Trump Takes Control of D.C. Police as Residents Push Back

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

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August 11, 2025

By Sam P.K. Collins and Stacy M. Brown, Word in Black

Protesters with Free DC take to the 16th Street, near the White House, after President Donald Trump’s announcement on Aug. 11 that he is seizing control of the Metropolitan Police Department. (Ja’Mon Jackson/The Washington Informer)

[…]

Protestors push back on Federal law enforcement encroaching on District neighborhoods

Federal infringement on local affairs reached what some would describe as astronomical levels over the past several days.

More than a dozen federal law enforcement agencies encroached on District neighborhoods; a federal prosecutor demanded the reversal of legislation that has secured the early release of those sentenced to prison as youth; and on Monday, President Donald Trump announced he is seizing control of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

For an hour on Saturday, organizers delved into the history of the statehood movement, noting D.C. Mayor for Life Marion S. Barry, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Anise Jenkins of Stand Up! For Democracy in DC as key figures of the movement.

They also drew parallels between the current state of affairs and the Reconstruction Era, a period of white backlash against Black political advancement.

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White people have often used violence to keep Black folks in check, including during enslavement.

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