This year marks four decades since the death of Pearl B. Settles, a Ward 7 civic leader and youth advocate who, at the height of her tenure as a grassroots leader, fostered a community that was clean and free of crime.
These days, Settles’ legacy continues through her children, one of whom is Karen Settles.
“Mama was very close to [former D.C. Mayor] Marion Barry,” said Settles, a former advisory neighborhood commissioner and longtime resident of the Stoddert Terrace public housing community, where she lived with her late mother and 10 siblings.
In the late 1960s, the Settles family moved to Stoddert Terrace, taking on a migration pattern similar to other Black families in the District whose communities underwent “urban renewal.” Before setting roots in the community known as “The Hill,” the Settles family lived in Northeast’s Parkside neighborhood, and before then, James Creek in Southwest.
Settles, who’s also the grandmother of D.C. rapper Noah “No Savage” Settles, was a young adult when she saw her mother come into her own as a leader of “The Hill.” She told The Informer that Barry, affectionately called D.C.’s “mayor for life,” often relied on her for insight into community affairs.
“He walked around here several times because of her,” Settles said about Barry’s visits to “The Hill.” “He would sit down at everybody’s table and he called my mother the Silver Stallion. He always told her that she put him in mind of his mother.”
Last May, friends, community members, D.C. Housing Authority (DCHA) officials and elected officials joined the Settles family in the unveiling of Pearl B. Settles Way. Months prior to that, the D.C. Council approved legislation that then-Ward 7 D.C. Councilmember Vincent C. Gray introduced to ceremoniously name the 200 block of 37th Place SE in honor of the late Settles.
Advisory Neighborhood Commission 7F, on which the late Settles served, also unanimously approved a resolution in support of ceremonial street naming.
The late Settles, a lifelong Washingtonian and mother of 11, lived her later years at the Stoddert Terrace public housing community. Until her 1986 death, she served in numerous roles, including: a resident council member; commissioner of what was then Advisory Neighborhood Commission 7F01; and DCHA board member. Settles also garnered a reputation as a provider of affordable daycare and food, and a coordinator of community workshops and vacation Bible school.
As her daughter recounted, the late Settles also gave young people employment opportunities during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when a portion of them couldn’t enter what’s now known as the Marion S. Barry Summer Youth Employment Program.
“What happened was [that] my mother…would have 10 children that could apply between the ages of 9 and 13 for a job,” Settles told The Informer. “Their application was their report card and how they felt about having a summer job.”
Settles said that, as intended, the youth who clinched a job with her mother often went on field trips and completed projects that expanded their notion about what life could offer.
“They had to interview the security guard, somebody behind desks, whoever was working in these respective places,” Settles told The Informer. “They went to the zoo, they went to the U.S. Capitol. They went to all these places where they could interview and ask people what their job was like and how they got on the path to getting a job.”
Settles said that those outcomes, and more, made her mother very well suited for a street named in her honor.
“My mother did most of what she did in silence,” Settles said. “She never said she wanted her name on the street. My brother said it was her last gift to us to have the name on the street. But it’s not just to her children, it’s to the community.”
Decades Later, Pearl B. Settles is Still Queen of ‘The Hill‘
In the late 1970s, at the beckoning of fellow DCHA board member Kimi Gray, the late Settles ran for, and won election as, advisory neighborhood commissioner for “The Hill.” As one of the District’s earliest advisory neighborhood commissioners, Settles connected the public housing community to a world on the other side of the wall.
As the Rev. Kenneth Mackie Sr. explained, the late Settles also instilled pride in the community through a home-grown cleanup program that united generations.
“We worked together. We broke bread together,” Mackie told The Informer. “That’s where the power and strength was. Everybody brought their gifts, their skills, and there was no animosity. There was nobody beefing. We had disagreements, but it didn’t get to a point.”
Mackie, an accountant and ministerial staff member at Johnson Memorial Baptist Church on Ridge Road in Southeast, said he could attest to the late Settles’ penchant for connecting youth to the tools that placed them on the right track.
“Momma had that control,” Mackie said. “She had that spark, that spirit that you know you could be calmed down and put back in line in a loving way, you know. She set me up for success. She really did. Her and Ms. Constance Thomas.”
Mackie said that Settles handpicked him out of a group of youth to serve in her youth summer program. He credited the skills learned under her tutelage as preparation for the official D.C. summer youth program he would later participate in as a teenager.
“She saw me in trouble and she put me to work,” Mackie said. “I was setting up chairs, tables. She had me running from this neighborhood all up and down Ridge Road, giving out flyers for community events, meetings and stuff.”
At times, the hard work paid off for a young, stubborn Mackie who would come to be, as he said, a consistent and persistent person.
“They had an award ceremony at the rec center on East Capital and I got that award for community service,” he told The Informer. “I ran all the way to my mama’s house. She said, ‘What? Nice gold-looking thing.’”
The elder Settles died at the age of 66 on Christmas Eve of 1986. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, her daughter raised her family on “The Hill” while navigating the reality that was the crack-cocaine epidemic.
That required peacefully coexisting with the young men on her block, though there were times when she took a broom to some of them, and even called the Metropolitan Police Department’s Sixth District for reinforcement.
“I had to stand my ground, but stay in my place too,” Settles told The Informer. “We had to live here. You had to know how to navigate. Those are the types of things that I didn’t really know about or have to worry about when my mother was here.”
Decades later, as the District reels from an opioid crisis, other members of “The Hill” are relying on the wisdom of the late Settles to effect change in their community.
“People are overdosing everywhere, especially in D.C. jail,” said Pastor John Davis, a returning citizen and friend of the Settles family. “We’ve been going in there trying to bang away at this problem of gun violence and opioids. That’s what I got from Mama Pearl: Don’t just sit there. Do something.”
By last summer, Davis was making visits to D.C. Department of Corrections three times a week. That’s where he and his partner provide anger management training and life coaching. When he’s not engaging jail residents, Davis is working to ensure that substance users can access Narcan.
Davis not only counts the late Settles as an inspiration, but also witnessing her son —and his friend — who is also named John, give back.
“We did a lot of the same things,” Davis told The Informer. “Right now he is willing to give back to any community, especially his. He wants to help now. That’s what I learned from [the late Settles]. It’s time to help our communities, not tear them down.”
A Daughter of ‘The Hill’ Sets Out to Break Down a Wall
For more than a decade, as the District invested in public housing redevelopment, Settles counted among those demanding that residents are at the table when DCHA and other parties make decisions. In 2019, a couple months before the pandemic, Settles criticized officials who she said didn’t provide clarity about the process that would displace her neighbors and residents of 13 other public housing communities.
Years later, as she sat on her porch and looked at the brown street sign bearing her late mother’s name, Settles said that respect for “The Hill” must start with community members’ recognition of their greatness.
“The culture of this community deserves to be recognized — like the culture of Kenilworth, the culture of Barry Farm,” Settles said. “It’s never been captured as a plus. It’s always been on the decline.”
An even larger issue, Settles said, stems from how Black people see residents of public housing.
“We are not the projects,” Settles said. “We are public housing, meaning public dollars are being used. Know your history. They ain’t giving us nothing. This land was secured for us.”
For 40 years, as Settles followed in her mother’s footsteps, as an advisory neighborhood commissioner and DCHA board member, she too attempted to break down walls — literally and figuratively — between public housing residents and neighbors who lived on private property.
That fight, she said, continues to this day.
“There’s a fence that separates one side of 37th Place from the other, and that’s the private side,” Settles told The Informer. “For many years, we’ve been accused of [circulating drugs], but it’s them not us. Way more crack houses over there than we had over here. But yet it still was us, not them.”
Though long retired, Settles implores District leaders to complete that job.
“There’s too much pain involved in that fence,” Settles said. “It’s like a wall. The bad spirits have no way out, and they still don’t.”