Julius Hobson Sr. called D.C.’s vaunted Home Rule Charter “Home Fool.” He got it right. We are the fools, now as in 1974, when the law passed Congress and Hobson branded it so well. In the 1960s, Hobson was the original and most authentic of home grown activists. In his trademark pork pie hat, Hobson took on the clergy, the schools, the landlords. He helped end the track system in the schools that consigned black kids to lower level classes. He desegregated rental housing. He forced downtown stores to hire black clerks.
The capital city was overrun with rats, but the District government tried to eradicate them only in white neighborhoods on Capitol Hill and west of Rock Creek Park. Hobson vowed to load rats into a truck and dump them in Georgetown and the White House. Suddenly, the city’s rat patrols fanned out to black neighborhoods.
So it was no surprise that when Julius Hobson read the fine print in the Home Rule Charter, he was less than thrilled. At least two things stuck in his craw: Congress had ultimate control of revenues collected from D.C. residents; and the federally appointed U.S. attorney would serve as the local district attorney.
What would Hobson do now? Last week’s budget deal enshrines the “limited” in the 1974 law. Would Hobson take to the streets? Get arrested? I doubt it.
Hobson was a pragmatist. He understood the era within which he operated. Anything seemed possible in the 1960s and 1970s. Blacks and liberals beat Jim Crow. Poor people set up tents on the National Mall. College kids helped end the Vietnam War.
But the era of street protests is gone. Over. Mayor Vince Gray and council members got themselves arrested last week in protest; they felt good, ennobled even, but they had no effect on the budget deal that made a mockery of D.C.’s independence.
Ironically, we did have two chances to become truly independent. In Bill Clinton’s first term, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, we could have gotten total budget authority and a vote in Congress. The Dems dithered. We got nothing. And last year, when Congress was about to give our delegate a vote, gun rights advocates demanded that D.C. give up its right to regulate firearms. Frankly, I would have taken the deal. The council declined. We got zip, again.
What would Julius Hobson Sr. do?
My guess is he would poke fun at the District leaders and their show arrests. He would realize that appealing to Congress or the White House in these times is a fool’s errand.
He would demand that the mayor and the city council not make fools of themselves by acting stupid, by outfitting themselves with fancy cars, by hiring their friends and family. He would want them to run the government and schools well.
The current D.C. leaders, he might say, are the new Home Fools.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
