Opinion

This week, the National Native American Veterans Memorial opens on the grounds of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, honoring a long tradition of service by Native American men and women. American Indians have served…

WITH 23 CANDIDATES vying for two at-large seats on the D.C. Council, it was inevitable that the winners would fail to secure a majority of the vote. Indeed, they didn’t even come close. At-large incumbent Robert White (D) got 26 percent of…

A WIN. That is how the president of the Washington Teachers’ Union characterized the decision by D.C. school officials to abandon plans to provide in-person instruction this year to high-needs elementary school students. No doubt the union…

A narrow view of the city’s electorate has emerged in some of the local reporting on this year’s D.C. elections. The District, as I understand it, has been reduced to a town consisting of longtime Black residents of moderate persuasion…

Eviction filings are more common in D.C. than in most other large American cities. While attention is often focused on “executed” evictions — that dreaded moment when law enforcement shows up to change the locks and remove the occupants —…

“Let’s circle back to that project after the election.”

In November, the D.C. Council will begin considering a number of major changes proposed by the mayor to D.C.’s legally binding 1,500-page Comprehensive Plan. The proposed amendments do not address the long-term impacts of the novel…

The courts this month struck down the president’s plan to cut food stamps to more than 700,000 Americans.

As president of Howard University, I have a unique window into the African-American students within my own institution, fellow historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other centers of higher education across the country.…

WITH VOTING by mail well underway in D.C. and early voting set to start Tuesday, the race drawing the most attention is for two at-large seats on the D.C. Council. The attention is well-placed: The choices voters make will shape the…

On any given day, residents can be seen jogging, biking, fishing and walking kids and dogs along the waterways of Washington and Northern Virginia. In season, they’re boating, kayaking and paddleboarding. Couples trying to salvage their…

It would be totally understandable for D.C. voters to take one look at this November’s election ballot for D.C. Council and have unwelcome flashbacks to the overcrowded Democratic presidential primary field.

As you approach, it looks like a blanket of fresh snow — a startling expanse of white.

The Franklin School in downtown Washington has been empty for more than a decade, except for a brief period in 2011 when the Occupy Movement used it as a homeless shelter. One of the most significant historic structures in the city, and…

The D.C. Public Schools system is well on its way toward undoing a gross insult to residents of the city. At the urging of the D.C. History and Justice Collective, and with support of students, alumni, D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh…

I ate the last of the season’s potatoes the other day, and it’s not a bad harvest achievement when you consider I dug the lot in July from a bed no more than 15 feet long. I’ve eaten many meals over the summer where the bulk of my plate…

The fatal police shooting of an 18-year-old man in Southeast Washington in early September provoked a wave of protests and calls for change, with members of the community expressing deeply felt anger and frustration with police practices…

The kids are not all right. Neither are their teachers, nor their families. Children are about to become victims of a lethal combination: pressure on local leaders to reopen schools, a shortage of necessary testing capacity, and…

“They just got put out.” Scary words heard more than 70 years ago by a kid growing up in the now exquisitely gentrified Foggy Bottom-West End area of Northwest D.C., which is separated from Georgetown by Rock Creek Park. “They just got put…

The Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain that fronts Union Station is broken. Not only because its plumbing stopped functioning years ago, or because it has been in disrepair since then — but also because its wretched symbolism is being…