As the clock winds down to the primary that will determine D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s successor, local and federal law enforcement are still clashing with young people in commercial districts designated as emergency curfew zones.
For the adults who spend time with these youth, the emergency curfew zones aren’t showing District lawmakers in the most positive light. Recent events have even caused one local organizer to question whether city officials are truly prioritizing public safety.
“As far as the curfews go, I always felt as though they were a bit predatory,” said D. Floyd, a local youth advocate. “They primarily target business districts where the candidates who voted for the actual curfew have favor and have relationships. It seems the curfews are targeting areas connected to big business as opposed to actually addressing any threats of crime.”
Floyd, a member of the D.C. Youth Violence Prevention Coalition, has spent the last seven months hosting weekly events at Barry Farm Recreation Center in Southeast for young people. Oftentimes, other coalition members accompany youth to the Wharf in Southwest, and other commercial areas with heavy police activity on Friday nights and during the weekend.
As Floyd recounted to The Informer, local and federal law enforcement agents change their demeanor when they see young people with adults.
“They’re on their best behavior,” Floyd said about the officers. “They high-fiving the kids and all this other [stuff].”
However, as Floyd explained, when the youth are by themselves, the interactions become a bit more contentious.
“They’re forcing the kids around,” Floyd told The Informer. “If the kids jump back, they’re arresting them. Just look at all the arrests that took place at Metro stations last year when they started that curfew. It’s just an astronomical number for kids that shouldn’t even be having to pay to get on the Metro.”
In recent years, Floyd has counted among those who’ve advocated for District youth to have more economic opportunity, whether that’s through exposure to entrepreneurship or increasing compensation for D.C. summer youth employment participants. He said that he wants the next mayor to have the best interests of young people at heart, more so than corporations.
“The businesses come and go,” Floyd told The Informer. “Amazon is going to come set up, then they’re going to leave…but we have people that have been here in this area for their whole lives and for generations… so we have to honor that. The next mayor has to be okay with that, as opposed to serving any political agenda.”
Lewis George Clinches Union Endorsements, Promises Career Pathways for Youth
In recent months, D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) and former At-large Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie have emerged as front-runners in the Democratic mayoral primary. A March 10 filing by Lewis George’s camp shows contributions totaling more than $1.6 million, while McDuffie’s March 10 filing shows the former at-large council member having raised more than $1.5 million.
The campaign season got underway on March 14 with a mayoral and D.C. delegate candidate forum that Free DC hosted at Matthews Memorial Baptist Church in Southeast. Though the mayoral portion had moments where Lewis George and McDuffie clashed, both candidates agreed on not extending what’s known as the emergency juvenile curfew.
Days later, Lewis George joined representatives of ATU Local 689, SEIU 32BJ, UFCW Local 400, Unite Here! Local 23 and Local 25, the Baltimore-DC Metro Building Trades Council, LiUNA, and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on the grounds of RFK Campus where they announced their endorsement of Ward 4 council member, citing her union advocacy during RFK football stadium negotiations.
“Her lead opponent, Kenyan McDuffie, took the first deal, and the first deal was not the best deal,” said Josh Armstead, vice president of Unite Here! Local 23. “The first deal left out D.C. residents. I was there, down to the wire with Janeese and [Ward 5 D.C. Councilmember] Zach[ary] Parker as they stood up for D.C. workers to get the best deal.”
Armstead went on to say that, if elected, Lewis George would prioritize District residents, including the more than 2,000 who call themselves Unite Here! Local 23 food service and hospitality workers.
“What we need to make sure of as we move into the future, as we’ve seen the city change in unimaginable ways, is to make sure there’s a city that works for everyone,” Armstead said. “Not just the millionaires and the billionaires, not just the well-connected and the bourgeois, but actual working people, whether you live in Ward 7, Ward 6, Ward 5, Ward 4, Ward 1, or have any type of job you should be able to…thrive in this city. That’s why we need Janeese as our next mayor.”
Lewis George would later articulate her vision for the stadium, which is slated for 2030 completion.
“It’s a new development and a new neighborhood, but it must meet and support the needs of people already here,” Lewis George said. “Neighboring areas east of the river, H Street Corridor, Penn Corridor, Minnesota Avenue, all these places. That means ensuring development expands beyond RFK but also robust steps to prevent displacement.”
By the time of that March 19 press conference, Lewis George had already clinched the support of: the Washington Teachers’ Union, Free DC, Working Families Party, Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America, and Safe & Affordable DC. She also had supporters in: D.C. Councilmember Robert White (D-At large), D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1), and former Ward 7 D.C. Councilmember Yvette Alexander.
That afternoon, Lewis George, flanked by union members, revealed her economic development plan. Elements include: the establishment of a “rapid response federal workforce transition center” to help laid-off federal workers and contractors transition into teaching and other in-demand jobs; partnerships with local universities and hospitals in the development of innovation districts; and attracting major universities to establish satellite campuses.
Lewis George also expressed a desire to open temporary spaces in D.C.-owned buildings and vacant commercial storefronts for pop-ups and incubators that support local entrepreneurs and artists. In her remarks, Lewis George had a message for the youth, a constituency that she wants to engage via intense job support, expansion of vocational and career and technical education, and collaboration with unions to strengthen pathways to electrical work, plumbing, engineering, carpentry and other jobs.
“Every child should know there is more than one path to success, and that path should be easy for our kids to see and reach,” Lewis George said. “By the time our students get to high school, they should be able to earn real credentials, real experience, and a real head start on a career. Because young people don’t just need promises, and they don’t need to just be criticized. They need opportunities that support their growth. And we also have to meet this moment with urgency.”
Lewis George said she’d be able to take a balanced approach.
“Let me say this plainly, my vision isn’t business versus labor,” Lewis George said. “The RFK development here underscores the importance of partnership.”
McDuffie Reveals His ‘Affordability, Opportunity, Accountability’ Platform, Touts Past Support of Small Businesses
McDuffie told The Informer that personal experience puts him in the best position to help the District’s young and disillusioned.
“The thing that changed my entire life after dropping out twice from the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) was an opportunity, and it came in the form of a job carrying mail for the United States Postal Service,” he said. “In many ways, it saved my life because it took me from out of just hanging out and making bad decisions with my friends to actually having a job that I could work with overtime, good-paying wages, union benefits, and economic security for a 19-, 20-year-old kid, something I’ve never had and many of the people in my community didn’t have.”
McDuffie said much of his past work on the council— including that involving the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results Act— has been inspired by a yearning to help those most at risk of engaging in gun violence or becoming victims of it.
“To put them in a classroom setting in the Pathways Program, give them subsidized employment while they’re learning the skills that they need to be able to compete for jobs in today’s economy so that they can take care of themselves and their families,” McDuffie told The Informer. “That’s what opportunity looks like, and residents across the District of Columbia want somebody who’s going to continue to fight for those types of residents who don’t see themselves reflected in the policies happening in government.”
Since jumping into the race, McDuffie has secured endorsements from: former D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt, former Ward 3 D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), former U.S. Justice Department pardon attorney Liz Oyer, Associated Builders and Contractors of Metro Washington, and Opportunity DC.
His mayoral campaign platform centers on: affordability, opportunity and accountability.
As it relates to opportunity, McDuffie’s vision includes investments in vocational programs and career and technical education. He also expressed a desire to: align UDC and adult workforce programs with in-demand industries; create pipeline support in tech, climate, health care, hospitality and trades; and facilitate a federal workforce transition pipeline into cyber and advanced technology industries.
McDuffie’s platform also includes a “Stay in DC” small business fund to prevent displacement of locally owned stores. Other priorities include investments in tech startups, the creative economy and entrepreneurial sectors, and a fully integrated digital business portal to ease business operations.
In further explaining his position on entrepreneurship, McDuffie, former chair of the council’s Committee on Business and Economic Development, touts his past support of Sankofa Video, Books and Cafe via property tax relief. He also spoke about his part in the launch of the Go-Go Museum & Cafe’ launch and the Spice Suite’s move to a larger location.
“It’s an institution in this city, and it means something for it to be able to exist in our city in a time where other businesses are seeing prosperity,” McDuffie said about Sankofa Video Books & Cafe, located on Georgia Avenue. “That’s what business looks like. It looks like the Spice Suite. It looks like Florida Avenue Grill. It looks like Ben’s Chili Bowl. It looks like the Go-Go Museum.”
He told The Informer, however, that his past work on the council goes well beyond those three businesses and into jurisdictions under Lewis George’s purview.
“Supporting those Main Street programs across the District of Columbia, like the one I helped establish in Ward 4 along Upper Georgia Avenue. Like the one I helped establish in Ward 4 around Riggs Road and South Dakota Road that shares a border with Ward 5,” McDuffie said. “Like the ones I helped establish around Bladensburg Road, around Wisconsin, Connecticut Avenue in Ward 3. I worked with those communities to identify what their needs were and put money in the budget working with various council members and the mayor so that we can help to facilitate the creation of small businesses that are sustainable, that can really grow, and hire more people.”
McDuffie, who’s facing criticism about his relationship with developers, continues to reject the notion that economic development disadvantages the District’s marginalized.
“I know what it’s like to have that narrative exist, and it’s not healthy for the District of Columbia,” McDuffie told The Informer.
“Washington, D.C. needs to mean business,” he continued. “We’re not just talking about big corporate businesses. We’re talking about the thousands of small businesses that call Washington, D.C. home, that are employing residents across our city…up and down Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, Marion Barry Avenue, up and down Rhode Island Avenue, up and down North Capitol Street, up and down Georgia Avenue.”
A Business Owner and Young Person Speak Out
The D.C. Democratic mayoral primary will take place on June 16. Candidates who’ve submitted nominating petitions are in a challenge period that ends at the close of business on March 30.
As that process unfolds, Angel Gregorio counts among those who are standing up for McDuffie, telling The Informer that McDuffie has a history of “turning conversation into legislation.” That legislation, she said, concerns the Commercial Property Acquisition Fund, through which she was able to move the Spice Suite from its Fourth Street NW location to a strip mall on 22nd Street and Channing Street in Northeast.
“It helped me tremendously because to get the Commercial Property Acquisition Fund money, you have to be clear to close anyway,” Gregorio said. “I had the financial standing and was doing well in business already…Kenyan actually saw this opportunity for a business that was doing good to do even better by staking a claim and owning commercial property.”
Gregorio said McDuffie has a record of supporting marginalized and overlooked District residents, including business owners like herself, and the justice-involved, a population that includes members of her family. She extolled McDuffie’s work, telling The Informer that the longevity of her business is a testament to what he will do as mayor.
“I have a returning citizen on my payroll. I have native Washingtonians on my payroll who have had jobs that they weren’t necessarily proud of, but it was just something to support their families,” Gregorio said. “One of my staff has become a homeowner through being able to be gainfully employed through the Spice Suite. I employ Howard University students. We are the backbone and people say that and they talk about how much they love and want small businesses to thrive, but the city…does not always act like it.”
On the other side of the District, Jevonte McCollum is spending his junior year between Ron Brown College Preparatory High School in Deanwood and the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Congress Heights, where the Advanced Technical Center (ATC) is located. Upon completion of his college-level coursework, Jevonte will have an EMT certification, which he said places him on a path to study cardiology at either George Washington University in Foggy Bottom or Morehouse College in Atlanta.
“The ATC has helped me,” Jevonte told The Informer. “It has opened my eyes to different things in the medical world. I have college professors and they really take their time to explain everything to me, so I fully get the grasp of it.”
Last year, McCollum celebrated many successes at the ATC, including a moment where he showed Bowser one of his projects during her visit to the Whitman-Walker-Max Robinson Center. McCollum, who’s also learning barbering elsewhere, said that the District could do more in expanding the program and allowing more young people to pursue career pathways of interest.
“If some don’t want to go to college, they might want to do a trade,” McCollum said. “Open up different opportunities or different programs and actually spread awareness…so the troubled youth who are always outside can put their time somewhere else doing something productive.”
After what Jevonte described as a disappointing experience on the Chancellor’s Student Cabinet, where D.C. Public Schools issued a cell phone ban, despite the teen and his peers’ opposition, he implored District leaders to align career and technical education to the desires of the student population.
“Some people want to be an electrician or probably doing hair and nails,” Jevonte told The Informer. “Everybody’s different. The best bet would have a survey done to actually get students’ advice. That’s how the new mayor should move forward on their decision for trades or certain programs.”
Not yet of age to vote, Jevonte still weighed in on what he thought to be the most important quality of the District’s next mayor.
“When they make relations with the students, [they shouldn’t] do it for personal gain,” Jevonte told The Informer. “They should actually take time to learn [about] the students. That might help them in the long run because they’re able to help them and they might be able to help them.”