A D.C. Council member wants residents to remember the contributions of Black citizens and has sponsored a bill that will do just that. “The Commission on African American History and Culture Establishment Act of 2017” would establish a commission on Black History and Culture through the Mayor’s Office of African American Affairs and would organize and plan programming and events related to African-American history.
D.C. Council member Brandon Todd introduced a bill that would highlight the contributions of Black Americans throughout history. (Courtesy photo)
“With the immeasurable contributions of Washington, D.C.’s African-American population, creating a specialized commission to commemorate that history seems long overdue,” Todd said. “This commission and the programming it would oversee would be a valuable contribution to the Mayor’s Office of African American Affairs and our city as a whole.”
The bill would set up a nine-member commission, selected by the mayor, whose members must be approved by the D.C. Council. The commission would have the power to give grants to individuals and organizations that are working on projects pertaining to the District’s Black population as well as arrange cultural events, partner with other government agencies and encourage the study of the city’s Blacks in schools, places of work and religious institutions.
The commission would be financed by a self-sustaining entity known as the African American History and Culture Fund that would be supported by an annual D.C. budget appropriation, federal grants, and gifts and donations.
Blacks, who have long played a role in the history of the District, include Benjamin Banneker, a mathematician and inventor who surveyed and laid out the design of D.C. in the 1800s.
The city had one of the largest communities of freed men and women in the United States decades before the Civil War. On April 15, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the D.C. Compensated Emancipation Act, outlawing slavery, within in the city’s limits, which served as a basis for the famous Emancipation Proclamation nine months later.
The District was also home to pioneers such as Frederick Douglass and Mary Church Terrell, and is the home of Howard University, an HBCU. The city’s Black population was the largest in the country of a major city, starting in 1900 and it became majority Black in 1957.
The District’s Black population was involved in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and many of its neighborhoods were devastated by the 1968 riots that erupted as a result of the killing of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When the city was granted Home Rule by Congress in 1973, its first mayor Walter E. Washington was also Black and all but two members of the D.C. Council were Black.
However, the city’s racial composition changed in the 21st Century. A 2015 U.S. Census Bureau estimate showed that 48 percent of the District is Black and 44 percent is White. While the District’s mayor and House of Representatives delegate have always been Black, the majority of the D.C. Council, seven of its 13 members, are White. “The city has changed and there needs to be specific research as to why that has happened,” Tony Donaldson Jr., a resident of Ward 1, told the AFRO.
The District has a number of Black-oriented museums and exhibits including the recently opened Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Frederick Douglass home site, the African American Civil War Memorial and Museum, museums and collections at Howard University, and the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum.
“Many Black people are fleeing the city or they are being pushed out because of gentrification and high living costs,” Donaldson said. “Families and legacies are leaving and now the ‘new’ Washingtonians are coming in. This commission will respect the contributions of those who used to call D.C. home and embrace the new Washingtonians.”
Todd’s bill is being co-sponsored by D.C. Council members Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1), Elissa Silverman (I-At Large), Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), Robert White (D-At Large) and Trayon White (D-Ward 8). The bill was introduced on Feb. 7 by Todd and was referred to the Committee on Government Operations, which is also chaired by him.
“In my reading the bill is in line with the mission of ASALH to research, preserve and disseminate information about Black life, history and culture to the global community,” said Sylvia Cyrus, the executive director of Association for the Study of African American Life & History that was founded by Black historian Carter G. Woodson.