Rashida Brown has spent nearly half of her life in Ward 1, a part of Northwest that includes her alma mater Howard University, as well as the communities of Park View and Pleasant Plains, where she currently serves as an advisory neighborhood commissioner.
With the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat currently up for grabs, Brown has her eyes on an elected office that she said would allow her to serve the entire ward. If elected, Brown said she would draw upon her decades of professional and civic experience to fight for socioeconomic diversity.
“I’ve seen a gentrifying Georgia Avenue. I saw a lot of liquor stores and not enough child care centers. I saw joblessness, homelessness, mental health issues, and not enough services or connections to services and good jobs,” said Brown, advisory neighborhood commissioner for Single-Member District 1E04. “As [a] council member, I can be able to see those disparities and be able to transform challenge into opportunity. I believe in economic and social justice for the residents of Ward 1, and I’ve been able to do that in my community as a social worker and as an ANC commissioner.”
If elected, Brown will become Ward 1’s first-ever Black female council member.
On Wednesday, she announced her candidacy for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat, entering a race that currently includes: her Advisory Neighborhood Commission 1E colleague Brian Footer, activist and longtime Mount Pleasant resident Terry Lynch, tenant organizer Aparna Raj, and also reportedly Jackie Reyes-Yanes, the director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Community Affairs.
Unlike them, Brown has the support of current Ward 1 D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau.
Earlier this month, when Nadeau announced that she wouldn’t seek a fourth term, she alluded to her eventual endorsement of a “strong candidate” and champion for affordable housing who has worked in early childhood development. Brown has since emerged as that candidate, telling The Informer that, through her work with the Ward 1 council member, she has an intimate understanding of what’s been accomplished— and what’s yet to be done— for Ward 1 residents.
“Councilmember Nadeau has had a lot of wins and I want to build on those wins and ensure that there is more affordable housing in our communities, like the ones that I developed at Park Morton and Bruce-Monroe,” Brown told The Informer. “You’re talking about 450 units, 60% of them affordable. Creating a pathway for Park Morton residents to come back, and dismantling systemic racism that you’re seeing in our housing policies.”
Amid Housing and Immigration Woes, Nadeau Looks to Pass the Baton
On Oct. 10, Brown joined Nadeau, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Nina Albert, D.C. Housing Authority Executive Director Keith Pettigrew, and community members in celebrating the reopening of Park Morton Apartments.
The five-story, 142-unit affordable multifamily building counts as the first of its kind in Ward 1 to be constructed under the District’s New Communities Initiative. Fifteen families that previously lived at Park Morton will return to the neighborhood known as “640.”
Thus continues a journey that, for Nadeau and Brown, has had a couple of bumps along the way. For instance, one resident refused to leave their apartment during the demolition of Park Morton. A lawsuit has also delayed completion of units at the former Bruce-Monroe Elementary site.
“Rashida was in the trenches on this all along, and the Bruce-Monroe site has been in her single member district on the ANC,” Nadeau said. “She had to fight back against NIMBYs (Not In My Backyard), who just didn’t want to see that housing built and still don’t want to. That fight’s not over because we still have to get shovels in the ground there.”
Weeks prior to the Park Morton ribbon-cutting, Brown accompanied Nadeau to Bruce-Monroe Elementary School at Park View, where, in the midst of a federal surge, both local officials greeted students walking back into school after summer break.
“I saw the anxiety that families had on their faces,” Brown told The Informer. “And that is not something that should happen on a child’s first day of school. It should be an exciting day, and that was a day of terror.”
After the end of the surge, as residents continue to document Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) collusion, Brown said she stands committed to holding MPD accountable to the community.
“We were promised a transition out,” Brown said. “And I see MPD on the streets with ICE…and that is unacceptable. We need to exit out and put the power back into the hands of our local law enforcement. That’s who needs to be dealing with our crime issues.”
Nadeau, a three-term D.C. council member, said she will step away from her council seat having fought against housing insecurity and lack of access to public benefits. She also touts her support for families, small businesses and child care facilities.
When it comes to Brown, Nadeau said her presence on the council ensures the viability of the lawmaking body’s progressive wing. As the first woman to hold the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat, Nadeau also acknowledged the historic significance of Brown’s run.
“I really do think it’s time for Ward 1 to have a Black woman in the seat,” Nadeau told The Informer. “She can bring her experiences to the council that nobody in that seat has ever had, and she has so many life experiences that matter in the job, whether that’s from working a minimum wage job to having parents who worked in transit and worked multiple jobs to support her.”
Brown, who has roots in Bronx, New York and Charleston, South Carolina, first moved to the District in 2000 as a graduate student in the Howard University School of Social Work. After completing her studies, she embarked on a decades-long career as a social worker, working with foster care youth and young people with mental health challenges.
Other professional experiences include stints at the Office of the State Superintendent of Education and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, where Brown, respectively, helped develop a mayoral childcare investment package and the coordinated early childhood education platform known as Thrive-by-Five.
Brown and other Ward 1 residents founded the entity that would eventually become known as Georgia Avenue Thrive. That’s how she said they pressed for the installation of security cameras and traffic calming measures along Georgia Avenue. As Brown recounted, group members also held a developer accountable to converting empty buildings to local businesses, all while collaborating with community groups to beautify blighted properties.
“We got the youth from Duke Ellington [School of the Arts] to help us do it [and] community groups like Words Beats, & Life helped do that with us,” Brown said. “We developed places and spaces for placemaking. When we had a vacant lot over there at the old Murray’s, we had a fall fest bringing in local talent, local music, local artists, government agencies and nonprofits that serve the community so that people could know that there are services out here in the community.”
Brown said that, in her work with Georgia Avenue Thrive, she saw the power that people hold when they take matters into their own hands to address violent crime and other quality-of-life issues.
“That was just a day when we all came together,” Brown said. “We turned fear into opportunity. We just found a way to take back our streets.”
A Friend and Colleague Speaks
Audra Grant, a Park View resident of more than two decades, told The Informer that Brown fits the bill for Ward 1 council member.
In making her case, Grant spoke about what she called Brown’s deep interest in housing policy. She said she saw her friend and colleague’s passion for equity while working with her on the Park Morton Bruce-Monroe Steering Committee and as a co-founder of Georgia Avenue Thrive.
“She’s always been an advocate of affordable housing,” said Grant, president of the Luray-Warder Neighborhood Association. “I see her continuing in that capacity as an effective council member. This has always been an issue that’s been near and dear to her heart. We need affordable housing in Washington, D.C. I think Rashida is very cognizant of that, and she’s been dedicated to making sure that that happens.”
Other qualities Grant said she respects about Brown center on what she described as the advisory neighborhood commissioner’s concern for businesses that have faced economic challenges before, during and well after the pandemic. More recently, however, Grant recalled seeing Brown in the community, passing out information to residents about what to do in case of an encounter with ICE.
Though Grant counts public safety and economic development among her top concerns, she said that the District’s vulnerability under the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress demands for the next Ward 1 council member to be a warrior for D.C. residents.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty and so people don’t know what’s coming next and what’s going to happen,” Grant said. “We need leadership that can help us understand what’s going to happen and someone that’s going to represent Ward 1 residents and Park View residents in the future and make sure that we’re protected moving forward.”
Brown can be that person, Grant said.
“Rashida’s voice has been a voice of clarity,” she told The Informer. “It’s been a voice of courage. She’s been very comforting and has assured us that she’s with us.”