Empower D.C. Works to Preserve D.C.’s History and Black Residents’ Future

Reporting for Multimedia Storytelling (SPRING 2020)

Empower D.C. staff. Courtesy of Empower D.C. official website.

Empower. To give someone the authority or power to do something. Also the name and modus operandi for Washington, D.C.-based organization Empower D.C., whose mission is “to enhance, improve and promote the self-advocacy of moderate and low-income D.C. residents in order to bring about sustained improvements in their quality of life.”

Founded in 2003 by Parisa Norouzi and Linda Leaks, Empower D.C. advocates for the maintenance of public housing throughout the District, most recently in Barry Farms and Ivy City, a historically Black neighborhood in Ward 5 founded in 1872.

“Our work in Ivy city actually proceeds the organization itself,” said Jillian Burford, a community organizer who joined Empower D.C. six months ago. “I believe Parisa said that she started in Ivy City in about 2001 in 2002. Our work is around affordable housing preservation, public housing, racial equity and the Comprehensive Plan.”

According to the District of Columbia’s official website, the Comprehensive Plan first came about in 2006 to frame future development throughout the city. It has since been amended twice – once in 2011 and now, so the finalized plan “reflects the changing conditions and community priorities throughout Washington, D.C.”

The District has attempted to include residents’ voices through a series of meetings held last fall. Empower D.C. has been front and center to ensure that government officials keep the most vulnerable in mind every step of the way.

She points to an enlarged Future Land Use map included in the draft Comprehensive Plan – peppered with color-coded sticky notes to indicate public housing units throughout D.C.

Orange sticky notes are used to show properties whose residents are at risk of displacement.

Ivy City, a neighborhood at risk of that exact scenario-- although not a public housing complex-- hits right at home for Burford. Literally.

In addition to Ivy City being one of Empower D.C.’s priorities coming into the new year, the historically Black and partly-low-income community sits a few blocks over from Burford’s home in Bloomingdale. As a resident who now organizes for the neighborhood, she said her work has opened her eyes to the disparities in the care given to Black and low-income communities in D.C.

“There were things I realized I took for granted in terms of access to even just green space,” Burford detailed. One of those green spaces included Lewis Crowe Park and the Crummell School, which was paved over by the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation. “Empower D.C. actually fought that from happening and made them move.”

Themes throughout Burford’s account of her work in D.C. reflect a larger issue-- the complete erasure of Black history in the pursuit of larger, more glamorous city development projects that ignore the rich Black history of the neighborhoods they look to build over. Burford specifically called out Alexander Crummell, an abolitionist who “influenced Paul Laurence Dunbar, W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey.”

She challenged elected officials like Ward 5 Councilperson Kenyan McDuffie and Mayor Muriel Bowser, both D.C. natives, and their role in properly advocating for residents throughout what has been deemed as an affordable housing crisis, noting that much of the policies and initiatives currently moving through city council don’t adequately address the racial inequity that underscores conversations about gentrification or provide anti-displacement protections for low-income residents.

Empower D.C.’s goal throughout this fight is to ensure residents feel emboldened to advocate for themselves, an organizing principle that guides much of their work.

“We were trying to get the residents of Barry Farm organized to be able to fight back against displacement or any kind of intimidation discrimination,” said Nicole Odom, organizing assistant. “Also, when it was time to move out, make sure that people were making the right choices for their family and understanding that they had choices.”

Organizing Director Daniel del Pielago supported this statement, adding that “that's really a huge piece for us. To have folks not feel because they may not be some fancy lawyer or have some fancy college degree that they're not able to participate in the processes.”

Del Pielago encourages anyone to attend their meetings to learn more and get involved: “People will come to us and say, ‘Well, you know, I don't know about this.’ and we're [say], ‘Can you knock on your neighbor's door?’ That begins that process of empowerment. People feel like ‘Yes, I'm able to do something like my effort has value.’”