Charlene Drew Jarvis, a nearby resident of North Portal Estates, conducted research at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) during the 1960s, before moving on to NIH and launching her career as a scientist. “And then feeling very strongly that it was necessary to be concerned about the city after Martin Luther King’s death, and that there was no rebuilding going on during that time, I made a decision to leave science and to go into public office,” she said. She was a Ward 4 Councilmember from 1979 to 2000.
“Walter Reed was certainly a very important part of this community. I was elected from the Ward 4 community, so Walter Reed was a part of my constituency…One of the things that I did when I was on the Council was to try to create more business opportunity along the Georgia Avenue corridor to bring people and money and lights and activity on the Avenue. However, we were at a time when people were leaving Washington and businesses were leaving Washington and we were losing population and we were facing vacancies in housing.”
History Project, Dr. Jarvis & Dr. Moses: Full-Length Interview