AFGE 2725 - Power To The People

06/18/2026

Tuesday night was full of energy listening to my dear sister of the District, President Aisha Williams of AFGE Local 2978, remind us why Janeese Lewis George earned our trust.💜💜💜

From Aisha’s voice to AFGE Local President Countee Gilliam’s steady presence throughout this campaign, labor showed what it means to stand in the gap for those who stand with workers.

I know DC felt that. 💜🙋🏿‍♂️🫡

06/10/2026

06/06/2026

Some voters look at politics candidate by candidate.👀🤔

But sometimes you have to look at behavior over time.🧐

Not the slogan.🚫

Not the mailer.🚫

Definitely not the smiling photo-op.🚫

The pattern.✅

In 2017, during the Brookland Manor fight, residents were organizing with ONE D.C. around housing, displacement, and affordability. Street Sense reported that Kenyan McDuffie said he would meet with “residents — only with residents,” while criticizing the role of “outside groups.”

But the article also makes clear that many of those residents were connected to ONE D.C. In other words, the community and the organization were not so easily separated.

That raises a fair question:

When people organize together, why try to separate them?

Fast-forward to 2025, and I saw a similar pattern in labor spaces when multiple unions sought to meet together as a coalition, with Mr. McDuffie.

Again, the question is not just whether someone will take a meeting. He wanted to meet with separate locals-not as a coalition.

The question is: under what conditions?

With whom?

And who gets left out when organized people are told to come separately?

Working people should be curious about that.

Because tenants organizing together is power.

Workers organizing together is power.

Communities organizing together is power.

And if a leader is more comfortable with people divided than united, voters should ask why. 🤔🤔

Division in 2017 with tenants.
Division in 2025 with labor.

Maybe it’s nothing.🤔

Or maybe it’s a pattern worth examining.🧐

06/03/2026

There is a pattern voters should pay attention to.

Years ago, during the Brookland Manor fight, residents and ONE D.C. were trying to organize around housing, displacement, affordability, and the future of their own community. According to Street Sense Media, Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie said he had agreed to meet with “residents — only with residents” and argued that “outside groups” made the meetings less productive.

That may sound minor at first. But sit with it.

The residents themselves were organizing with ONE D.C. Some of those residents were ONE D.C. members. Their community organization was part of how they built power, created transparency, and tried to keep the process from being handled behind closed doors or broken into smaller, easier-to-manage pieces.

Now compare that to labor.

In my own experience coordinating with several unions and building labor coalitions, I saw a similar posture. There was resistance to meeting with us en masse as an organized coalition. Not one-off conversations. Not isolated side meetings. Not smaller rooms where people can be separated, softened, or handled individually. We were trying to show up together because workers understand something very clearly: collective power matters.

That should raise real concerns for voters.

Because leadership is not just about whether a politician will meet with people. It is about how they choose to meet with people. Do they welcome organized communities? Do they respect coalitions? Do they engage groups that have built trust among residents, tenants, workers, and families? Or do they prefer to separate people into smaller pieces and manage the fallout with narrow, temporary, Band-Aid fixes?

DC has big problems. Housing displacement is a big problem. Worker pay is a big problem. Public safety is a big problem. Government accountability is a big problem. Affordability is a big problem. These issues will not be solved by politicians who are uncomfortable when people organize together.

We need leaders who bring large groups of people to the table and build real solutions with them.

Not leaders who only want the table set on their terms.

Not leaders who treat organized tenants, organized workers, and community coalitions like obstacles.

Not leaders who appear more comfortable dividing people than confronting the systems hurting them.

A pattern is a pattern.👀

And voters should ask themselves: is this the kind of leader who builds power with the people — or the kind who tries to manage, separate, and neutralize it?

An article about a new housing developments in Northeast D.C that has lead to heated discussions.

06/01/2026

05/27/2026

DC’s Ranked Choice Voting system is creating some interesting political strategy this cycle. We’re seeing candidates cross-endorsing each other and asking voters to rank them #1 and #2 “in no particular order.” More recently, some are also rolling out endorsements from retired or high-ranking councilmembers and political insiders.

And to be clear — coalition building matters. Relationships matter. Endorsements matter.

But voters should also ask a deeper question: what does it mean if a candidate can successfully build coalitions with individuals and political peers, yet consistently struggles to build broad enthusiasm with organized groups of people like labor, tenant advocates, community organizations, or other grassroots constituencies?

There’s a difference between commitment alignment and clout alignment.

One is rooted in shared struggle, organizing, and collective priorities. The other can start to feel like strategic proximity and political networking.

DC is too diverse, too complex, and facing too many serious challenges for leadership to be built primarily through insider ecosystems. The strongest coalitions aren’t just made up of candidates and elected officials — they’re built with actual people.

That’s the difference voters should pay attention to.

CoalitionBuilding