As Development Revs Up in Southeast, One Anacostia Native Is Protecting Her Family’s Land and the Trees That Make It Home

This story was supported with funds from SpotlightDC with reporting by participants in Hola Cultura’s Storytelling Program for Experiential Learning. The story was edited by Christine MacDonald, Hola Cultura’s executive director and editor, and copy edited by SPEL Fellow Kami Waller.

Growing up in Anacostia, Rebecca Renard-Wilson used to love driving the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. As Ward 8’s lush tree canopy came into view through the windshield, she knew she was close to home.

“There’s a point where the parkway is a little higher than the land ahead of it,” she says. “I knew I was home because I saw the trees.”

Now, the house on a quarter-acre wooded lot that Renard-Wilson’s parents bought in 1980 faces intense pressure from developers. “They want to develop every inch,” she says.