Join us in commemorating the legacy of peace making and justice making of Martin Luther King, Jr.!
As part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Walk on Monday, January 20th there will be a feeder rally and walk in Barry Farms at 9:15 am. We will gather at the Birney Child Development Center (1230 Sumner Road SE), walk through the community and rally at the Exeter academy. We will then join the main group of Peacewalkers.
Our theme this year is celebrating “Global Peacemakers: I am a Peace Maker”. Afterward there will be an awesome program held at Covenant Baptist UCC at 12:30 pm.
Please note with exception for the program at Covenant, this is an outdoor event. Dress accordingly. The closest metro is Anacostia.
On Friday December 6, 2013 activists from Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia gathered near the headquarters to make a statement to passerbys about the National Security Agency, the US’s principal spy agency conducting warrantless, unconstitutional dragnet surveillance on all Americans and much of the world: CLOSE THE NSA. and SAVE AMERICA.
It isn’t enough to be outraged. Times like this require concerted, committed, and focused grassroots [creative] action. With Bill of Rights Day approaching on December 15 speak out, and for millions of others whose rights are being trampled by the emerging surveillance state. There has never been a better time to raise your voice!
Organizations represented during the banner drop include:
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
CODEPINK: Women for Peace
Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition
Restore the Fourth
We Act Radio
Filmed by Robin Bell
Edited by Adwoa Masozi
Music by Petteri Sainio
Will McKinley III is a videographer/editor based out of Washington, D.C. He attended Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD with a concentration in TV Production. Below is a link to the first segment that he and his peeps put together for a new current affairs magazine television show about Washington, DC, called Metropolis: The District. Don’t be thrown by the message that says you can’t view the video here. Click on the box and it will take you straight to Vimeo.
The video features the famous Goodman League and the current redevelopment plans for the neighborhood of Barry Farm. Learn who is responsible for the Goodman League’s rise to prominence. Affordable housing organizer Schyla Pondexter-Moore explains why traditional public housing is important to the fabric of Washington,DC. This is the kind of in-depth journalism that I’d love to see on DC’s local television stations. Too often the only reason television news producers head out to Barry Farms is for crime. Here’s hoping McKinley and his crew get funding for more of this excellent work!
Cross-Posted from Sociology in My Neighborhood: DC Ward Six
Written By Johanna Bockman
Today in the Anacostia Community Museum Archives, I found photos of a museum exhibition put together by senior citizens living in Potomac Gardens public housing in 1994. Potomac Gardens is bordered by G and I Streets between 12th and 13th Streets, SE.The exhibit was based on the fascinating video, “In Search of Common Ground,” produced with funds from the DC Humanities Council. (You can see the entire video below. It is just 14 minutes long.)
These residents went on to testify before Congress in support of National Endowment for the Humanities funding. Here is part of the text from one of the placards in the exhibit. The quotations from the residents are particularly interesting.
The Potomac Gardens Community
Life in Washington has presented a variety of opportunities and challenges. Changes in marital status, shifts in earning power, and dispersion of family members has led many people to public housing developments. Communities such as Potomac Gardens were conceived as environments that would encourage social networks. In the 1950s these developments were seen as points of transition to improved rental housing and homeownership. In the late 1960s, however, the perception of public housing and those who lived in developments began to change. Some members of the Senior Resident Council began their relationship with public housing just as it was beginning to face enormous challenges.
Members of the Senior Resident Council are all vibrant, active people who care deeply for the community in which they live. While aware of their own advancing age and the limitations of a fixed income, they are rediscovering the joys of life and community-supported independence. They are concerned about their children and grandchildren. They volunteer. They travel. They speak up about crime and the physical condition of their residence. They are fulfilling lifelong dreams and creating new roles for themselves. They do not live in the past. They allow the objects and photographs from the past to inform and inspire their current activities. Their life’s journeys have been filled with faith.
“My whole life has changed since I’ve been here at Potomac Gardens. I wasn’t able to win nothing, but since I’ve been here everything has opened up for me.
Everything that ever happened to me would always make me stronger…The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want. I am one that knows that I don’t need, don’t want for nothing. He makes a way for me all the time.” –Barbara Davis
“When we first came to live here in 1986, it really wasn’t a good place to live. It was crime ridden. Now, since they put up the fence [in 1992], it cut down on the running back and forth. The manager that we had, Mr. Taylor, calmed down a lot of the crime by talking to the kids. Then it got so we felt good to go outside and sit.
If it’s a bus, a train, or wheel barrel with a top on it — I’m gone. I’ve been to St. Louis, Atlanta, Atlantic City, Canada, Florida. I just enjoy life because I don’t have all that worry, and the thing of keeping busy all day long is like adrenaline, flowing through your body.
I was baptized a an early age, but I never stayed in church like I was supposed to. But I knew the rights and wrongs of things…but as far as having a spiritual thing, I didn’t. I’ve grown more spiritual in the past four years that Johnny’s been gone…It was like something had been taken from me because I never been taken care of the way he took he took care of me…I had to realized, ‘Girl, you’re on your own,’…and it was like a breath of fresh air…
After that I’ve been in more things since he died…Now that he’s gone I have my nose in everything just like I did at eight.” –Thelma Russell
“Before I moved to Potomac Gardens I was living in Minnesota for eight or nine months with my son. I lost my youngest brother, and it took a total loss on me…I went out there to get peace of mind for a while, and then my sister got sick, I came back because she had cancer. She died in 1991, so I came back here.
I always wanted to be involved in community work…Being a worker for Friendship House, I like talking to people…I like counseling and mingling with people. Lots of times you learn a lot from people older than you…I never knew my parents, so I love to listen to what seniors have to say. I just does something for me.” –Wilma Gregory
“I had a dog that would eat you up; her name was Whitey. That was Larry’s dog — Larry got killed. My son Willie got hit by a car. All this horrible stuff that’s going on in the city…that’s all you hear…nothin’ I can do about it but pray about it…I don’t watch the news that much because I don’t want to hear. I’ve got children that were killed–can’t deal with it. Too much pressure.
Iris McLauren-Southall and Commissioner Aquarius Vann-Ghasri
We would like to congratulate Grassroots DC member and DC Housing Authority Commissioner Aquarius Vann-Ghasri who was awarded DCHA’s “Excellence in Resident-Driven Leadership for outstanding performance and lasting contributions to Resident Council Leadership.” The award was presented on December 12,2013. Vann-Ghasri currently serves as the Vice President of the Potomac Gardens Resident Council and is on the Executive Board of the DCHA Citywide Advisory Board. She also works with many nonprofit organizations throughout the metropolitan area and holds several certificates for nonprofit leadership.
Commissioner Aquarius Vann-Ghasri’s latest award.
Commissioner and Resident Council President Vann-Ghasri would like to thank the following residents who her interpretation of Title 24 of the Code of Federal Regulations (which governs the resident input into HUD governance) and her vision of the Potomac Gardens Family as a model for public housing: Tomasia Moore, Tina Hawkins, Shirley Marshall, Shonda, Ann Brown, Mrs. Brown, Quaina, Melinda, Shane, Carolyn Johnson, Ms. Lu, Mitchell, Ditesha, Larry Johnson, Tim Tim, Lorraine Leonard, Ms. Betty,Vernita Abney, Marry, Terry, Cortney, Carolyn Proctor and Bridget. “I thank you all. This is our award!”
Ms. Vann-Ghasri studied to become a paralegal at the Antioch School of Law, Urban Law Institute. She graduated with honors from the DCHA Community Monitoring Program. She served for two years with AmeriCorp Vista, and has worked with local groups such as Community Vision, Inc., National People Action, United Public Housing, DC Justice for Youth and the National Coalition for Homelessness. It is thanks to her support that Grassroots DC has a home at the Potomac Gardens Public Housing Complex. Our work here is fast becoming an integral part of Vann-Ghasri’s resident-driven leadership vision for public housing.
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