has interrupted so many lives in the city.

Hopefully people encountering Diamond Teague Park and Monique Johnson River Center take a moment to reflect on these commemorations, who the people behind the namesakes were, and how they helped make DC a better place.

Questions I still have:

What do you think about a public nature park as a form of commemoration? What about naming a building after someone?

How do we best honor work that is often unseen like cleaning parts of a creek many will never encounter or improving animal habitats deep into a forest?

How do we reconcile our want to honor the work of people like Diamond and Monique in such a public way only, but only after their deaths?

In what ways can we ensure the next generation are able to access and remain engaged in these types of commemorations?

Learn more:

Read more about the Earth Conservation Corps.
See videos from the dedication of Diamond Teague Park.
ECC Monique Johnson River Center.
2007 interview with a founder of the DC ECC.
2017 write up of the ECC.
Endangered Species, a 2004 documentary on early years of the ECC and the lives of its corps members. Moving, raw, and essential viewing for recent DC history.

Shoreline of Diamond Teague Park on the Anacostia River. The baseball stadium is not far away.

Walkway down to floating pier next to the park.

Riverwalk boardwalk leading up to the park.

If you appreciate these examinations of commemoration across the DC memorial landscape, please consider supporting my work on Patreon. There we continue to look at the history, present, and future of commemoration in DC.

Walking over a rain garden in Alethia Tanner Park.

Alethia Tanner Park is one of the two newer parks in the NoMa (North of Massachusetts Avenue) neighborhood. I actually consider this park to be in the adjacent Eckington neighborhood, not NoMa. However, this is all within the boundaries of the official NoMa Business Improvement District, so it makes sense. But I digress. Residents of NoMa selected Tanner as the namesake for the park from among several candidates, with Tanner garnering over 60% of votes.

Just a few acres in size, the park is a solid one. Among the amenities thoughtfully arranged in such a small are area: a wide grassy expanse with partial tree cover, an informal pavilion with rigging for events, small picnic table section, enclosed playground area for families, separate dog park and relief area (fenced!), and bike parking with a bike maintenance tower. All this, plus the park accessible directly from the Metropolitan Branch Trail, a pedestrian and bike path running alongside the rails in Northeast DC. I highly recommend a visit!

Back to Alethia Tanner, though. Who was she? Let’s take a look.

Alethia Browning Tanner

Alethia Browning Tanner was born as an enslaved person on the Pratt plantation in Prince George's County, Maryland. Alethia and her sister were allowed a plot of land to grow vegetables for their families. In addition, Rachel Pratt also allowed the sisters to sell those vegetables on the streets of Alexandria City and Washington in the District of Columbia. The Pratt name may be familiar. Thomas Pratt, the son of Rachel Pratt, went on to become the 27th Governor of Maryland.

Alethia sold vegetables at the well known market just north of the White House in Presidents Park (now known as Lafayette Park). It is possible --and probable-- she met Thomas Jefferson there as he was known to frequent the vegetable markets there along with other prominent early Washingtonians. There are also White House records suggesting she worked for Thomas Jefferson in some capacity, likely doing various housework tasks.

Document for medical services for workers in Thomas Jefferson’s White House, including “Lethe,” likely Alethia Tanner. Via White House Historical Society. — Invoice for medical services provided to workers in Thomas Jefferson’s White House, including an entry for “Lethe,” likely Alethia Tanner. (*White House Historical Association*)

Tanner saved enough to purchase her own freedom in 1810. The total amount, thought to have been paid in installments, was $1,400. In 1810, $1,400 was a significant amount; about the equivalent of three years' earnings for an average skilled tradesperson. Self-emancipation was not an option for all enslaved peoples, but both Alethia and her sister Sophia were able to accomplish this, almost entirely though selling vegetables at the market. Alethia Tanner moved to DC and became one of a significant and growing number of free Black people in the District. In 1800 there were 793 free Black people living in DC. By 1810, there were 2,549, and by 1860, 11,131 free Black people lived in DC, more than the number of enslaved peoples.

Starting at about 15 years after securing her own manumission, Alethia Tanner worked to purchase the freedom of more than 20 of her relatives and neighbors; mostly the family of her older sister Laurana including Laurana herself, her children, and her grandchildren. All in all, Tanner would have paid the Pratt family well over $5,000. All of this was done with proceeds from her own vegetable market business. Even after her family and friends were emancipated, Tanner continued to provide services. For example, she paid monthly to keep her nephews enrolled in a newly formed DC school for Black children. One of those nephews, John Cook, became shoemaker's apprentice for the express purpose of repaying Alethia for his emancipation and schooling. An older and more experienced John returned years later to run the school for Black children he earlier attended.

Alethia Tanner also lived near the White House, near what is now the corner of 14th and H Streets NW, not far from where her market was located. She was very much involved in the burgeoning Black culture among free and enslaved peoples in DC and was well known in the community. As one of the founders of what is now known as Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church (M Street NW), she left a lasting mark on Black DC culture from religion to education.

She ran the market through the early 1850s and remained active in DC until her death in 1864, outliving a number of her own relatives from younger generations. Much of what we know about her life came from an official 1870 Congressional Report to the House of Representatives from Henry Barnard, the commissioner of education in Washington, DC. Barnard recounted her philanthropic and organizing efforts to further education for Black children in DC throughout her life and wanted it to be put on record.

Alethia Tanner Park is located at 227 Harry Thomas Way NE, near the corner of Harry Thomas Way and Q Street. It can also be accessed by foot or bike via the Metropolitan Branch Trail, just north of the Florida Ave entrances.

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