Welcome to the ONE DC website: Our mission is to exercise political strength to create and
preserve racial and economic equity in Shaw and the District.
From October 25-27, ONE DC board and staff attended the “Showdown in Chicago”, a direct action event led by National People’s Action (NPA), SEIU, and the AFL-CIO to hold banking institutions accountable for the financial crisis that has affected countless individuals across the United States. Thousands gathered in downtown Chicago to protest circumstances of vulnerable populations that have long been targets of excessive overdraft charges, predatory lending, and high interest rates.
Although it seems the bankers are doing well after taxpayers provided them with a $700 billion bailout, the rest of us have not been so fortunate. Unemployment is predicted to reach 12 percent, foreclosures ravage our communities, and money for public services continues to be zeroed out in the next fiscal year budgets in many communities in the United States. NPA officials presented our demands to banks such as Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase stating an imminent need for transparency, accountability and stability in the financial system by ensuring banks and mortgage companies provide responsible, quality lending and financial services. We'll keep you posted about upcoming plans to ensure that those responsible for taking advantage of vulnerable communities are held accountable.
Last Updated on Friday, 22 January 2010 21:41
Dec. 12th - Weaving Shared Leadership
Friday, 06 November 2009 16:10
Weaving Shared Leadership - Dec. 12th Plymouth Congregational Church 5301 N. Capitol St. NE Washington DC 20011
ONE DC is exploring best ways to organize for racial and economic equity across racial and ethnic lines through Weaving Shared Leadership, our listening and strategizing project. Long-time ONE DC members, most of whom are African American, engaged in story circles with participants from various ethnic and racial groups. Life stories were shared through a facilitated digital storytelling process. As part of the process, each participant produced his or her own short video that tells a story about an experience in their lives in which some form of collective-action led to a meaningful transformation.
Last Updated on Friday, 22 January 2010 21:53
Nov. 12th - HUD Action
Friday, 30 October 2009 13:01
On Nov. 12th, ONE DC will participate in a
National People's Action network-sponsored town hall forum with the Department
of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The subject matter of the forum will
focus primarily on public housing, HUD subsidized housing, section 8 vouchers,
and homeless issues. The purpose of the event is to develop a productive
relationship and ongoing dialogue with HUD, engage local residents in open
dialogue with HUD about their experiences living in public and subsidized
housing or being homeless, to allow HUD to gather evidence about how the loss
of affordable housing units adversely affects communities, and to allow HUD to
share its plans for preserving the nation's dwindling public and subsidized
housing stock. The forum will be held from 7 pm - 9 pm. We encourage all
interested to attend and participate in the meeting. For more information or to
RSVP, contact Gloria Robinson at 202-232-2915.
Last Updated on Monday, 16 November 2009 12:15
Who Am I? And Who Are We?
Thursday, 08 October 2009 10:16
By Dan Anson
I am and we are to love and to be loved
People will know me by my consistency and authenticity! The world tries to feed me the myth of who I am to be and I am someone so much
more than how others see me!
People will see the image of the Divine in me when I am most me without apology.
I am not Divine, only human, but I am ordinary enough to do something
extraordinary: to love in practice, not in theory
The AFL-CIO
held its convention the week of September 14, 2009, in a time of uncertainty. A
new
Gallup poll showed
support for unions at the lowest level since they began posing the question in
1936. And, although there was an up tick in membership in 2008, the percentage
of American workers represented by a union is down to about 12 percent from
more than 25 percent in 1950.
But there is also a new AFL-CIO
leader, a new president in the White House and a Secretary of Labor who support
some of organized labor’s priorities like the Employee Free Choice Act . Bill
Moyers talked with experts Bill Fletcher, co-author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis
in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice, and Michael Zweig, director
of the Center for the Study of Working Class Life at SUNY Stony Brook, about
the state of organized labor and what it needs to do to face the challenges of
the 21st century economy. To read the transcript of this discussion,
click here.
Last Updated on Friday, 30 October 2009 13:04
an ode to the district
Friday, 31 July 2009 13:35
By Jordyne
I've lived in DC for over 4 years now and if there is
one thing I can say about this place, it is that for it to be so small, it is
packed with some of the most beautiful history I have ever studied. I hope that
my dc natives and transplants alike can appreciate this work and I hope it is
an appropriate expression of the power that lies within these 8 wards. In honor
of Emancipation Day, I presented this to community partners at ONE DC.
Sixty-five children from a majority African-America summer camp in Philadelphia
were denied admission to a swimming club in the suburbs because of their
race. The camp had a contract to use the Valley Swim Club's pool for
the summer. Once the club realized the kids were Black, it canceled
their membership.
A "Whites only" pool in 2009 should not be tolerated. This is just one example of the type of challenges people of color continue to face. It shows why ONE DC's efforts to create and preserve racial and economic equity are just as relevant today as civil disobediance and resistance were 45 years ago.
ONE DC joins colorofchange.org in publicly condemning the Valley Swim Club's discrimination,
and calling on the Justice Department to investigate whether the club
violated federal civil rights laws. To add your voice to the colorofchange.org campaign, click here.