Black River Road Initiative

“Black River Road” is an initiative created by Dr. Adrienne Pine as part of the Fall 2018 offering of “The Craft of Anthropology,” the core graduate course offered by the Department of Anthropology at American University. These budding anthropologists of the 2018 cohort have conducted extensive fieldwork, collectively including hundreds of hours of oral histories, participant observation, archival research, museum visits, program coordination and more across  Washington D.C. and Western Montgomery County, Maryland, in order to confront the erasure of local black communities and highlight the many they continue to (re)claim their space. 

Explore River Road

Learn more about the Tobytown, Scotland, and Bethesda communities with this interactive tool.

Timeline

Our historical timeline highlights critical moments in River Road history.

Resources

Collection of newspaper articles, books, and archival data used in the project.