Who We Are

PROLOGUE DC IS A WOMAN-OWNED COMPANY based in Washington, DC. We are experienced historians, researchers, writers, speakers, and exhibit planners.

We are registered as a Certified Business Enterprise with the District of Columbia Department of Small and Local Development. We are also registered with the federal System for Award Management.

Understanding our city’s past helps us appreciate its unique 21st century culture. Enslaved and free African Americans, immigrants, wealthy landholders, prominent politicians, and many others—all of them built Washington. By helping to tell their stories, we present history that is relevant, accessible, and educational.

We feel fortunate to call the District of Columbia home. The city’s stories are our stories, too. Prologue DC’s principal is Mara Cherkasky, whose CV can be found here. In brief:

Girl Scouts tend a garden at 1st & T streets NE in the 1920s. (Library of Congress)

MARA CHERKASKY is a historian, researcher, and writer focusing on DC, especially the city’s racial history. A former journalist, she has collaborated on more than a dozen Neighborhood Heritage Trails as well as the DC 20th Century African American Civil Rights Tour and the Downtown DC Women in History Tour. She has authored books and articles, contributed research to exhibitions and documentary films, and developed historic-site signage. Mara speaks frequently on systemic racism to civic and business organizations, as well as to classrooms from elementary school level up. She is affiliated with the George Washington University as a Non-Resident Scholar. On the side she heads up the archives team at the 200-year-old All Souls Church, Unitarian. Contact her at mara@prologuedc.com.

Prologue DC works with other DC-based experts to find and tell the most comprehensive histories possible.

Photos in top banner, left to right: Center Market (Library of Congress); Bland’s Court, 1937 (Alley Dwelling Authority, Library of Congress); Inauguration of President Theodore Roosevelt, 1905 (Library of Congress); Doorway Sculpture at Library of Congress (photo by Mary Belcher)