Nearly two years ago, the US Chess Federation revoked the affiliate status of the DC State Chess Federation, despite what students and community members have described as the organization’s decades-long record of service to District youth of color.
The DC State Chess Federation has since operated outside the auspices of the national chess competition governing body, continuing its mission to embolden young people like Andrea Nicholson in their quest to master the game and host tournaments of their own.
“I figured this was something we could work on together to create something that’s better and something that’s more authentic,” said Andrea, a decade-long student of the DC State Chess Federation and founder of DC Rising Pawns.
Andrea, a rising senior at Girls Global Academy Public Charter School in Northwest, said Bennett conceptualized, and trusted her with, the idea of a girls and women chess tournament. As she recounted, they fleshed out that vision with a renewed vigor after Bennett’s break with the US Chess Federation.
“We’re not controlled or we’re not used by the US Chess Federation,” Andrea said. “We do want to promote tournaments and promote all women’s tournaments like many others do, but we want to create something from the ground up and have a connection with audiences in the D.C. area.”
Earlier this summer, DC Rising Pawns hosted the DC Women and Girls Health & Wellness Chess Fair at Bryant Street Market in Northeast. Andrea co-sponsored the event with: DC State Chess Federation; HoodSmart: The Urban STEMulus Project; The Agency at National Harbor Financial Services; Ateya Productions; Kettler Management; and Community Grapevines.
Andrea, an Ivy League prospect and tennis player who trains at the same academy frequented by tennis phenom Frances Tiafoe, said she wanted young women at Bryant Street Market to, like she did years before, find value in the lessons that chess teaches.
“As I have progressed in life, I’ve noticed that chess isn’t just about tennis. It’s about the lifelong benefits that come with it [like] critical thinking, being able to see moves or see problems and decisions I’ll be making 10 years down the line,” Andrea told The Informer. “Being aware of my opponents and what they’ve done. There’s so many benefits and so many things that chess has helped me with. It’s not just a board game, it’s more of a game of life, and it’s transitory.”
Looking Back: The D.C. Women and Girls Health & Wellness Chess Fair
For six hours on June 14, the hundreds of middle and high school-age girls who converged on Bryant Street Market immersed themselves in the game of life as they competed in chess, participated in wellness activities, and engaged in conversation about female wellness.
Other aspects of the Women and Girls Health and Wellness Chess Fair included chess lessons from chess streamer Devina D., a pilates session with Clarissa Shepard, line dancing, sound bowl healing, chair massages, beauty services, all under the upbeat, positive music emanating from a live vinyl DJ set.
For Ateya Ball-Lacy, the ambiance of women-and-girls-centered event met needs that have been long unmet.
“We don’t always create a sacred space for women and girls, especially in this society now. It’s almost taboo,” said Ball-Lacy, creator and executive director of HoodSmart: The Urban STEMulus. “What we’re doing is really important because women and girls need that sacred space to come together and really to speak to the needs that we have that are very unique as women and girls.”
Ball-Lacy and Bennett have a working relationship going back to the early 2000s, when the former’s family attended chess tournaments and events conducted by the latter. The Women and Girls Health and Wellness Chess Fair took place two years after the duo commemorated the Bolling v. Sharpe Supreme Court decision with a chess tournament at Dunbar High School in Northwest.
The girls-and-women event, Ball-Lacy said, had a similar formula intended to attract and engage young people while driving home the point about the utility of chess.
“While it was a health and wellness fair, we were absolutely centering chess,” Ball-Lacy told The Informer. “That’s really important because we know that students who really take up this sport and master it, there’s no limit to what they can do, whether it’s at the classroom level or just in life in general.”
Ball-Lacy said that’s especially the case for young women.
“We really want our women and girls to understand that they have access to this, and once they really master chess, they can do so many things,” Ball-Lacy added. “It’s because of the impact that it has on their critical thinking skills, how they interact with each other, how they interact with their community.”
The women-and-girls-focused event, one of several chess-related functions to take place at Bryant Street Market, was Andreas’s first under the D.C. Rising Pawns Training imprint. She’s since hosted at least one more event this summer with plans to do more for her peers.
“I hope this impact is not just local, but also something that can reach many girls, potentially around the world and the whole U.S.,” Andrea told The Informer. “I have become very passionate about women’s rights and women advocacy as something that needs to be addressed, especially being Afro-Latina. Wanting to empower the youth [to know that it] doesn’t matter where you come from, what you look like, but rather what you can do if given the opportunity.”
Providing D.C. Youth the Opportunity of a Lifetime
Bennett, a former D.C. firefighter, said he uses chess as a means of preventing youth violence. In his role as head of the DC State Chess Federation, he has hosted chess events across the D.C. area, all while alerting young people to the doors that the game can open.
“In the D.C. area, there’s about four or five organizations that have been making millions of dollars doing the business of chess for decades,” Bennett told The Informer. “Yet we as a people have not had access because we didn’t know. When we look at who has been impacted by that denial of access, it’s been mainly people of color.”
In 2024, the US Chess Federation designated another local chess organization by the name of the DC Chess Association as the state affiliate— making that entity the vessel through which young people in D.C. compete to qualify for national chess tournaments.
As Bennett recounted, the US Chess Federation made its decision with the creation of an interim board led and staffed mostly with members of the DC Chess Association, which was then a newly formed entity. Bennett, initially a member of the interim board, was expelled in early 2025 — and the affiliate status of DC State Chess Federation revoked — due to what he recalled as his allegations that founding members of the DC Chess Association, while serving under the DC Chess League, failed to notify District youth about opportunities to compete in national tournaments and win scholarships.
Bennett left the US Chess Federation shortly after. The US Chess Federation, which confirmed Bennett’s allegations in a 2022 decision, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Most people don’t know that the organization that has controlled chess in D.C. for over 80 years has kept chess out of D.C.,” Bennett told The Informer. “So we are filling the gap. We are reaching to our underserved community, to our people that have been labeled as ‘at risk,’ and giving them the other side of it.”
One of those young people is Khepra Freeman, a rising high school junior and aspiring animator who’s spent the last five years boosting his chess prowess under Bennett’s watchful eye. Khepra, who first learned the game of chess from his father at the age of seven, told The Informer that each experience with Bennett expanded his critical thinking ability.
“Chess…can help somebody organize their mind more as the game forces you to really think 10 steps ahead,” said Khepra, a student at Duke Ellington School of the Arts. “It forces you to be more organized, to be more meticulous, and to be more careful about the moves you make. Mr. Bennett said that can apply in real life as well [about] how some of your moves can have consequences, and how a plan can really reward you in the end, even if it seems rough.”
In recent months, Khepra has taken his craft to the next level with the help of Bennett.
“Instead of trying to push kids to participate in other people’s tournaments, Mr. Bennett pushed people to participate in his or create their own tournaments and become tournament directors,” Khepra told The Informer. “With Mr. Bennett’s guidance, it was very helpful. Much easier than it would have been on my own.”
On July 24, Khepra hosted his first tournament at Bryant Street Market. He has since revealed plans to host another event in the fall. Nearly a decade into his craft, Khepra said he continues to see, and appreciate, the parallels between what happens on the chessboard and his evolution as a young man.
“Chess really does present the opportunity for kids…to develop their thoughts more and give them more chances to have more persuasive thinking, and be more strategic in the things they do,” Khepra said. “Chess can also help make them apply those tools into real life. If you play chess constantly, you will find yourself being more strategic, not just in the game, but also in real life.”
