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Today is April 28th, we're at Paul Robeson Park in Petworth in Washington, D.C., 2023. Could you tell us your name? My name is Charles Walker. And could you tell us about your connection to the neighborhood? I grew up in somewhat the Petworth area, Petworth has changed, it used to be started somewhere right at Upsure Street and went up and now you can see where it kind of goes all the way back down towards Sherman Avenue and a little pass. I grew up on Georgia Avenue and Morton Street and Petworth has always been a part of my life, either attending Roosevelt football and basketball games or having friends who went to McFarland. So, I've always felt myself grounded in this community.

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Okay and how-how-you've been here a long time, for your whole life, more or less. Yeah, pretty much my whole life. Of course, once you get to our adult age and jobs and moving around, we moved to the suburbs, it was cheaper but then also less of-of noise. Sometimes you want a little quiet. I realized in my heart, I grew up around the sounds of the city and then always aspired to get back to it. That's great. And so, how-how do you feel-how has the neighborhood changed over the course of-over your life? Well, you know, the interesting part is, everyone will have a different take on this. I believe that the neighborhood has changed a lot for the better. I mean, evolution happens regardless. And so whether you speak on the clean up the streets, or the noise, whether it's high or low, however you decide to do it. More housing comes in, better opportunities come in. Some people get displaced, but then there are parts where all of us who do have opportunity to come back, we try to bring a much-much of the original flavor back with us, so I-I-I've enjoyed watching how the city has changed.

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Could you tell me a little bit about how some of the ways are that you've-you've tried to bring that original flavor back at? Well we have a business. Entitlement Lounge Restaurant, 829 Upsure Street, and one of the things we do is bring somewhat of an African American culture but to a diverse group of people who've moved in this neighborhood. So our menu is somewhat seafood base but then we have other dishes like lamb and your different things that we do. Our chef is from the-from Sierra Leone. So he does a different flavor with our menu, different type of spice, so that's a part of it. We culturally do different types of music. We have sometimes loud music with jazz so we kind of switched it up, some nights we do R&B flavor. So we have an opportunity to kind of pass it around. That's terrific. And so today, we're here celebrating really Paul Robeson's birthday and the work of Uzieke Nelson and we see his statue right in the background here. I guess I want to ask you a few questions about the importance of that kind of culture and arts to community building. How do you see that-that plane? As someone who grew up always in all of the arts, when I was younger I went to Shaw Junior High, and I played the trumpet in the band and it was a life-changing experience for me because the band director at the time was a very influential member of our community. And he was someone who really invested his time and interest in that music form. And I remember the first time I went to learn to play the trumpet and he used to have the horns in one section and we would practice and it sounded awful, right? It was like, this is like, in my mind, I'm thinking, we have to play this in front of someone and then eventually after we practice and practice and practice, it sounded a little better. And then when he finally brought the whole band into one room and then the sound, it hit me so hard, that I stopped playing. Luckily everybody else still was, but then I felt it. And I'm like this is how important the arts become to a community then you take someone like Paul Robeson, those of us who knew his story, what he went through at that time to be-to learn all the crafts-to be that influential in that time, just made it-makes it even more important to honor him, to have, even if it's a small piece of work that stands out that some of us who know the story, those of us who don't can go read about him, makes it way more important and I think that helps strengthen the community regardless where the person comes from. you learn his story, you stand in awe of who he was, and it makes it better.

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That's terrific. Could you tell us a little bit about the sculpture too and how maybe how you've encountered it or? So, interesting enough, things change all the time, I said, evolution happens. I have, before opening the business up here, I'm not here all the time I'm not in this area a lot. So one day I was driving up Georgia Avenue on my way to Silver Spring and I saw the sculpture and I'm like wow at some point I'm either going to go on my phone and Google and see what it is or stop and take a look at it. And I Googled, because I didn't have time to stop, and it said it was a statue dedicated to Paul Robeson, which then made me say the next time I'm in the area, I want to, you know, stop by take a look at it and then I came, looked, felt that the artist did a phenomenal job capturing a little bit of who he was and then it made me really take a step back because it's on a small corner right here and on you know, off of Georgia Avenue and if you don't really look, you'll miss it. But they did such a wonderful job with the landscaping of it, that it really makes for a peaceful place. You see people out here eating and kind of taking it easy and it lets, you know, amongst all this noise, there's a tranquil place, you can kind of sit and enjoy. That's great, that's terrific. And could you tell us a little bit about where you'd like to see, you know you built your business here, where you'd like to see the neighborhood and the arts in the neighborhood be in the next 5-10 years? Well, I-my hope is that we can have other spaces that sculptures can go up. Even if it's on a short-term basis, maybe rotate them, to celebrate great people period. It could be African-American artist, it could be artists of European descent, whatever, Asian artist, but it makes for better play because it's educational. It's such an educational piece that comes out. Most people, when you're around, the first thing it makes you do, if you've never heard of Paul Robeson, you say who he is, and now with these devices within five minutes, you know a part of a person's life story and what makes that piece so important.

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Anything else you'd like to share with us? Well, I thank you guys from the humanities for coming up, in documenting all this, because we understand that history is made every day, and without the documentation of it, nobody would ever really know. So this stands as a testament to your group and who you guys are to the Paul Johnson and who his group, how they come to the community stage, stand firm in here, trying to present this to us. People may walk by every day and never even pay attention. We're watching people look at us say, what's going on over here? It makes them inquisitive. Then they ask questions, through questions comes knowledge. Thank you. Thank you.