From Walmart to D.C. rights, college activists have taken on District issues, but many aren’t city residents and are not personally touched by the battle they’re fighting. The latest example was a Friday protest for D.C. rights organized by D.C. Vote’s chief student organizer Corryn Freeman. The group of about 70 protesters who descended on Capitol Hill to express outrage against federal oversight of the District was a mix of college students and longtime D.C. rights activists.
Freeman coordinated the group as they spread along a city block. She told The Washington Examiner that she started planning the protest more than three weeks before D.C. Mayor Vince Gray was arrested in a similar Capitol Hill protest on April 11. Freeman is a Howard University senior. She grew up in Columbia and is still a Maryland resident.
“It is important to some folks that she’s not directly impacted,” said Ilir Zherka, executive director of D.C. Vote. “We definitely need engagement from youth, and we’re thrilled to have her.”
Freeman said she’s planning to become a D.C. resident soon. “I love this city,” she said. Freeman said she got involved with D.C. Vote after hearing Zherka speak at Howard. She said D.C. rights touches her on a personal level.
“I’m a black woman. My parents instilled in me that my voting rights were won in blood,” Freeman said. “For me, it was in blood in two ways. As a woman and as an African American.”
A group composed almost entirely of college students that protested outside a developer connected to plans for Walmart to open stores in the District was a bit different. The 25 protesters who gathered outside the Woodley Park Metro station in December nearly got lost on the three-block walk to the developer’s house. A police officer tasked with covering the march had to direct the protesters to make the correct turn.
When it comes to D.C. rights, though, officials made clear on Friday that getting the younger generation involved – regardless of their residency – would be the only way to ensure the fight goes on.
The fight for D.C.’s statehood, “is a relay race through time, with one generation passing the baton to the next,”
Zherka told the protesters before they marched. “What we need is student power, youth power, and that’s what today is about.”
