A familiar rhythm filled the space as people gathered—taking their seats, greeting one another, settling into the room like breath finding its pace.
An Evening of Health and Care took place at the DC History Center—where community stories are preserved. Here, DC Voices of Care—an oral history project documenting and sharing the voices of leaders shaping systems of care and justice in Washington, D.C.—was offered in reflection and presence. The evening brought community leaders, partners, and residents together in a return—to voices, to memory, and to the ongoing work of care across the city.
Here, care has never been abstract. It lives in people, in practice, and in the everyday work of showing up for one another—not just the systems people move through, but the people who move through them—who shape them, and speak from within them.
When this work began, grounded in listening and documentation, it was guided by a simple ask: to be shown—not just the systems, but the people. Not just what is built, but what is lived, carried, and remembered.
And then it gathered—into a room held by recognition and reflection, where work often unseen was now being spoken aloud.
This was an evening of celebration, honoring community leaders by making their work visible through voice, story, and reflection—bringing forward the voices of Rahsaan Bernard, Scott Kratz, Aza Nedhari, Carlos Plazas, Maria Gomez, George Jones, Tiffany Williams, Lamont Mitchell, Brenda Richardson, Tracy Goodman, Judith Sandalow, Gerren Price, and Karen Dale.
These leaders, working across community health centers, legal services, civic associations, and community-based organizations throughout the city, contributed to the oral histories at the heart of this work—a living archival record of care across the city. Throughout the evening, clips from these histories opened windows into the leaders’ experiences and the systems they navigate every day.
Guiding the work was a question: how community leaders in our city describe their work and motivations in advancing health equity—and what their stories reveal about the structures, systems, and relationships that shape community life.
In that space, voices surfaced—not as a presentation, but as lived experience shared in reflection and truth, moving through the room like something long carried, finally being heard.
Across those stories, clear truths emerged.
Health is shaped long before clinical care—by housing, employment, education, and the policies that structure access and opportunity.
Care is built over time, through trust, consistency, and relationships that extend beyond any single system or service.
And lived experience is not separate from expertise—it is the foundation of it. It shapes how care is understood, delivered, and sustained.
What also surfaced was a shift: away from models that respond only to immediate need, and toward approaches that ask deeper questions about structure, access, and justice. Not just how care is given, but how systems can be reshaped to make care more possible, more equitable, and more human.
What becomes clear is this: leadership in care is rooted in community life—sustained through relationship, consistency, and the ongoing decision to remain present in work that is often complex and unseen.
And if you were in the room from beginning to end, what unfolded was never a presentation, but recognition itself—not something separate from life in this city, but something already embedded in it.
What began as a call to be shown became something quieter than explanation.
A way of listening more closely to what has always been here:
In the work.
In the neighborhoods.
In the daily labor of care that rarely announces itself but is always happening—carried forward, quietly, from hand to hand and voice to voice.
About the Authors
Brian Floyd, is an Assistant Dean in the School of Health and a faculty member at the Capital Applied Learning Lab at Georgetown University. Roberto Terrell Jr., is a research assistant and psychology and economics major in the College of Arts and Sciences at Georgetown University.
Together, they form Rhythms, Verses & Reflections, an intergenerational collaboration using verse, narrative, and memory to illuminate life, culture, and community care. Their work centers storytelling as a bridge across generations, preserving and amplifying voices often left unheard.
