Busy weekend for go-go activism kicks off with ‘Million Moe March,’ ‘First Ladies of Go-Go’

An ambitious long weekend of DC go-go activism kicks off tonight as organizers continue the spirited movement that began this spring as an effort to turn back on the speakers outside a Metro PCS store at 7th and U streets NW. Among the goals over the next four days are building support for DC statehood and highlighting similar experiences with gentrification-related issues in Atlanta and New Orleans.

One of two events on Thursday evening is the “Million Moe March,” an anti-gun-violence and pro-DC-statehood march and rally hosted by the Long Live GoGo group and co-sponsor 51 for 51, which is pushing to make DC the 51st state. Other backers include Black Lives Matter DC, Colors of Change, March for Our Lives DC, and The WIRE (Women Involved in Reentry Efforts).

Long Live GoGo is led by Justin “Yaddiya” Johnson, who has organized and promoted a number of cause-oriented U Street NW concerts in recent months. With the event’s name, Johnson chose once again to incorporate the DC slang term for friend, as he did with the Moechella concert earlier this year. The event fliers also add the phrases “A March for Peace” and “Hugs Not Slugs” and highlight support for DC Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton.

The march — a follow-up to this morning’s congressional hearing on Norton’s DC statehood legislation, which marked the House of Representatives’ first hearing on the subject in 26 years — will start at 6 p.m. at 7th and F streets NW in front of Capital One Arena. Spurred on by the Eastern High School marching band, attendees will proceed to 7th Street and Madison Drive NW on the National Mall.

Once there, beginning at 8 p.m., speakers will address gun violence and DC statehood. Among those invited are DC shadow Sen. Paul Strauss, at-large DC Council member Robert White Jr. and a representative from 51 for 51. Johnson said speakers will encourage people to put down guns, and to write to U.S. senators and representatives asking them to co-sponsor the DC statehood bill. Backyard Band — led by Anwan Big G Glover, who starred in The Wire — will perform.

Also on Thursday night, the #DontMuteDC group — led by Howard University professor Natalie Hopkinson, activists Ronald Moten and Tony Lewis Jr., and music producer Tone P — will present a “First Ladies of Go-Go” event from 8 to 10 p.m. on the rooftop of Eaton Workshop, 1201 K St. NW. 

Hopkinson described the overlap of the two events as “tragic scheduling” but stressed that “folks are welcome to stop by” the First Ladies concert after the march is over. 

The event — an impressive who’s who of women contributors to go-go music — will include vocalists Ms. Kim from Sirius Company, Michelle Blackwell from the What? Band, and Kacey Williams of Black Alley. The vocalists are slated to perform with a band led by Frank Sirius of Sirius Company. Although the current all-female band Be’la Dona will be unable to participate due to a gig elsewhere, Maiesha Rashad of 1990s band Maisha and the Hiphuggers is expected to participate despite recently having had knee replacement surgery. 

On Friday, #DontMuteDC is hosting a “Battle of the Bands & BBQ — DC vs. NOLA,” at 7 p.m. at Gateway Pavilion at the St. Elizabeths East Campus, 2700 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE. The event, also billed as “Mumbo vs. Gumbo,” is not the first such concert involving these two cities, both known for funky bands with horn players. Hopkinson noted that David Simon, producer of the HBO series The Wire and Treme, had a similar DC vs. New Orleans matchup in 2012 in New Orleans. 

Like DC, New Orleans has had its share of music-related gentrification issues over the years. Most recently, on July 10 in New Orleans, the city’s police department dispatched 10 cars and 40 officers to Frenchmen Street to respond to a complaint by a bookstore owner about the Young Fellaz Brass Band allegedly playing on the sidewalk in front of the shop’s entrance. After Young Fellaz member Eugene Grant was arrested and charged with obstructing public passages and resisting an officer, the hashtag #DontMuteNola began to appear online. The charges against Grant were later dropped.

The Battle of the Bands will include the New Orleans group Big Six Brass Band, along with DC’s Proper Utensils and Black Alley. There will also be a cook-off challenge between the local cuisine of DC’s Catering by John and the Louisiana cuisine of DC-based, Louisiana native Eric Tyson of Trés Creole Catering. 

Hopkinson said she is “excited to have DC people learn about the links between these two powerful cities in the best way possible: through their music and their food. And it is free!”

She added: “The displacement happening in these two cities is depressing, but it is always important to remember our culture is our strength, and to lean on that to help to get us through, as we have for the past 400 years.”

Wrapping up the weekend of events will be a panel discussion on Sunday evening on gentrification in DC, New Orleans and Atlanta at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, 1400 Constitution Ave. NW. At the museum’s request, the event is open only by invitation.

The panel is titled “The Sound of Chocolate Cities: Exploring Gentrification Through Music and Culture.” Participants will include Hopkinson; New Orleans’ Melissa Weber, curator of the Hogan Jazz Archives at Tulane University (who is also known as DJ Soul Sister on WWOZ and in New Orleans clubs); and Maurice L. Hobson, the Atlanta-based author of The Legend of the Black Mecca.

Hopkinson and Weber have had conversations about music and gentrification in New Orleans and DC for years. Like many New Orleans bands and DJs, Weber said, she has “experienced sound ordinance issues related to post-Katrina gentrification.” Weber is completing her master’s thesis work on DC go-go, and she and Hopkinson have talked about the similarities between DC and New Orleans when it comes to a variety of music- and culture-related topics.

“Our contact at the National Museum of African American History and Culture invited us and suggested bringing in the Atlanta element to round out the conversation,” Hopkinson said. “So we are pretty excited about having this conversation all come together in the Oprah Winfrey Theatre this Sunday.”

She and other #DontMuteDC organizers will also share details about Smithsonian Folklife’s oral history project aimed at documenting the movement’s history.