Jubilee: MLK, Obama and Overcoming at the Anacostia Community Museum

IT'S ONE OF the most universal songs in the American songbook; a song more than 150 years old; a song that's world renowned. For Pete Seeger, it was an early anthem to the protest song movement. For Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, it found a fitting purpose.

Dating back to slavery and black churches, "We Shall Overcome" has become "sort of a national anthem — a song that aligns with civil rights," said Robert Hall, associate director of education at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum. The museum will screen an hour-long film, "We Shall Overcome: The Song That Moved a Nation," which discusses the song's origin and significance, as part of the Smithsonian's annual King observances. The screening (Jan. 14, 10:30 a.m.) also ties to the museums' main exhibit, the nine-month-long "Jubilee: African-American Celebration," which began in December.

The song would also find a place in the final speech King gave before his assassination in 1968, and on Jan. 15 the Anacostia will present its 24th annual King-inspired lecture. Baldemar Velasquez, founder and president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, will discuss how Latinos are changing the face of modern civil rights at 7 p.m. "We generally are looking for connections of Dr. King's legacy and his life to African-American history," Hall said, "and ... Latinos [have] been involved in a variety of ways, not only in the struggle of African-Americans, but in their own civil rights."

The museum will celebrate President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration with a reading and signing of Deborah Willis and Kevin Merida's new book, "Obama: The Historic Campaign in Pictures" (Jan. 17, 11 a.m.). Willis, a former Anacostia Museum employee, and Merida document the behind-the-scenes action of Obama's campaign.

At the core of all these events, however, is the museum's long-running exhibition, "Jubilee," a hands-on look at African-American holidays and celebrations. "What is happening is 'Jubilee' talks about what happens within African-American communities — and that's part of our mission — so, it's sort of a broad sweeping treatment, if you will, on different celebrations and observances; some that are historic, some that are specifically African-American, but some that are general holidays and observances that African-Americans have special takes on," Hall said. "Things that affect us as individuals, but also as groups."

» Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Place SE; Jan. 14-17 for MLK events, through Sept. 20 for "Jubilee," various times, free; 202-633-4844. (Anacostia)

Written by Express contributor Rudi Greenberg
Photo courtesy Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum