Reginald Booker (1941-2015) was a fighter, not to say firebrand, for social justice in DC. Among his many victories, along with Sammie Abbot, Simon Cain, Marion Barry, and (Washington Sculptors Group's own) Thomas Rooney and his wife Angela, was stopping in its tracks a 1960's, heavily-promoted plan to carve up the District of Columbia into a sort of pizza pie of freeways.
From the age of nine, Reginald with his family had lived at 360 N Street SW. Urban renewal in Southwest (which ultimately forced the removal of 20,000 DC residents, most of them Black) forced the Bookers to move when Reginald was a young teenager. The photo, above-right (photographer unkown), shows a view of the main shopping street, Fourth SW, of the Booker's old neighborhood the year before they moved in.
In "Missing Southwest" I imagine Reginald and his neighbors missing their old neighborhood. The geometry is of course only symbolic: DC was no longer a full diamond, and the city's quadrants are not based on the diamond's center (hence it's actually more geographically-correct if viewed before you enter the Martin Luther King Library.)
"Looking Back – Look Forward: Sources of Artistic Inspiration," presented by the Washington Sculptors Group and the DC Public Library, June 12 - September 1, 2025.
