Opinion

Today, the D.C. Council will consider a series of emergency bills that significantly infringe upon the authority of D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) to manage the procurement process, which, in this case, involves vendor contracts with a…

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s plan to pour more than half a billion dollars into affordable housing isn’t enough to meet the need or halt gentrification in the city, but give her credit for trying.

Our family is always flattered when my father, Robert Kennedy, is referenced in current public debates … if the result reflects his essential values. In the recent wrangling over D.C. statehood, however, his 1963 testimony before the House…

Last month while biking, I was accosted by a man driving a car who screamed something racist at me. This incident is part of a bigger story, of my life, other Asian Americans, and other people, pedestrians, and cyclists, who are still…

I’m proud to pay taxes that support my city and its residents. D.C. has the opportunity and the resources we need to build a society that is compassionate and equitable, where race and ward do not predict one’s health, education or income…

By the time President Donald Trump left office in January, he had appointed all seven members of the Commission of Fine Arts, a federal design oversight body that has shaped the nation’s capital and federal architecture since 1910. All…

On a warm Saturday evening, Minnie Elliott, 83, sat with children on folding chairs outside her Brookland Manor apartment in Northeast Washington. They were waiting to watch a documentary called “What Happened 2 Chocolate City.”

In the summer of 2020, several councilmembers led an effort to defund the streetcar extension to the Benning Road Metro Station in Ward 7. In doing so, they made several statements on the record about the project and Ward 7.

In the year since George Floyd was murdered, we have seen uproar, protest, conflict and change. And we have seen the creation of one surpassingly great work of public art: Black Lives Matter Plaza, a brilliant and searing exercise in…

One of the most nettlesome objections to extending congressional representation to the residents of Washington, D.C., is that it requires a constitutional amendment. Many Republicans say this, which is hardly surprising. But it’s also the…

Terrance Wilson didn’t need to hear how his daughter ended up stabbed at least 48 times.

AFTER THE Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, lawmakers in Washington recognized the urgency of taking steps to prevent future attacks. A landmark commission investigated the attack’s root causes, reforms were made in intelligence gathering and…

In January, D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), chair of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, sang the praises of the selection of Linda Harllee Harper as D.C.'s first gun violence prevention director. The District…

To this day, only three of the 49 full-service grocery stores in D.C. are located in Wards 7 and 8.

My 6-year-old noticed the raised dots first.

In 1966, the United Nations identified adequate housing as a fundamental human right as part of its International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. But, even as early as 1944, in his State of the Union address, with the…

During a recent D.C. Council hearing, Patrice Sulton, a civil rights lawyer, began to scold Charles Allen, chair of the council’s judiciary committee. At issue was whether the District should create its own parole board, and Sutton, who is…

D.C. incarcerates a lot of Black people. If D.C. were a state, it would have the highest incarceration rate in the country — the same country that incarcerates more people than anywhere in the world. Although Black people make up less than…

For a moment, on a recent evening, 12-year-old Elizabeth “Izzie” Sims isn’t focused on the hospital room around her.