Welcome everybody to the uh DC Council chamber.

Welcome to the thousands of people who are out at home watching on TV and the many, many people who are here in the chamber.

Um, in keeping with the tradition of Chairman Mendelson and the D.C.

Council, we are starting late tonight, and so we appreciate your patience in waiting for us.

Uh I am Mark Seagraves from NBC Washington News.

It's an honor for me to be here moderating this panel with my good friend uh from WAME Radio, ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Kojo Nambi.

Thank you very much, sir.

Uh we are here.

I I want to note before did he leave?

So I just want to say while he is standing in the room.

We are here because of one person who is an unsung hero of history in Washington, D.C.

and here in the John A.

Wilson building, and he has done so.

I don't know what his job is or what he actually gets paid to do, but I do know that this guy is a beast when it comes to preserving, curating, and exploring and sharing most importantly, the history of Washington, D.C.

and the D.C.

Council, and he is the brains and the wit behind the Twitter uh uh account for the D.C.

Council, and he is Josh Gibson right over there.

Josh, you should walk over here so they can see you at home so everybody knows what you need to do.

He's the only person who can get Seagraves and me to work for free.

That's the only reason we're here, right?

He's uh solid for Josh Gibson, but we really do appreciate all he does.

Seriously, this is the water we're getting, is a little Dixie cup.

Yes.

Budget is tough.

I saw the CFO's letter today on the budget, and clearly times are tough.

Can we get started?

Introduce our panelists.

I'd like to introduce the entire discussion first.

There you go.

Because that's what Josh told me to do.

We are currently living through a time when the district's home rule form of government has never been more essential or more threatened.

As a way of examining this critical phase that our government is living through, at today's event, we will discuss the seven years of district history when the district's form of government itself completely transformed twice, and the district experienced three very different government structures.

All this in the seven years and two months between November 3rd, 1967 and January 2nd, 1975.

Mark Seagraves will pick it up.

If I had shown up for rehearsal, I would know what I was going to do.

Second paragraph.

The second paragraph.

Well, at the beginning, and I'm certain Josh Gibson wrote this for us.

Uh at the beginning of this stretch of time, the district saw the final days of the form of government it had known for roughly a century.

Rule by three, presidentially appointed and senate-confirmed commissioners.

During this phase, district residents had literally no vote in any aspect of their local or federal government.

When this phase came to an end, a transitional phase that is rarely examined in detail and forgotten by many residents began.

During this phase, the district was run by a presidentially appointed and senate-confirmed mayor commissioner and a seven-member D.C.

Council, also chosen by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

Finally, at the end of this phase, we began the current phase of district government with an elected mayor and thirteen elected council members.

This brief stretch of time, which saw two shifts between three very different forms of government, has a parallel in the forms of government the American system saw during its earliest days.

In just thirteen years, American government shifted from British rule to the Continental Congress to the Articles of Confederation to our present form of constitutional government.

In both the district and national examples, the middle phase is often forgotten, rarely studied, and poorly understood.

Here in the district, we are fortunate to have still living among us individuals who served in these early critical days of local transformation.

Let's meet them.

All right.

So uh with that, uh we are going to I'll let Kojo introduce our three.

And in keeping with the tradition of the chairman, uh Mendelson, the former chair is arriving late as well, so we appreciate the uh everybody abiding by this.

Uh Kojo, do you want to introduce our three panelists?

That's what they do.

First, meet Antoinette Ford.

She's known as Tony Ford, is a Philadelphia native who relocated to the district, then served as a White House fellow in 1971.

She was appointed by President Dixon and confirmed by the U.S.

Senate to serve as an appointed member of the D.C.

Council from 1973 to 1975.

In addition to her numerous professional accomplishments outside of D.C.

government, she also served as a member of the D.C.

Commission on the Arts and Humanities and is passionate about the power of theater.

Tony Ford.

Reverend James Coates is a native Washingtonian, graduated at the top of his class from the Howard University School of Divinity and has served as senior pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Anacostia for over 50 years.

He was elected to represent Ward 8 on the D.C.

Board of Education in 1968 and was elected to the board president.

He was elected board president by his peers.

In 1974, he was elected to represent Ward 8 on the very first Home Rule D.C.

Council.

He only served a two-year term as half of the first class of council members did after drawing straws to see who got a two versus a four-year term.

Reverend James Coates.

And last to arrive, last to be introduced.

Harrington Dixon is also a native Washingtonian.

In 1974, he was elected to represent Ward 4 on the very first Home Rule D.C.

Council.

He also drew one of those short straws and served a two-year term prime to be re being re-elected to a full four-year term in 1976.

He ran successfully for D.C.

Council chair in 1978 and served through 1983.

In 1997, he was appointed as an at-large council member member and served in that role for the final months of that year.

Chairman Dixon, thank you for joining us.

All right.

They have coach and I seated in these chairs down here.

So we'll see you later.

We're going to be down here.

If you need something, just I'm going to turn on your microphones for each of you.

Hopefully the panelists can see us when we're asking questions.

As for the audience here in the room, we pass out these yellow cards.

If you guys have a question, feel free to write it down on the card and hand it to Josh, he'll get it to us.

If it's uh pertinent to the conversation, if if it's in a big enough font that I can read it without my glasses, uh then we will uh ask the questions as we get toward uh the end of our discussion here today.

But thank you all really for taking part in this, the audience.

I really it means a lot to have people who are this interested in something like this to come out and uh take time out of a beautiful evening to sit in this incredibly hot room where we can't afford bottled water or air conditioning.

But enough of my commentary.

Uh Kojo, do you want to kick it off?

Well, I'd like to start with Reverend Coates because I came to Washington in 1969, and by then there was an appointed board in place, so I had no memory of the three member commission that ran the city before that time.

Reverend Coates, do you have a memory of that commission?

And if so, what was that memory like could you repeat the question?

Do you remember the time when Washington was run by a three-member commission appointed by the president?

Yes.

What was life like under that commission?

It uh uh was distant.

Uh we we had no uh direct uh representation and connection with uh who spoke uh our interest uh uh at that level of government uh and uh longed uh you know activities uh to uh develop um representing uh ward uh what became ward uh yes well I know that Arrington Dixon, you were growing up in Washington during that time.

What is your memory of the three-member commission running Washington?

Well, first of all, I have to thank everybody for showing up and uh also pick up, go back a little further because Jim Coates was my parents' minister.

My mom and dad were deacons and deaconess at his church.

And he's still at it.

And that he's still at the church and and and performing on regular basis on Sundays.

So I knew Jim from that as a as a kid, really, even though our ages are not that that great at.

Uh so I knew Jim and uh was pleased to serve with him doing his first time on the council.

And going back to that era, uh I mean I remember uh the I guess the distance that I felt from the local government.

I mean, it really was uh didn't mean much to us, certainly in Anacosti River East, because I'm a representative always of that community if I can be.

Except for when you lived in Ward 4.

That's right.

Well, that's uh that and I represented Ward 8 when I was in Ward 4, but we can speak to that later.

I mean, I introduced the legislation to give felons voting rights, exfelons, and that wasn't necessarily targeted at Ward 4 community people.

It was much more about my experience in my community.

But let me go back to you as you your question about the starting of this this this always.

I knew a lot of the commissioners.

I knew them.

I made a point of being associated with them.

We had uh Stanley Anderson, who was a Ward A guy, and I looked up to him, he was one of the first roving leaders and was a role model for us, younger, younger people there.

And uh I also knew I mean uh Joe Yodell, Joey Odell became almost like a mentor to me in many ways.

I'd go to him and talk first before I ran for office here, and I talked about my my interest in my what I wanted to do.

So that was that was distant from us, but I knew those folks, and I knew that they were looking out for us.

Uh but uh in terms of our impact, I mean, one thing I can reflect on is uh we were I went to Bernie Elementary School, which is now Thurgood Marshall, and then we moved to another building, and my mom uh served uh uh in a on a committee.

My mother who was my father with fourth grade education, and my dad was a sharecropper who came here to make some government jobs, he thought.

But uh we we had a problem with our school.

It was rat-infested, dirty, and really a bad situation.

And the letter was written to Franklin School then.

This is going back to the era when we had the the commissioner form, and now he had our own school board.

I mean, it was we had a separate separate operation, Franklin.

And so a letter was sent to Franklin to say we had a Radifested school that we needed a new building.

We got one.

Bernie Elementary School at Summer Road and MLK is the building that we got a new school.

The person who signed that letter was my mother.

She was the chair of the committee, and she made the letter and submitted it and got it.

I always tell my former Sharon uh Mayor Dixon or Mayor Pratt, however you go at it, uh, that uh it was she and I could sign a letter right now to get a school, and we wouldn't get one.

But my mom got one and we got to school.

So we were interfacing with the government then the best we could.

And we didn't have access to them, but we did find ways to work and do that.

So that's that's how things operated under the commission form of government before Seagraves take up takes over Tony Ford.

You were from Philadelphia.

Yes.

How did you manage to get appointed to the DC council?

Well, listening, first of all, thank you all for being here, and thank you for a number of very special people who I'm working with now.

These two gentlemen preceded me on the council, and it's listening to them gives me nostalgia, nostalgic memories because both of them were born here, and that was one of the first things that we heard when we came from anywhere else.

I'm a native Washington.

You were talking to the right people then.

Everybody I knew.

But in any event, I had never had a black Negro colored, whatever you want to call us, teacher.

And when I graduated from college in June of 1963, at 22 years old, I said, I'm headed for DC where all the black people are.

It was 1962, 63.

So I came here.

When I came here, I was scared to death.

Scared to death because there were so many of them, and they were educated.

We didn't come from educated people.

We didn't, I didn't know there were so many HBCUs.

There were so many things I didn't know that I didn't know that I didn't know when I got here.

Long story made short, don't tell me I can't.

Because the first thing, this 6364 was the um the act where they hired black people.

I went down to the Civil Service Commission because someone told me where it was.

And I was gonna find a job.

That's what I had to do to stay.

I went in there, there were so many of us looking for jobs and filling out papers.

I said, I ain't gonna never get a job if I have to put do all of this.

I looked on the marquee.

The marquee's name said Philip Doherty.

You all may know the name.

I didn't know the name.

I did not lie, but I went up to his office and I said to the woman sitting there, I'm here to see Mr.

Doherty.

Sometimes how you say things is what gets you by.

She said, one moment, please.

I can only imagine she went in there and said, There's some color girl out there that says she's here to see you.

But whatever happened, he said, send her in.

I went in, I said, Mr.

Doherty.

My name is Antoinette Taylor, and I'm from Philadelphia, and I am very, very smart.

And I don't he said, stop.

I'm going to give you a job because one day you're going to give me one.

That's the honest God's story.

He gave me, I have never been less than a GS 7 in the federal government, because he gave me a GS 7 as a um physical science technician, building 74 in the Washington Navy Yard.

I didn't even know how to get to work.

But I found out.

You said this is a long story.

I'm 84 years old.

I was about to say, how did that get you to be appointed to the Council of Washington?

I talked my way, I swear.

Because I I can believe you.

From there, and it's it's all related.

From there, at one point, that was about 64.

I married, I had daughters.

Okay.

Um Walter Washington was the mayor of the appointed mayor, yes.

And they had a company coming into this city that was teaching Vietnam veterans how to be oceanographic technicians.

I didn't tell you the story about how I became an oceanographer, but that was in there too from the physical science technician.

And I said to myself when I heard that over the news or whatever, we didn't have telephones and so you know, cell phones and stuff.

They don't have no women down there that can teach the oceanography.

I can do that.

I was eight months pregnant.

I went down to the ship, and I told the man, Tim Tealey was his name.

I said, You need someone who can teach these young men and they can and it'll cost about such and such, and I gave my salary, which was quite good.

And then I said, and my daughter will be born in April, so I'll work from home and develop everything and then be there in September.

He said yes to everything I asked for.

So much so that when it came time to go down to the ship and work, I said, Tim, thank you so much.

But you gave me everything I asked for.

He said, Do you think I was going to tell him the no to a woman eight months pregnant coming up on this?

But we got to get to the council.

Sometimes your ignorance or just doing what you need to do helps.

I did that.

Of course the program ended.

I needed a job.

There was a young, there was a man who was uh also a very wonderful man.

His name was Charlie Black.

Some of you may have known him.

Much older than I was, but he worked on the ship.

He gave me a brochure.

Now brochure was a White House fellowship.

He said, You should apply for this.

And I said, I'm looking for a job.

He said, if you get this job, you work for the Secretary of the Agency.

What?

So you got a White House fellowship.

You got a White House fellowship.

I got a White House fellowship.

I'm trying to move the conversation along to the council.

Say that again.

So from being a White House fellow, is that how come the president of the United States appointed you to the DC Council?

He appointed me, and I went the Treasury Department.

Um God, you live a long time, you had too many things to tell.

But anyway, yes, he appointed me.

And what he said was this is where you ought to go.

You can't do any harm there.

Laughingly.

That made me a little bit angry, but I you know, like you say, it wasn't much you could do, but you just do your best.

So let me just follow up on that line quickly.

Uh so what did you do?

What did that that that formation of the council then?

How much power and and and and and we know what it's like today.

I think everybody in the room knows how things run or don't run or are supposed to run today, but back then in those early days, how did it actually work and how much actual authority did you all have?

My colleagues may disagree, but I don't think it would.

I think you I think you made it run in the way you want it to run.

And what I mean by that was how can you run anything if you can't manage your budget?

If you can't decide your budget, if you can't do anything without someone else saying, good for you.

So, for example, I didn't do very much.

I was only on the council for about two years.

I was on the last appointed council.

But I did what I wanted to do.

And one of the things, this gives me an opportunity to tell it.

I'm sorry, but September, I was appointed in April of 73.

That summer, I don't remember the dates, but anyway, this there was a summertime.

I went to uh Children's International Summer Villages.

It was a group here in Washington that had this, and you took 11-year-old children, and we went to uh Sweden.

There they had audible relays in their traffic lights.

If you, if the right, if the light was green, the relay went click, click, click, click, click, click, click, and you walked across the street.

God, if I can't see and I can hear, I know it's time to cross the street.

Same way with red.

But it was slow.

I came back to the council, tried to see how to do it.

I didn't it would I tried to see how we could get audible relays.

Somehow or another, it was a it was a retrofit, in other words, it was backwards.

So we didn't get the retro the retrofitted lights, but what we did get were the curves and the um the um sidewalk with the wheelchairs go?

I take credit for that.

There you go.

Well done.

And it was just one of those little things that you don't know how you do it, you just don't know that you can't do it.

Right.

Jeremy Dixon, let me I'm intrigued because this is the first time hearing of this short straw uh uh thing.

And so I'm fascinated by that.

So can you kind of set take us into that room?

So here I get people residents go when they vote for their elected council for the first time, but half of you were gonna serve a four-year term, half of you were gonna serve a two-year term.

Right.

And nobody knew when they went to the polls who was gonna serve which, is that correct?

Right.

And so then the election happens.

Actually, what they were trying to create was staggered services, staggered terms.

So we didn't have to compete.

The council would change staggered terms.

So that's how they accomplished it.

And we did not know.

And so and we got short straws.

Well, where exactly did it?

It was clearly a legitimate operation, so don't worry about that.

But what it did do, it was frankly, those who understand politics, uh, and we had a little feel for that, uh, getting the short straw was a good deal because it gave you a chance to come back right away when people who knew about you were fresh in their minds, and that was about advent it was advantageous, I thought.

So at least that's my view.

That's how it worked.

Was it here in this building?

They did it in the building here.

We did I forgot it maybe in the chambers.

I really don't recall.

All I know is I'm not even sure I showed up for it.

Because I mean, you know, what are you gonna do?

I mean, what is is, right?

So it worked out.

Yeah.

Reverend Coates, can I ask you how important were the clergy during these early days of trying to implement home rule to attain home rule and then implement it?

How influential and important a role did clergy play in that?

I I thought you were directing that question to Ernst.

Well, it's funny that he says that because I had a lot of legislation that the clergy came down pretty hard on, right, Jim?

Like I recognized marriage between two people in the same sex.

Yeah.

That didn't go off too well in 75.

It fell on the voting didn't go off too.

I had a lot of issues I had that I I depended on Jim and some of our religious friends who would look out for me, but yeah, it was complicated.

But I think you played a big role.

There was also there was an I think someone from the clergy on every council that there was.

Well, we had multiple.

We had Jerry Moore.

We had we had uh I think Joe Young, uh Doug Moore was actually uh sort of a clergy, and and of course Jim was real clergy.

Well, you also had uh VC wasn't on our council.

He wasn't on your council, but he was before me, and I replaced him.

Yes, Carlton Lizy, the Reverend Carlton Visi was one of the appointed members of the council that preceded the elected council.

But Reverend Coates, what made you decide to get into politics?

You had a lot of influence, you had a church, you were already influencing policy.

What made you decide to run for politics to prove for office?

I think we need to something that's illustrated by uh Errington and by myself and by some others, and that is by the uh initiative of uh his mother.

Yeah, wow.

Who also ran this ran the daycare center in his church at one point too.

Who was an educator?

Yeah, she was and uh who was uh determined to stimulate and uh uh promote the development of every youth she could uh in the direction that uh resulting in Errington and my brother James and my myself as well.

Uh it is to celebrate the uh contribution of uh non-educator, but a person who had the uh passion uh and uh the determination to uh motivate as many uh persons in the community and scouts and other ways to uh develop.

And uh it certainly manifested uh in Errington, and I claim also in myself and others as well.

I I I said that, but you you asked a question, and I don't know whether I What prompted you to run for office for elected office?

Why did you run for Ward Eight Council member?

Why?

Why?

Well, partly so because of uh persons like uh Sally Dixon who uh worked in the daycare uh at uh Bethlehem, but who uh other lake here promoted her activities and several other activities.

And you felt it was important to represent those people in the council.

Yes.

She was not she was not a politician in the sense that she was promoting the uh election of this person or that person, but uh understood that the changes uh in government provided opportunities for uh persons in that community to uh seize those positions and uh become significant players and and and what those uh educational uh organizations develop uh Errington mentioned uh Bernie uh elementary school, uh later on Savoy uh uh elementary school, uh and there were other uh activities.

So obviously she was an inspiration to you, Arrington Dixon.

What was your inspiration to run for council member in Ward 4 in that 1974 election?

Well, I think I mean Jim hit upon a point.

My mom was a very inspirational.

We lived in a village.

I always say this to you, Kojo.

We Anacosti, Anakosti River East, as I want to call it, uh, is it was a village then, and everybody we really worked together, like my mom and many other people had a spirit of of nurturing our community and our leadership.

And uh I think the uh the outgrowth of that was the recognition that running for public office was a way to get you your hand in the game.

And that's why I ran.

Uh actually I ran for school board in 68.

I ran out of ward five and won the primary election but lost in the runoff, which was good because I ended up going to law school and getting by my first house and my great my first child was born that was Sharon broke water the day of the election.

So that was uh we did up, moved on, and then I ran for council as a result of that.

And the way I ran for council was really kind of interesting, but I want to go, I like to go back a little before that, because that there is a group uh which we started called the referendum committee, and it was symbolic.

I brought some, I brought some props.

It was it was symbolic of the kind of efforts that were taking place in the city to have home rule.

And uh we we we organized bike rides, and and Marion joined me on this ride, by the way, because he saw some energy coming out of me that he wanted to be connected with.

And uh, but we we did all kinds of, but we we we went to in in in apartments in the basement and places to meet people.

Everybody else was meeting down here in the district building, the board of trade and all that lobbying for it.

But in the end, we uh we just we just stayed here and went into the community.

So we started that referendum group, and we got a lot of traction with that.

Uh and I uh was interested in being an organizer.

My brother and I agreed when he was younger that he would be the candidate, and I'd be the organizer, which is what I like to do now.

But I lost him in 624 in the plane crash.

He was an Air Force Navigator.

So I guess I had to pick up another role, and I did and carried on.

But the uh the effort uh for home rule was I think a reaction of a community that wanted to have a voice in its presence and its actions, and we were driven to that.

Uh Julius Hobson was in the state committee, state of the party then, Chair of it, and Julius Hobson said then and said while he was on the council, because he actually became a council member.

This was home fool.

He said it's home fool.

And he was right, because look what's happened to us now, in a way, because we feel we have something that we helps us run the city and manages for our people.

But Congress still has, and the president who's now there is working it to the max to control us.

And so it shows our strength.

So the home fool issue that Julius brought up was very interesting.

But we got it.

But on that council, you had people who were not just well known but notorious in the city for allegedly being rabble rouses.

You had you had Doug Moore coming out of the Black United Front.

You have Marion Barry coming out of Pride Incorporated.

Talk a little bit about what it was like to have people like that.

You had Julius Hobson of the State Earth Party who once threatened to take all the time.

I mean, they were not going to be able to do that.

Talk about what it was like working with.

I mean, I was really uh awed out because I was not, I was a I was an act, I was a systems organizer kind of a guy, you know, computer science and all that kind of stuff.

But and and Marion always said to me, the Ivanhoe would say when meetings were being errands and the stuff you worried about is not gonna get you re-elected.

Because people don't care about that, but it was fundamentally needed.

So the the the uh the council was made up of many activists.

I mean, this place was I mean, it's so different than it is now.

I mean, it was about constituent services, it was about taking care of folks.

Willie Hardy used to keep punch bowls and all kinds of service equipment in their office.

She'd have all kinds of gas all to bring the community down here and get them involved, and they didn't same thing.

And and of course, Julius and and and others were active in their own organizations, but they were real active, it was really exciting, you know, trying new stuff.

My thing was to try to bring systems and structure to the process.

Uh I just left the uh I've been an associate tenure professor at UDC in computer science, and I had military background.

Funny, I wear my hat a lot.

This is my I'm I'm I'm my my representative.

I I have two honorary honorable discharges, one from the Air Force as an airman too, and then as a full colonel retired from the army.

And the the the this symbolic is my is organizational stuff.

I couldn't even wear my, I was I was a National Guard activist and all that, but I couldn't even wear my uniform down into the council.

I never came, never wore my uniform.

I always kind of didn't hide it because Marion and John won't they thought these are the guys that have their foot on the backs when they were down there, you know, in in the South Marshall.

Both Marion and John were veterans of the student nonviolent coordinating committee sniff.

So I wouldn't get many points for that, but in the end I stuck with it for a lot of other reasons, uh, which are important to me even now.

I would like to ask something, Kojo Jess if he would.

The group is not huge, but I'd like can we find out where these people are from?

Is that possible?

Can we do a roll call?

The people who are assembled in today.

Let's try to where they're from and what just are you interested in quadrants, wards?

No, no, I just wonder who you are, who are you?

Who why you came, maybe just who the hell are all you people?

Let's go around from the right.

I can tell you how one person is there over here.

I can tell you in this room, we are joined by one member of the DC council.

Oh, we are a big part of Washington.

And was a part of all this, was a part of Marion's team and all that.

Yes, let's stop.

We know need us.

Let's smart come around, staff.

Who is a tell me something?

Who's next to you, Nita?

Is there anybody who wants to volunteer about the colour?

I think you're all here in anonymity, actually.

Nobody wants to be identified.

I'm from Anacos.

Good.

And he tells fabulous stories.

Is anybody here for Christmas holding?

There's a lady right there.

I'm wondering if anybody's here getting credit for school.

Good for you.

Um go ahead, go Joe.

You want to go give it to her or me?

Hi.

My name is November Coates.

Good.

I am a born and raised here in Washington, D.C., and my grandfather is James Coates.

So I'm here representing Southeast DC.

All right.

I love that gap.

Precious.

Hello, my name is Delisa Eliza.

I am currently an intern for Ward 7, Councilmember Wendell Felder.

I am in my last semester of law school.

I'll be graduating UDC law.

Good in May.

And I'm very happy to be here.

Thank you so much.

Where do you live in Ward 7?

I live in Ward 8.

Oh, I thought seven.

He still hired me on, even though I betrayed him.

But uh originally I'm from Lakeland, Florida.

So I'm a transplant.

Um from Florida.

Uh law school brought me to Washington, D.C.

I wanted to be in the Capitol in the middle of the world, really.

Yeah, this is interesting.

Who's here?

I am Dan Mayer.

I'm a product of the DC public schools.

My parents moved here in the 50s.

Um C5 and C3 at Arena Stage has my father's name on the seat.

And I'm the recipient of the Daniel Mayer resolution of 1996 from the DC Council.

Right.

And I'm in this book, Living as Equals, worth reading.

I got it into the Martin Little Thinking Library and in the Silver Spring Library, just to make sure people didn't change the record.

That's right, good.

There's a lady behind you, Kojo.

Kojo, lady behind you wants to put she's directing me now.

No, I'm just, I think it's good to know who these folks are.

Hey, I'm I'm Susan.

Is that on?

I'm Susan Siler, and um I'm fourth generation DC.

My mom grew up um in Ward 5.

And my dad, Sam Siler, I think he worked with you guys on the um uh city council.

He worked with you um with with um Mayor Washington, yes.

And I think he worked with Tony.

I remember all of these names floating around in my um childhood.

So um, yeah, I'm through and through DC.

Okay.

Sam Siler.

Sam.

Oh, yeah.

Let's get one more in here.

And then real real quick.

I came to DC in 1972 from uh Vietnam.

My first job was here in the district building.

I worked for James Banks, Department of Housing Community Development.

And Reverend Coates I remember when um Annette was first uh on the council.

We were Republicans back in the day when Republicans were you know had some, you know, a little different than they are today.

But I want to say that Reverend Colts was very active in helping the Freddie Douglas Memorial and Historical Association get the land that was they were swindled out of in the mid-50s by a developer who built those apartments.

So I wanted to say that because a lot of history that people don't know about, but that would be good to know.

Thank you very much.

Yes.

Let's just see a quick show of hands.

Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest.

All right, here you go.

And some of you are outnumbered, but that's okay.

Tony Ford talked about this gentleman, so I have to ask him who he is and why he's here.

Hello, everyone.

My name is John Johnson.

I'm an artist, and I'm just trying to figure out how to connect the artist to politics and why not come to the folks who have the longest memory of our political system.

Yes.

Yes.

Do you find the local government to be supportive of the arts?

Sometimes.

There you go.

That's a good idea.

I want you to know.

I want you to know I'm the one that put the legislation in that required, was it 15 or 25 percent of any developer to go into the arts, not just the graphic arts, but into performing arts.

And what happened was people were using their atriums once they built these buildings to have live jazz, live music.

And that and and the artwork that went in that was you know, that's that was not a ward four thing, that was a city thing that I thought was important.

Let me ask you all and uh start with you, Councilmember Ford.

We we heard about these names, these heavy hitters is you know, this energy and meeting and basements and and you know, getting us to where we got home rule.

Yes.

Um, did you know then?

Did you think it was fragile?

Did you think it was forever?

Um did you think we would get to where we are today?

You want me to be really candid?

No, I would like you to just sugarcoat it because we all want to go home happy tonight.

Frankly, I do not believe that I, Tony Ford, was ever a politician in the definition that we say politician.

I was looking for a way to move up, move forward.

I was more interested, much more interested in economic development.

How do you find not only not jobs, just jobs, but how do you find how to create businesses, et cetera?

I was not from this community.

I didn't have a neighborhood.

I didn't have a long history here.

So what I found was it was valuable.

They were doing fantastic work, they were getting the community involved, et cetera.

But my focus was well, once you get them all stirred up, and once you get it all going, what are they going to do if somebody doesn't have some funds to put behind it or they don't put their funds together?

And that's the that's a candid response for me.

It doesn't mean I didn't respect or didn't recognize the value of putting it together, but I wasn't about to do that.

I'm from Philadelphia.

The house I bought over in Ward 7.

They had covenants on it when I bought it.

I said, What is this all about?

You know, so you you you learn, I learned by being here that there were a whole lot of things that I had to do besides raise hell and be indignant.

She also had the benefit with when she served.

We got people like Joey Aldell and Stanley Anderson, who were well-grounded in this community to give that rudder, if you will, to the process, whatever it may have been.

What are you saying?

I mean Stan Anderson and we're on your commission with you.

No, he wasn't no, he was not on with that.

No, they were on the appointed council.

Sir Chairman Disney.

Let me ask you kind of the same question.

You know, here we are 50 years later.

Yeah.

And you know, as I said today, If promoting this, you know, we're here to talk about the early days and hopefully not the final days of home rule, which is a real threat that we have right now.

Did you think it was just locked in stone?

It was in, you know, it was a done deal that would never we could never go backward, we only go forward.

And why haven't we moved forward in 50 years?

It doesn't seem like there has been much of any progress in since 50 years ago.

So I mean the point is whether or not we will ever attain statehood and got serious authority.

I think that it's really doubtful, quite honestly, but we still need to push for it.

And I think we got in quote this home fool that that we got.

I mean, we didn't look, you know, you don't we learned not to look a gift for us in the mouth, which is not a good good way to be, but you know, sometimes you got to take what you got and try to make it work, and we did.

I mean, Julius was on the council, so if he didn't think it was a good, had any hope as home fool, he wouldn't have been on the council trying to do what he could do.

So we did that.

And you know, and I agree, I agree with you.

I really do.

I come from a very different background.

I didn't have the roots, et cetera, that many of the council members, in fact, all of them, there were only a certain group of people that were on the councils, one the other, and odd man out, you think differently.

Yes, of course.

Reverend Coates, I want to get back to what uh Mark was talking about here.

Did you ever think after you were on that first home rule count council that you would live to see a time like right now when home rule is being threatened again?

Yes, yes, I did because uh when when home rule uh galvanize uh it is threatening.

And uh there's uh a movement, a counter movement to stop, for example, when uh Wamada wanted to uh route uh subway line across the uh Anacosta River.

They aligned it to go up uh what was then uh good ope road and uh out and ail the road uh into uh uh Prince George's County uh to the neglect of the uh thousands of uh citizens uh in uh Congress Heights and Anacostia who were riding the eight buses, and it was uh much to his credit, uh Walter Washington, to whom we made an appeal that he would fund a study to realign that plan and uh it did result in changing the alignment You raise a very important issue because what you're saying is that we have seen setbacks before, and we have overcome those setbacks.

But the question I'm gonna raise to you finish up.

Oh, I'm gonna question to you is whether we can get over the setbacks that we're now looking at.

And Anacosta, when it was seen that organization results in change.

Uh further efforts were developed in Anacostia.

Uh, for example, uh there was an effort uh to uh uh uh give uh Sheridan terrorists to um uh devotee.

Sheridan Terrace to uh an auto-developer Toyota.

And uh it was uh those citizens who picketed uh and uh turned that around so that uh it did not happen.

Kojo, he's being modest.

Colts, Jim Coates and his church, they structured it so that they got a major play in trying to make Sheridan Terrace what it is now, and they also just finished a very large housing building.

So there's Jim, you know, I got it, you know, Anakai east of the river, Anacostia, is a very spiritually powerful area.

I mean, I always tell people the measure of this city's success will not be what it does in War Three and those folk will take care of themselves, but it's what they do with Anacostia River East, that side of the river.

And it's interesting spiritually because that's where the Native Americans, that's where they lived.

When you look at the research that's been done about Native Americans in DC, you find that they all lived on Anacostia River east side of the river, not over here.

That's where the energy was.

Can I add can I add something just to what you're saying?

And this is from a Philadelphian.

Yes.

That is near Anacosty Nell.

Listen respectfully to Reverend Coates and all that he has done and is still doing.

If we take what he has done and share it with those that are determined now to make the city even bigger, better, wiser, stronger, who are maybe three, four generations younger.

They need to hear that.

They need to know that so that they know that no matter what they do, they've got to do something to make it happen.

And I think that's why Mark Siegraves raised the question in the first place.

So I let him continue.

So uh let's get some of the audience questions, even though they've had far too much participation already.

Yes, a recording is being made of this and will be archived uh for future use and sharing, and so that's a great thing, and uh we really appreciate that.

Um was there an influence uh from uh SNCC activists such as Marion Barry on the early council?

Yes.

If there's anything that I can say about Marion Barry, it's about my current, well, my daughter, when she was 14, she got a job because of the program that he put together for the youth of this city.

The mayor's I can't even remember.

Some of youth programs.

Let me slow you now.

Some of the youth employment programs.

I'll share something with you to go ahead.

But that man, no matter what he did, he's human, etc.

But he was fabulous for this city.

Yes, he was.

By the way, that legislation for summer youth program, it's my legislation.

I introduced that legislation.

And Marion was smart enough to be able to do that.

Do we need to renew that?

Pardon me?

Do we need to rename the summer?

No, I'm not trying to, I'm just wanting people to understand the nexus here, but what goes down.

I also want to point out about the Metro that Jim mentioned coming there.

You know, the Anacostia Coordinating Council, which you're familiar with, was structured and put together to bring the Metro to Anacostia, Howard Road.

That was the effort, and it was driven by Curtis family, Curtis Brothers, big landowners over there, who were very committed to that side of the river, that they would get it.

So they put together the coordinating council, and I happened to get, I wasn't part of that, I was part of the council, but I was in the leadership, which I took over, you know, after that, after that was done, and we moved to other things.

What were the ANCs?

What were the advisory neighborhood commissions like back then in the early days?

Because they came along in 74.

The council when I when I was on the council, I chaired the government operations committee.

We had five charges, and one of them was to put together the ANCs.

So my committee had to build the boundaries, the borders, the rules, and all that kind of thing, and finally initiate the ANCs.

I think the A and C's was a test and experiment, but it was the right thing.

It hasn't worked as well as it should have worked and still can work, but it brought things down to the grassroot level.

And it gave folks an opportunity to speak to developments and things that were happening in their community with some clout, some input.

So yeah, the ANCs were not, they just started when we came in.

It was part of our charge.

Was there a bridge between the local and federal back in the early days, perhaps between appointed uh uh commissioners or council members who then did any of them go on to become elected?

Oh, yeah, I mean, for first of all, we had first of all John Heckinger and those guys were really and and and Hahn, Bill Hahn, they were really very thoughtful guys.

I mean, they were pretty DC people.

But then we got Sterling Tucker, who was involved with the first the appointed structure.

We got the mayor.

And we got and we've got to wash the mayor Washington was there.

So they brought that to us.

I will tell you that it was a learning curve for them and for us to say to them, look, wait a minute.

Walton would often pull our coat and say, wait a minute, you can't do that.

You gotta be careful what you're doing.

You know, we gotta kind of move more softly, a little quieter.

And of course we didn't accept it totally, but he was right, and we listened.

And uh as much as we could, right, Nita.

Because Nita Bonds was involved in this stuff in the first place.

I'm gonna ask you were there a conversation.

Yes.

Yes, yeah, Nita was a good idea.

Go ahead, Mark.

She could be here with us because she was a he was in the midst of all this stuff with Marion.

Were there concessions made in order to get home rule?

Uh yeah.

Well, the concessions were made up on the hills.

And one player in this was Bob Washington.

Bob Washington was a very talented lawyer, and he was uh a staff lawyer for a member of the district committee, right?

Yeah.

And he worked with Charlie Diggs, who was had oversight of our c of our committee, of the district city committee, which was still controlling us.

And they worked out a deal for home rule.

They had to make certain concessions.

One was that two members of the council had to be non-democratic.

That meant that we had slots for independents and republicans.

So that was those those those the kind of concessions that were made.

Uh and they were broader ones, but some things that we have learned to live with over time.

Anita Bonds is stepping away from the council, but you mentioned that she inherited in a lot of ways what the activist members of the council brought.

She worked with Marion Barry, one of the people from SNCC who came on to the council.

But now that she's moving away from the council, she can speak plainly.

She doesn't have to speak to the case.

Yeah, come on, Nick.

What do you think is the challenge that now faces a council that had a history?

Have you been?

A council that had a history of activism even before you were on it, and now faces a serious challenge in terms of the administration and the Congress.

Well, hello, everyone.

And um it's terrific to see you here and to know that you care.

Um it's it's really rewarding to me.

And I don't know if all of them know, but back in the day, the project that I worked on was the ANCs with with John Wilson, who was busy running around trying to make sure that we got home rule in place.

Um you may know that Cobra King was also an employee in the Congress that helped with that.

So you can always talk to him.

He's retired from the post, but he's always available.

I find that he's a wealth of really influence still, but certainly information about the good old days as he likes to talk about.

Well, what we have today is, as you know, a different era.

A different era.

And um, I feel like I'll be leaving um a good government, one that is dearly influenced by its people.

Mr.

Mayor, how are you doing?

Good to see you.

It's uh I know we yep, we we're we're getting there.

We're getting good.

That's what it is.

That don't worry about it.

You're you're fine.

You're you're fine.

But we really are leaving a body of individuals that I wish they were here to hear a little bit about, you know, the past.

I'm here because I really appreciate knowing from their perspective, those who were here and had to speak and um throw ashtrays.

I'm aware of that.

I remember.

I was in diapers then, but I know that they were doing that, okay.

She was mothering us then.

When they when they were, yes, when they were on the council, real fights.

Oh my god.

Fights um about ideas.

Passion.

And about about service and how it should be done.

And so we don't do that anymore.

But we use a lot of words, and most importantly, we hear more from constituents.

You may think I'm speaking of the many different advocates that are here every day.

But I personally have spent time talking to individuals and community.

Because that's a different cut than the advocates.

You need to hear from the people who you serve.

And so that's that's it.

Sitting behind her are the people who inspired her.

I was wondering the extent to which she could help to inspire a future generation.

We're just about out of time now.

Yeah, but before we I do want to ask uh Chairman Dixon, is there a story to be told about Reverend Coates presenting the whole budget?

Yeah, oh my God.

I can't always tell that about Jim.

We were going to a budget hearing.

And budgets were pretty complicated now and then too.

And uh Doug Moore was acting up, and he was the chairman of the budget committee.

Marion was on the finance committee.

It's supposed to be together, but acting up.

Well, he didn't show up.

He didn't show up for whatever reason.

I don't know why.

And and so we had to have somebody to present present the budget.

The council was meeting in like a couple of hours.

So they approached Jim because he was on the on the budget.

On the budget committee.

And uh he said, okay, we do that.

So he I oftentimes we had a piano I'll be in the lobby at that point.

Jim would often go out there sometime and sit at the piano and just play a few tunes.

I don't know if he's playing spirituals or gossipers, whatever it was.

He play a few tunes and just chill out, right?

So Jim presented the budget at the council with a two-hour notice.

And and you know, of course, staff helped, but it was a pretty great thing to do.

And I will never forget that, and because I got a lot of respect for Jim and I and I appreciate his recognition of my mom, but and it and I appreciate that it's true.

But uh, you know, you also mentioned SNCC.

I had an interesting experience with SNCC because I was uh pretty active in high school, and you know, government and military, I was a hand called command, all that kind of stuff.

A lot of guys from Manicas, River East control the McKinley Tech.

We were lucky we got across the river, and we just took over the student government and military, all that.

And uh uh when I got ready to graduate, I had to meet with some ministers over on Mass Avenue.

They said, Dixon, we want you to be involved with SNC.

We'd like you to help lead SNCC over here, because they knew I you know, whatever.

And I told him, I said, I really was flattering and appreciated that, but I had a desire to become a military officer.

My goal was to go into the military and make a career of it, like my uncle had done, the only other college graduate in my family.

And I said that would make a that would be a problem, I think for me.

And I honestly, you know, I wasn't trying to, I just had another mission.

So I said no.

And I think that I'm not sure what it would happen if I said yes.

Uh we may not have gotten real good leadership we did get, which was perfectly the best, marrying the rest of them, but I was I could have been bought, I could have been into that, and and I would have not probably would have probably enjoyed it.

But anyhow, that's another story.

Didn't join SNCC but served the city in another capacity entirely.

I think we are about to get done here, Mark.

I'm sorry.

A piano there there is there's a piano.

We got a piano.

What happened to the piano?

Uh you gotta ask the other, I don't know.

Yeah, that's our next question to find that piano.

Let me let me wrap it up and kind of bring it home with uh just again, you know, I it's not lost to me.

We hear these great names, we hear about this energy.

Yes.

Do you think that same energy exists today?

Do you think that DC residents are as engaged when it comes to home rule, are as concerned about home rule, or have we become more transient and more complacent, and it is not as big uh uh uh a factor in people's lives uh as perhaps it should be I'm looking at you very seriously because it it concerns me greatly.

It concerns me because we live in a city now that's significantly different.

When I came to Washington, DC, there were tempo buildings on the mall.

They're high rises in Southwest today.

I don't think we talk to each other eye contact to eye contact, body to body.

We do all the stuff with the technology, which I'm comfortable with, but it does not allow us to understand.

You're not angry, you're just saying something differently.

And so I don't think that we know whether or not we really are the same or similar or have similar similar thoughts about home rule.

I think we really need to know each other generationally as well.

Yeah.

I'll digress just for a second and tell you a little something.

In the last presidential election, I was talking with a friend of mine, significantly different from me.

But we were talking and we were we had this conversation around someone calling Kamala Harris, a brat, and we said, oh my God, why would someone do that?

That's an awful thing to call someone.

No, let's let's research that because these honey, these people today, they don't use words the way we use words.

Long story made short, sure enough.

There's a group, a I think it's a singing group in London.

Brad is just a self-confident, arrogant person, male or female.

It's so positive.

And so even in the use of our language and the use of words, I never had heard the word unalived before.

So there are ways that we really don't connect that I think would roll over into home rule.

What do we all see?

What do we all know?

I don't know as much about the city anymore as I used to.

Why?

I don't talk to people as much.

You know, you don't talk to people as much.

Reverend Coates, any final words.

Any final words for us as we go forward.

One achievement, and that was the Toyota Motor Corporation, wanted to uh have uh granted to them.

Uh Sheridan Terrorists, which is a very large parcel owned by uh the DC government and was designated for public housing.

And uh the uh corporation uh succeeded in getting uh uh the mayor to uh agree to it.

And uh the citizens and board aid and also Congress Heights organized uh ACC we helped fight it too.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh uh street uh uh marching in front of uh Toyota's corporate headquarters and 1800 block M Street and uh they uh deferred from uh that uh uh and urged the mayor uh uh not to grant them that uh he uh prevailed well sought to prevail upon us to not uh pick it anymore and uh sent uh delegates to the church to a church reading uh to persuade us uh which failed and uh we had uh at uh uh family there had a daughter who was studying uh Japanese and uh asked her to write a letter to the Toyota Motor Corporation in uh Japan, which she did.

And uh the uh Toyota Corporation instead gave a thousand textbooks to every uh elementary school uh in uh Ward 8.

Final words.

What lesson should we draw from what we just heard?

Well, I want to be from as brief as possible.

Cojo and others.

First of all, I'm very concerned about the engagement of our current population in DC.

We have a lot of newcomers, a lot of high rises, uh condos, and there are a lot of people who are here that I don't think quite get it like we did because we were raised in this environment.

I did something which is kind of maybe a little crazy for me, but I don't think so, not for me.

I decided a few months ago, a month ago, that I was gonna put my name on the ballot again.

So I'm running for at-large democratic state committee member.

I'm not trying to be council member or the chair, and I'm just I just wanted to get out there in the street and get my signatures.

I got my signatures, 584 of them myself.

Staying at safe ways, talking, engaging people, because that's what I did it for to get out there and find out where and and I can I got it was a barometer.

And I can, I got it was a barometer.

My 580 plus efforts.

More than that to get it.

Some I got I got pushed back.

But people, I don't care about that.

It ain't important to me.

Don't bother me.

You know, and that's what you learn to deal with when you out when you're on the stump.

But it also gives you a barometer where people are.

So I think that we gotta really think how we engage it.

Also, I brought one because you're another prop.

Now, this is my swearing in on the council because we've been talking about what we did before.

When the council came together, finally we all had to organize, there was a meant huge amount of work to be done.

And people like Bob Robert Williams, who was Secretary of the Council, uh Rodney Coleman, Bruce Prince, Barry Campbell, these are all staff people.

Doug Moore, his people, not Doug so much, but we had uh coach uh we had uh other people from Marion's organization.

We would meet in the evening before we even took office.

This was back in in in November, October.

All kinds of hours at night putting together rules and guidelines and procedures.

And most of these folks were on the council as you already were activists.

So they didn't know being a what about this all this?

What's going on here?

Well, I know you know.

They had a meeting once we had one out in out in Annapolis, and we had consultants come to talk to how we should structure the council and rules of consulting group.

It was helpful.

But uh, I remember John Wilson walked out on the meeting, he got mad because they told you how you have to have some reason to be absent from a meeting.

If you were absent, you gotta this, that, they'll say, wait a minute.

I mean, I want to be there.

I mean, I want to vote.

I may be absent for a reason.

I mean, which was grassroots understanding.

These people they don't so we had a lot of work to be done, and we did it with a lot of help from a lot of good staff people, and it was very important.

So the message that I gather from all of you in this is that it ain't over till it's over.

Exactly.

Well, that's how I feel.

That's why I went out there and got my name on the ballot.

Well, this is over.

Can it?

Yeah, of course you can't.

Can I thank you?

I just have to present this because I was the youngest person by 11 years, the last person appointed, and all those other things, which made me the youngest.

Can you believe it?

And I was able to January the 14th, 1974, resolution regarding the commemoration of the birthday of Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

I was so proud of this, I didn't, I couldn't tell you.

And you should be every record, every council member, Levius, Tucker, Ford, Foster, Myers, Moore, Parker, Robinson, Feldon, all voted yes for this.

And you should be present.

I have kept it.

I don't think I ever show I don't I've ever it was wrapped up in all my little stuff you can imagine what it was like.

Well, we appreciate guests to bring props.

Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, Tony Ford, Carrington Dixon, Reverend Jim Coach, and of course, coach I started presenting.

Josh Gibson from the chairman's office.

Thank you all.

Thank you all for coming.