RECIPIENT OF THE DC BLACK MBA ASSOCIATION 2023 LEGACY AWARD
Serving Our Community in the DMV
Vol 59 No 38...July 4 - 10, 2024
Two Returning Citizens to Forgo 4th of July Celebrations
Conversation About Utility Shutoffs Reaches Council Once Again
Antone White, Eric Hicks Broaden Movement for Justice and Reparations By Sam P.K. Collins WI Staff Writer
Office of the People’s Counsel, Pepco at Odds about Unpaid Bills By Sam P.K. Collins WI Staff Writer Since its re-establishment nearly 50 years ago, the Office of the People’s Counsel (OPC) has helped overburdened utilities customers enter payment plans and get their electric, gas, and water and phone service restored. However, Sandra Mattavous-Frye explained utility companies in recent years have been hard pressed to provide relief to District consumers with unpaid bills, going as far as shut off service during the winter and summer months. “The utilities are not reaching out for collaboration to improve the service and the life of the consumers we serve,” Mattavous-Frye told The Informer. “Usually consumers go to the utilities and do not get any relief then they would come to us and we’d negotiate a payment plan or settlement… It’s not frequent that we can do that. The consumer would be pressured to pay a certain plan that’s higher than their bill, then they default and are back where they started.” OPC and Ward 1 D.C. Coun-
UTILITIES Page 22
Around the Region Page 5
5Antone White, a returning citizen and founder of Our City DC, often speaks to residents at the D.C. Jail. He doesn't plan to partake in July 4 celebrations this year. (Courtesy Photo)
As people across the nation gear up to commemorate 248 years of American independence, Antone White said he, for another year, won’t partake in any celebrations this July 4, out of his belief that Black people need to shift their collective focus. “That day is a pagan celebration that comes with something negative,” said White, founder and executive director of Our City DC, a digital platform focused on fostering urban unity and
tackling gun violence. “A lot of people who possess guns and lack discipline want to fire their pistols up in the air.” White, a returning citizen, joined two other returning citizens -- Eric Hicks and ex-drug trafficker Ricky Donnell “Freeway Rick” Ross -- at a virtual event on June 8 intended to unite organizers in not only tackling gun violence that has plagued the U.S. and other countries in the Western Hemisphere, but determining the source of that dysfunction.
ACTIVISTS Page 44
THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE OF 2024:
A CNN Spectacle, Some Washingtonians Concerned About How Both Candidates Address Issues By Stacy M. Brown, Harrison Buck and Juan Benn Jr. WI Senior Writer and Chevrolet Discovering the Unexpected Fellows
The first presidential debate of 2024 between President Joe Biden and criminally convicted former President Donald Trump was filled with false facts and heavy criticism. CNN, which declined to provide Black-owned media with any of the more than 800 credentials it passed out, enabled a boat load of misinformation and flat-out lies to pass through their airwaves like bad wind. “Absolutely disgraceful that the CNN moderators refuse to factcheck Trump on anything,” said human rights activist and attorney Qasim Rashid. “This is journalistic malpractice, and it is decimating our democracy.” Writer and attorney Olayemi Olurin noted that the journalists and current president should have been better equipped to make
DEBATE Page 42
5 Daccarri Ivy and her nephew attend the Mass Poor People’s and Low Wage Workers Assembly in Washington, D.C. (Ashleigh Fields/The Washington Informer)
Poor People’s Campaign Moral March on Washington Draws National Crowd
Barber II ignited the crowd by emphasizing minimum wage workers control the crucial swing vote in various states. “In this time poor people, low wage workUnion workers from across the United States assembled for the Moral March on ers, religious leaders and moral advocates, we Washington held adjacent to the Capitol on join voices today, hear us America, to declare Saturday, June 29, where the Rev. William MORAL MARCH Page 44 By Ashleigh Fields WI Contributing Writer
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