51st | Episode 3: 'Take This Thing To The Streets' Mikaela Lefrak: [00:00] Previously on 51st, the D.C. statehood cause is getting more attention than ever before. We wanted to know what got us here, starting from the very beginning. Why did the founding fathers create D.C. the way they did? One of the reasons we found was a mutiny. Kenneth Bowling: This was the ancient horror of the army, the military overthrowing the republic. Mikaela Lefrak: [00:22] Out of fear, the founding fathers demanded that the new federal government have exclusive control over its home district, separate from all the states and the whims of their governors. But they never figured out one thing: how the residents of that district would vote. George Derek Musgrove: Because it doesn't provide a mechanism for D.C. residents to vote, in effect, [it] strips the local vote. Mikaela Lefrak: And then a D.C. official played fast and loose with the city's budget. Chris Myers Asch: Congress looks into it and says, woah, what have you done? Mikaela Lefrak: And Washingtonians lost their right to vote for nearly 100 years. [01:00] I'm Mikaela Lefrak. On this episode of 51st: the struggle for self-determination – how D.C. gained back the right to govern itself. Well, sorta gained it back. Mostly. Anyway, let's just dive in. Mikaela Lefrak: [01:15] Sorry, just getting situated in my shoe closet. Kojo Nnamdi: Oh, that's fine. Mikaela Lefrak: Thanks for bearing with me. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Kojo Nnamdi: Not a problem. Mikaela Lefrak: [01:25] The fight to regain control of our local government was a long, long journey. Here to witness most of it was Kojo Nnamdi. D.C. area. locals probably recognize his voice from the Kojo Nnamdi Show, the WAMU radio program he's hosted for 20 years. Kojo Nnamdi: "Coming up on the Kojo Nnamdi Show with almost one million...". Mikaela Lefrak: Kojo's a local celebrity now, but he's originally from Guyana. He moved to Washington, D.C. in 1969. Kojo Nnamdi: [01:49] I found a predominantly Black city. The Black power movement had taken hold in such a way, as it did in many parts of the country, but in northern cities in particular. When you got here, everybody was wearing a huge afro, men and women alike. And the fashion feature at that point was wearing African gear. All the men were wearing dashikis. All the women were wearing, the black women, of course, were wearing head wraps. And then you began to see a few white people wearing dashikis and headdresses. But that was the cultural context of the time. It was a time when the Black Power movement promoted the concept of Black is beautiful. Mikaela Lefrak: I have to ask, did you have an afro? Kojo Nnamdi: [02:35] I certainly did. You know, I have to look at pictures of myself from back in those days, especially passport pictures that I have. And I don't recognize this hairy person that I see. Mikaela Lefrak: [02:49] So between the end of our last episode in the 1870s and when Kojo arrives with his afro, D.C. has transformed into a majority Black city that's pushing for the right to govern itself. How did we get here? [03:06] Well, the first big change for Washingtonians is the 23rd Amendment. In the early 60s, D.C. residents gained the right to vote for the president of the United States. The makeup of D.C. and the federal government is different than today. It's less partisan than it is now. And the city's population is more of a 50-50 split between Republicans and Democrats. That helps the amendment pass. Plus, a lot of Black residents hit barriers when they try to vote. The majority white advocates of the 23rd Amendment keep telling Congress... George Derek Musgrove: [03:36] ...This will not be a race thing. This will not be a problem. This will not increase Black access to the vote. Mikaela Lefrak: George Derek Musgrove, coauthor of "Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital." During the 1950s, D.C.'s Black population is growing and racist white politicians aren't interested in granting representation to black voters. So the 23rd Amendment doesn't include anything about voting representation in Congress or a local city government. D.C. can vote for president, but nothing else. Still, it's a big step for many Americans who had lived in D.C. their whole lives, 1964 is the first time they get to vote for president. Can you imagine? Newscaster: [04:19] For the first time since 1800, the Capitol looks down on voters going to the booths in Washington. They turn out in droves to cast their first presidential ballots in 164 years. President Johnson takes the three District of Columbia electoral votes to add to his victories in 44 of the 50 states. Mikaela Lefrak: [04:40] Voting for president, check. But Washingtonians are ready for more. It's the 1960s, the height of the civil rights movement. Black Washingtonians want the right to elect their own government. Eleanor Holmes Norton: [04:56] The city was in every way a colony of the United States. Mikaela Lefrak: Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.'s delegate to Congress and longtime advocate for D.C. home rule, that's what we call the right to elect a local government and a mayor. I interviewed her just outside of her downtown office and she remembers the deep segregation in D.C. at this time. Eleanor Holmes Norton: [05:16] If you went into the department stores, Black people could not try on clothes. The only thing that was different was that African Americans didn't have to sit in the back of the bus. In every other way, this was a segregated city when I grew up. Mikaela Lefrak: [05:33] She watches civil rights activists demanding change and she decides to join them. During the summer of '63 when she's in law school at Yale, she joins the civil rights movement. On a hot summer day while she's in Mississippi running voter registration trainings, she gets a call. Eleanor Holmes Norton: [05:50] The March on Washington is going to be organized. And Bayard Rustin, who was a mentor of mine, said, if you want to come work for the march, you can actually get paid. And understand, I'm getting paid for none of this. Remember, they had never been a successful march on Washington ever in the history of the United States. Well, I remember that day in a very special way, because one of my jobs with the march was to help people get busses and trains. Mikaela Lefrak: [06:22] August 28th, 1963, 250,000 protesters march on Washington demanding economic and civil rights for Black Americans. Norton has been helping to plan the march from an office in New York City. She flies into D.C. early that morning. Eleanor Holmes Norton: [06:40] As far as the eye could see, you could not see anything but people. So I was convinced from watching from the air that the march was going to be a success. Mikaela Lefrak: The civil rights movement and D.C.'s fight for local control are becoming intertwined, kind of like they are today. George Derek Musgrove: [07:04] There's an effort to actually make home rule part of the March on Washington agenda. What the organizers decide is that, you know, if somebody wants to make it, if someone wants to say something, they can but it's not going to be a part of the official plan. Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, speaking at the 1963 March on Washington: [07:22] "We're gonna march. We're going to walk together. We're going to stand together. We're going to sing together. We're going to stay together. We're going to moan together. We're going to groan together. After a while we’ll have: freedom. Freedom. Freedom now! George Derek Musgrove: But it's on the radar of all these civil rights activists. And 10 percent of the marchers came from D.C. Eleanor Holmes Norton: [07:50] Our work in the 1963 March on Washington led almost immediately to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and then to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Newscaster: President Johnson addresses a joint session of Congress to push a voting rights bill aimed at ending discrimination. It would appoint federal voting registrars in some instances and put an end to complicated literacy tests and other hampering tactics. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson: [08:31] Today is a triumph for freedom, as huge as any victory that's ever been won on any battlefield. Today. We strike away the last major shackle, although, is an ancient bomb. Mikaela Lefrak: The March on Washington is a huge success for Norton and the other organizers. It leads to real policy change. The new Voting Rights Act prohibits racial discrimination at the polls. [09:15] But for Black residents of the nation's capital, the Voting Rights Act does almost nothing because they don't have the right to vote for anyone except the president. This fact doesn't get ignored by the march's leaders. Leading civil rights activists like Martin Luther King Jr.