A few things I learned in DC

Sam Smith – On Thursday I take part in a zoom conference on the late DC civil rights leader Julius Hobson. If you don’t live in DC and haven’t heard of Julius Hobson don’t be surprised. What happens at the local level in America’s capital colony is of little interest to the media and, as …

FIFTY YEARS LATER

Sam Smith -The House passage of a DC statehood bill brings to mind that fifty years ago this month, I wrote an essay explaining for the first time how DC could become a state without a constitutional amendment. The plan was to reduce the size of the federal district created in the Constitution and to …

Interview with Sam & Kathy Smith on leaving Washington in 2009

WITH KOJO NNAMDI, WAMU, 2009 INTERVIEW

An interview with Sam Smith on the care and feeding of a third party

From an interview conducted by Ben Smith, a history major at Haverford College, on January 12, 2000 at the offices of the Progressive Review. Ben Smith, no relation to Sam Smith, was in Washington studying the history of the DC Statehood Green Party, which has elected candidates to public office for most of its thirty …

A short history of DC home rule

Sam Smith, 2007 - Even before there was a District of Columbia, home rule was a problem. The Nacostins, a peaceable tribe that lived on the banks of the Anacostia were constantly in danger of being annexed by Chief Powhatan's confederation. The Nacostins turned to the new English settlers as allies in keeping Powhatan at …

One good reason why Merrick Garland shouldn’t be FBI director

Sam Smith - Or on the Supreme Court for that matter. I admit to some personal bias in this, but because I was one of 19 plaintiffs in a case that went before DC's Federal Appeals Court that not only affected me but all the other deprived citizens of the nation's capital. After Garland and …

A short history of black Washington

SMITHSONIAN  There are a number of things that make the story of black Washington different. Among them: - Washington has always been a colony. Thus even if the city's blacks would become equal to other DC residents, they would still not be equal to other Americans. Further, at a number of critical moments in DC …

Essays on DC

2009 Last call One of the things you learn early as a writer is that the hardest parts of a story are the beginning and the end. The beginning of my story as a Washington journalist was over 50 years ago; the middle has encompassed all or part of one quarter of America's presidencies, and …

DC Diary: A new century

From "Multitudes: An Unauthorized Memoir" by Sam Smith San Francisco I long avoided San Francisco because I considered earthquakes one hazard I could easily eliminate. That was before both my sons took up periodic residence there and gave me the courage and purpose that I lacked. Now, my 17-year affair with the Bay Area is …

DC moments

Unofficial tales from an official city Sam Smith Although I have written mostly of national or general matters, I share with theologian Martin Marty the belief that we all need a place from which to view the world. While the effects of life may be global, life itself is local, something politicians and media often, …

The Washington swamp myth

Progressive Review, 2005 - We have established a swamp squad whose job it will be to reduce the epidemic of press mentions of Washington once having been a swamp-filled town. The first violator apprehended by this squad is Ann Gerhart of the Washington Post who, in the course of a crudely chipper Style article on …

DC in the 1990s

Sam Smith Time zones When I moved my office four blocks closer to downtown I knew I was going to be in a new neighborhood. What I soon found out, however, was that I was also in a new time zone. In my old digs, three blocks of old row buildings north of Dupont Circle …

DC in the 1970s

From "Multitudes: An Unauthorized Memoir"by Sam Smith AUTHOR IN APPALLING 1970s WEAR, SPEAKING AT A PARTY FOR HIS BOOK, "CAPTIVE CAPITAL," AT THE AFRICAN MUSEUM. JULIUS HOBSON AND JO BUTLER AT LEFT; GWEN REISS, MUSEUM DIRECTOR WARREN ROBBINS AND BOB BERG AT RIGHT. Moving into the 70s Memory can fool us. Up close the 1960s …

Ethnic relations: Beyond law and virtue

Sam Smith As I read about the growing ethnic conflict in the country, highlighted by police brutality against blacks and Donald Trump’s brutality against common decency, I have the feeling of moving backwards to a different time and place. It is as if fifty years of progress is being reversed, and the arguments and behaviors …

The birth of DC’s neighborhood commissions

[Remarks at a conference in 2006] Sam Smith - Washington's advisory neighborhood commissions came out of a time that seems distant today, a time before 9/11, George Bush, the closing of DC's public hospital and the socio-ethnic cleansing of DC. Sure, we were still recovering from the riots, but the very word 'recover' - one …