Dee Dwyer / DCist/WAMU
The Go-Go Museum and Café has been a long time coming. Anti-violence activist Ronald Moten, who’s behind the forthcoming museum in Anacostia, has spoken publicly about his idea for a place that would celebrate the history and culture of go-go music for at least five years. But ask him about it directly, and Moten will say that the work to create this museum began decades ago.
“None of this stuff just happened,” Moten tells DCist/WAMU. “This was a vision and a fight with others to make it happen.”
Moten is referring to the legal battles between go-go supporters and lawmakers in the 1990s and 2000s, when the D.C. Council issued liquor board violations, passed curfew laws, and escalated law enforcement around go-go venues. Moten says he and other advocates have spent countless hours protesting, organizing concerts, and drumming up public support for the preservation of go-go music and culture.
Their fight seems to have paid off: In 2020, the D.C. Council recognized go-go as the official music of the District. And this month, four years after a complicated land dispute over Moten’s building on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, he finally broke ground on the Go-Go Museum, with Mayor Muriel Bowser, a number of D.C. councilmembers, and even filmmaker Spike Lee by his side.
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