Anchor: [After a story about breeding animals at the National Zoo's vast Front Royal Virginia property] we go back to the part of the Zoo we are all more familiar with, the 160 acres off Connecticut Avenue, for a story of a thoroughly different kind. 

 Old maps show the area at the South end of the Zoo that borders Walter Pierce Park once contained the Adams Mill, named for one time owner John Quincy Adams, a Quaker burial ground, and an African American Freedman's cemetery. Little of that history is now evident. There's a plaque where the mill once stood. The cemetery was relocated back in 1940. All that still stands in that area is the Zoo's Holt House, a decaying structure that is the topic of some debate since it's history is a bit of a mystery. Charles Maynes reports. 

(There is no evidence that the African American Cemetery on the Zoo portion of the cemetery was relocated. In fact the Smithsonian and Zoo documents, from the 1960's, indicate that it is likely the bodies are still buried there. . . Eddie) 

 Maynes: On the far side of the Zoo and bordering Walter Pierce Park Adams Moorage community activist Eddie Becker unfolds a map. . . 

Eddie Becker: This is where we are, where it says cemetery, and this is the Holt House and this is the original Adams Mill which was originally called the Columbian Mill. 

 Maynes: The tour is not exactly packed, there are only four of us but with small groups like this, Becker hopes to promote local interest in land whose history he claims has links to Washington's overlooked slave past. 

 Becker: What they don't tell you here is that it took allot of slaves to run a mill. Because you had heavy bags of grain to lift and move and bag and un-bag. Even to make bags. There was a whole slave manufacturing process that was supported... 

 Maynes: Becker wants this history recognized, what he found remains contested. Becker argues the area, at one time home to both Quaker and African American Freedmen Cemeteries, possibly still contain bodies. In addition he argues that the Zoo's old administrative headquarters, the Holt House, a structure listed on the National Register (of Historic Places), contained and possibly still contains slave quarters, an all but forgotten footnote to the building's history. 

 Becker: The (Smithsonian) never really studied it. It was never a part of the official studies of this house and there have been some over the years. It was always something of an anecdote - oh by the way. But we now take this very seriously. 

 Maynes: While Becker himself has not seen the inside of the house, former Zoo curator, Gerund Horsley, a long time employee of the Zoo has. 

Horsley: There was a door right next to the entranceway where you could look down the steps into a dark room - into what looked like benches or shelves, chained to the walls where they would flip up on the wall and people could sleep on them - much as you would see in an old ship. 

 Maynes: The problem is the site has never been evaluated for its slave past. Never the less Becker, the activist, is pressing Zoo officials to define what responsibilities the Zoo, which is owned by the Smithsonian Institution, has towards the historic preservation, and recognition of the Holt House and the cemeteries. Becker is troubled that the Zoo had been using the cemeteries as a dumpster site, and by anyone's standards, the Holt House is in extreme disrepair. The mortar is cracked and crumbling, the roof patchy. While records indicate the structure was dilapidated when first bought by the Zoo in 1890, Becker sees it's condition as a sign of the Zoo's (and Smithsonian's) unwillingness to protect an area it sees of marginal historic value. 

 Becker: How much importance is it to them that there were slaves that worked that area and how serious did they take the slave quarters, and how serious will they take it? 

 Maynes: Very serious according to the Zoo's Chief of Public Affairs, Dr. Bob Hoage. While history was previously not foremost on Zoo officials minds says Hoage, the Zoo has now taken corrective measures. Grounds crew members have moved the dumbsters away from the reported grave site and planted seed to return the buffer area to its natural state. In addition they had taken steps to prevent the further erosion of the Holt House and asked the Smithsonian researchers to conduct an exhaustive evaluation of the properties history. 

(At the time of the broadcast, the Holt House was in worse shape then ever, cut vines were left to rot in the gutters, drains remained clogged and the roof leaked. Eddie) 

Maynes: However, Hoage, who has not formally heard stories of the properties slave connections, says there have long been missperceptions about the history and cautions against jumping to conclusions. Good history - good science is based on facts, and taking all the facts from all possible sources, including oral traditions. But at some point an oral tradition has to rise or fall on what documentation exists for it, you just can't take a vote and a number - say yes it's true and therefor it is. There has to be something that underlies it. Hoage adds that he was in the Holt House within the last month specifically looking for evidence of the slave quarters and found none. 

 Hoage: "The walls have changed, the configuration of the basement, THERE IS NEW BRICK, all kinds of things. But there is absolutely nothing that we can see that is indicative of slave quarters or chains - THERE IS JUST NOTHING THERE. 

(Within a week of this broadcast, a secure cover was placed over a deep window well going down to the basement room where the slave quarters had been identified to be. Hoage's knowledge about "new brick" in the basement and his certainty that "there is just nothing there" does not forebode well  -   especially after Zoo staff eyewitness reports, some witnessed within the last two years, describing slave quarters and chains. Taken together with the Zoo's refusal to obey the Historic Preservation Act, it's refusal to consult with historic preservation organizations, as proscribed by law and a deliberate policy to exclude public participation as provided for in Section 106 and 110 of the Act, reinforce the perceptions that the Zoo, with a nod from the Smithsonian, may well have used their last clean up to "cleaned out." Eddie) 

 Maynes: The Smithsonian Study and an historic structures report requested for fiscal year 1999, will put the Zoo in a better position to consider it's options. Even then said Hoage, the Zoo with its limited budget will face difficult decisions ones that have surrounded policies towards the Holt house since it was purchased over 100 years ago. 

Hoage: There has always been a conflict over priories, even then over how much money should be devoted to keeping this building in shape versus the needs and objectives of the rest of the Zoo - TO BUILD BUILDINGS - to build exhibits - to bring animals into the zoo, and surely the animals and their care got preference. 

Maynes: For Becker the local activists the preference that counts extends beyond what the Zoo should document and preserve to the issue in preference in DC history overall. 

 Becker: I think it's about big building and big people and not about small prison like cells and the people who did all the work. 

 Maynes: One person who's written on this idea of preferential history is Dr. Michael Blakey, Professor of Anthropology at Howard University and Director of the New York African American burial ground project. Blakey sees the omission of the African American past as part of what he calls a culture of denial. 

Blakey: If the parents don't share that information and you don't get it in elementary school, you don't see it in the monuments around you. You don't see it in the museum exhibits. Then I think that the system of denial works very well. Slavery was not all that important. African Americans were not all that present, and they did not function like real people in the history of the country. 

 Audio: Voices of Children chanting to the beat of a jump rope while playing Double Dutch. 

Maynes: Back at Walter Pierce Park Becker stops to talk with local teenagers, some have heard about the grave yard. Most know little about the Holt House. 

 Becker: Slavery existed here and along Rock Creek, but the question is. - what were you taught about slavery in school and in DC? 

 Teenager: I know allot about it in the Anacostia area. 

 Maynes: James Coles a senior at Cardoza High School explains that he wants to know more about a possible slave presence in the area. 

 Cole: I would like to know what my ancestors went though. I mean I heard of what they had to go though and I've seen pictures and stuff and it is not a pretty site. But I would like to know first hand what took place - what happened. I would be interested in knowing that. 

 Maynes: What happened is exactly what remains to be determined. With the Smithsonian report due sometime before Christmas, and Eddie Becker continuing his own research, both zoo officials and community leaders await more answers. For Metro Connection, I'm Charles Maynes.