Sam Smith - Donald Trump’s planned federal take over of handling DC crime is one more example of his lies that go largely unchallenged. For example a US News & World Report study sites 25 cities as the most dangerous in this country. DC doesn’t even make the list. And NBC reports: "D.C. police data indicates that violent crime has decreased 26% compared to last year. The D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office also announced in January that violent crime in the district in 2024 was at a 30-year low, citing police data."
Further, NPR reports that violent crime in Washington hit a 30-year low last year, according to the U.S. Justice Department
What also doesn’t get mentioned is the lengthy exclusion of DC from some of the most important democratic rights granted the states of the union. For example, DC has neither two senators nor any members in the House; The capital of the world’s democratic role model remains, in fact, a colony and not a full participant.
This article appeared in the DC Gazette in June 1970. It presented, for the first time in print, the case for DC statehood. It also described for the first time how DC could become a state without a constitutional amendment. Three months later, the author joined a small group of activists led by Julius Hobson to form the DC Statehood movement.
Sam Smith, 1970 – About a year ago, the peripatetic Rev. Doug Moore had a good idea. He proposed that the District become the 51st state of the Union. A news conference was held, a committee was formed, a flag was devised and then — as so often happens in this town — nothing happened. Rev. Moore moved on to other matters and the fight for local suffrage was once again turned over to the polite liberals….
Those who could provide some sort of alternative for the bland blather that passes for home rule activism haven’t been much help. Some are victims of a masochistic pragmatism that dilutes goals before the battle has even begun. Considering themselves experts on what Congress will “accept,” they define away our demands until the home rule fight centers on legislation that would provide a charter commission with no guarantee of home rule at all, or until the sought-after representation measure becomes a semi-representation measure and then a demi-semi-representation measure.
Others tend to treat the matter as Rev. Moore did, the topic of this week’s news conference, a transitory talking point. Because home rule seems to difficult to obtain, those concerned with black doors getting bashed down by cops in the night, freeways being rammed through neighborhoods, and public housing tenants being evicted, naturally tend to put the more distant goals on hold and take care of today’s business.
But as long as we fail to make clear what it is we demand — unfettered, uncompromised self-determination — and until we show some inclination to fight for this goal, today’s business will be tomorrow’s business and the next day’s and on into the future. If we display little disposition to be free, can we really be surprised that we remain a colony?...
Statehood is a clear, just and attainable goal to which District residents can aspire…Statehood means nothing more nor less than what Wyoming, Rhode Island, Delaware, or any of the states smaller and larger than the District enjoy. When Alaska became a state, Congress declared that it was “admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the other States in all respects whatever.” That’s what we should demand: equal footing, not some more benevolent form of colonialism foisted off as “home rule.” In the old days, when Congress admitted new states, it put it even more gracefully and accurately.
The states were declared a “new and entire member of the United States of America.”
The District has never been an entire member of the United States of America. It is the indentured servant of the nation. Our goal must be simple and clear: the US must let us in.
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