NOTE: This article was updated at 8:33 am EST on 14 August 2024 to include comment from Villareal Johnson.
With three months until the general election, Ward 7 community leaders continue to explore how best to increase voter turnout and foster unity.
Penn Branch resident Paul Grant said both issues, especially that of voter turnout, have some relevance since fewer than 30% of Ward 7’s registered Democratic voters participated in the June 4 primary.
“We’re engaged but not at the level we should be,” Grant said. “It’s still a challenge to realize how much talent is still not on the field and in the game.”
This upcoming January, D.C. residents will get a chance to watch “Seven Rising,” Grant’s short film about the Ward 7 D.C. Council primary — arguably one of the most intense electoral contests in the last 20 years. The film, which covers the last 30 days of the primary election season, includes formal interviews with eight of the 10 Ward 7 D.C.Council candidates.
Other Ward 7 community members — including Ambrose Lane of the D.C.-based Health Alliance Network, longtime community development specialist Leticia Atkins, and The Rev. Kendrick Curry of Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church — also conducted on-camera interviews for the documentary.
Grant, president of the Penn Branch Community Association, said he produced the film, with the support of HumanitiesDC, to allow candidates an opportunity to reflect on their campaign and express their desires for the Ward 7 community.
He also told The Informer that he wanted to get a sense of how, or whether, the Ward 7 community actively selects leadership. Part of that research, he added, will include comparing the accumulation of votes in communities east of the Anacostia River versus that of Kingman Park, the upper middle-class enclave on Capitol Hill that became part of Ward 7 through the redistricting process.
During the race, schisms between east and west of the park appeared periodically, especially as Wendell Felder and others questioned the grassroots support and credentials of Ebony Payne, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Kingman Park who would eventually clinch second place in the Ward 7 D.C. Council Democratic primary.
For Grant, such questions mean little without some skin in the game.
“How can we as a community have a conversation about gentrification when we’re not engaged in selecting our own leaders,” Grant said. “ I’m very interested in understanding that sentiment. We’re all busy and running circles with jobs, kids and all the issues that life presents. I wonder about whether that played out in this election.”
Grant emphasized that Millennials, a demographic with an increasing presence in Ward 7, should have been included in that conversation.
“Candidates said they targeted voters 55 and older, but are [the millennials] campaigning to themselves at the same level? That’s who they might have missed.”
Ward 7 Democrats Mull Questions of Unity and Voter Participation
On June 22, the Ward 7 Democrats hosted a unity breakfast aimed at consolidating support behind Felder, the Democratic nominee for the Ward 7 D.C. Council seat.
The breakfast also provided some opportunity for clearing the air between candidates and raising funds for voter initiatives.
In his remarks, Felder gave kudos to the Ward 7 Democrats and congratulated his fellow candidates on their efforts. As he pivoted to the November election, he also gave a charge to those in room at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Southeast.
“Let’s focus on solutions to move our ward forward,” Felder said on June 22. “We have the unique responsibility to serve as safeguards for our residents. If we’re not on the same page, residents will suffer.”
He emphasized a need for unity despite divisive rhetoric locally and nationally.
“Let this recent election show that a ward divided is not a ward at all. We must be unified. As we head into the general election, I want to make sure I’m unequivocally clear when I say there’s no more time for division, gossip, egos. No more getting into ur own way,” he noted.
In the days following the June 4 primary, as D.C. Board of Elections (DCBOE) continued to tally votes, Felder maintained a narrow lead over Payne and Eboni-Rose Thompson.
Once the smoke cleared, he had a 427 vote margin of victory over Payne, while Payne accumulated 16 more votes than Thompson. This happened with fewer than 13,000 registered Ward 7 Democratic voters — 26.21% of the total number of registered Democrats in the ward — participating in the contest.
Though that percentage exceeded a goal set by the Ward 7 Democrats, leaders within the organization, including Dr. Delia Houseal-Smith, acknowledged that more needed to be done to educate and mobilize voters, especially those who don’t frequent the ballot box.
“Our voters are disengaged and disenfranchised,” said Houseal-Smith, interim chair of the Ward 7 Democrats. “Despite some of the turbulence we saw this election season, our common thread was around the issues and concerns with the state of our ward. If nothing else, it represents an opportunity to rally around those issues. We have to pull together our resources to turn our ward around.”
Felder didn’t respond to three requests, sent via text, for an interview about his post-primary plans.
While Ward 7 residents, organizers and politicos answered the rallying call on June 22, most candidates didn’t make it to St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church that morning. Denise Reed, a Fort Davis resident and board member of the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization, was the only candidate, other than Felder, to attend the unity breakfast.
Payne had a prior engagement. The Informer confirmed that she purchased a table and had someone attend in her stead. Thompson also didn’t attend the breakfast, nor did Veda Rasheed, Ebbon Allen, Kelvin Brown, Nate Bennett, or Roscoe Grant, Jr.
Villareal Johnson briefly attended the event before leaving. He later told The Informer in an email that his early departure from the unity breakfast stemmed from what he described as event organizers’ emphasis on collecting funds rather than amassing support from candidates who’ve been heavily involved in the community.
“I actively worked to get the other candidates to attend despite their legitimate reasons for protesting,” Johnson wrote in the email. “I did not stay because it was not a unity breakfast. It was a fundraiser for the Ward 7 Democrats and celebration of an individual not a community.”
Rasheed would later confirm that she had a prior engagement. Allen told The Informer that he was celebrating his wedding anniversary and mourning the death of an uncle during the breakfast.
Thompson, who also had a prior engagement, has since announced her re-election bid for Ward 7 D.C. State Board of Education seat. She told The Informer that, if elected to a second term, she wanted to secure funding for community schools and truancy reduction. Other priorities include building upon previous gains, including financial literacy standards and updated social studies standards.
In regard to voting, Thompson predicted a significantly higher turnout in November, when the nation would be voting for the next occupant of the White House. The heavy lifting for Ward 7 leaders, she said, involves encouraging voters in the community to give local elections just as much attention.
“We need to help our communities understand local elections matter just as much if not more,” Thompson said. “It is our local leaders who are responsible for the bread-and-butter, quality-of-life issues we experience every day. We owe it to our people to not only show them why it matters but prove with actions voting makes a difference for them.”
As the only other candidate present, Reed provided remarks at the breakfast in support of Felder and the entire Ward 7 community. Despite her loss, she expressed a desire to work with the Democratic nominee for the Ward 7 D.C. Council seat.
A conversation between the two of them is in the works, Reed told The Informer.
“I don’t think anyone should be selfish about their ideas or some of the plans that they have to move Ward 7 forward,” Reed said. “Everyone should be part of the discussion [because] if Wendell Felder doesn’t succeed, the ward doesn’t succeed. It’s going to be on him to get the work done.”
Part of ensuring Felder’s success, and that of Ward 7, Reed told The Informer, involves more voter engagement. She suggested a nonpartisan information campaign targeted at Ward 7 youth as the best means of reaching people of all ages, especially disillusioned parents.
“People don’t have faith in the process or faith that their needs will be addressed,” said Reed, national committeewoman of the D.C. Democratic Party who will represent the District at the upcoming Democratic national convention. “They will still need to be involved. One cannot complain if they haven’t voiced their issues.”
How Will Voter Education Efforts Take Shape?
When it comes to voter outreach, Allen said he wants to call on Black men to lead the charge.
Since the Ward 7 D.C. Council primary, Allen has put in plans for another iteration of Morehouse Day, an annual program he and other alumni of Morehouse College conduct at public and public charter schools throughout the District.
That programming, Allen said, will most likely also appear at Eastern High School, the newest school to be incorporated into Ward 7 via redistricting.
As he prepares to take Morehouse Day to the next level, Allen told The Informer that he’s in discussions with Felder about how to create a youth advisory board where young people in Ward 7 can keep the Ward 7 council member abreast of the issues affecting them and their peers.
While he heralded civics classes as a solution, and even a project to implement at Ron Brown College Preparatory High School, Allen said that Black men in Ward 7 must provide an example of how engagement looks.
“Black men need to understand their involvement and [how] advocacy can change the trajectory of our community and build up the children,” Allen told The Informer. “They can speak up and testify to change things in the community with more programs… It doesn’t have to be centered around sports, but improving our community holistically. The male presence isn’t visible so kids need to see that there’s power in [going to] the polls.”
Meanwhile, Payne said she and Felder spoke about the potential for collaboration. She noted that it will happen as they continue to work together in their roles as commissioners in Advisory Neighborhood Commission 7D.
In recent months, as the possibility of another Donald J. Trump presidency loomed large, Payne said she also thought about how disunity could further prime D.C. for federal intrusion on local affairs. She pointed out that the D.C. Armory serves as the base for the D.C. National Guard, which the mayor can’t dispatch without the president’s permission.
“We have a lot of issues and we need a lot of hands on deck so I would encourage people to remain positive,” Payne said. “We would be facing a lot of attacks on our democracy, and we want to be unified against all of that.”
Part of that effort, Payne told The Informer, involves increasing voter turnout and addressing apathy among the marginalized — which she said she did with a campaign volunteer who registered to vote during primary season.
“It’s necessary to pull in people who are not just showing up to every event but [to make sure] we’re reaching people who feel left out,” Payne said. “Getting younger people involved is important. Maybe people don’t realize that it costs nothing to vote. It’s a struggle to impress upon people the importance of taking that step.”
As she reflected on her campaign, Payne recounted often coming across who she described as passionate, but apathetic, constituents. Another group she said caught her attention were D.C. Jail residents, many of whom she learned refused to perform their civic duty, despite having their rights restored via council legislation years ago.
The reality of voter disengagement became more apparent, Payne said, days after the primary when she encountered constituents out of the loop about the special day — and missed it altogether.
“Most people are only voting when there’s a presidential election but they forget the importance of primaries in local elections,” Payne said. “When you’re not paying attention to these races, there are unintended consequences and things can change without your input.”
Rasheed, a lifelong Ward 7 resident and attorney, told The Informer that, since the primary race, she’s been focusing on expanding her law firm. By June 7, Rasheed counted among the first candidates to publicly congratulate Felder.
She said that, after discussing Felder’s vision with him, she’s willing to collaborate “where there’s alignment.”
While Rasheed, a millennial from River Terrace, counts housing affordability and public safety among Ward 7’s top issues, she too also has her sights on civic engagement.
She said that time’s of the essence for the Ward 7 Democrats to engage millennial voters.
“We have a lot of people registered, but they’re not coming out. We need to understand why and we need to make sure they understand the importance of making their voice known,” Rasheed said.
“It starts at elementary and middle school, having those conversations with our young people. Some people are issue voters [and] they come out for things that are important for them. If it’s not something that they are truly passionate about, they might not see the benefit.”