On April 16, 1862, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed an act freeing the 3000 enslaved people in the District of Columbia. This was nine months before he signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in the Confederate states, many of whom actually remained in bondage until the the war’s end in 1865, and 20 months before ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which definitively outlawed slavery everywhere in the United States.
Tomorrow Saturday, April 16th, the District of Columbia will celebrate District Emancipation Day, with speeches, concerts, fireworks and parades. There’s a bit of rain on that parade, though, if you take a closer look at history. That 1862 act was called the Compensated Emancipation Act, and it authorized payments to DC slaveowners rather than liberation of enslaved people on moral grounds. It even sought to promote emigration of former slaves outside the borders of the United States.
In any case, Black Washingtonians had their freedom. That’s definitely worth celebrating.
More:
“When Slaveowners Got Reparations,” Tera W. Hunter, New York Times
“D.C. celebrates its 160th Emancipation Day this weekend,” Elliot C. Williams, Alexya Brown, and Rachel Kurzius, WAMU News
“Bondage to Freedom: Commemorating DC Emancipation Day,” Karl Racine, Medium
“The DC Emancipation Day Celebration Is Back After Two Years. Here Are the DC Street Closures for Saturday’s Parade and Concert.” Damare Baker, Washingtonian
What the truckers are protesting: What’ve you got? It’s a protest against COVID rules, high fuel costs, lack of truck parking areas, excessive regulation, insuffucient freedom. Oh yeah, and the 2020 presidential election. So there you have it, another loosely-linked libertarian clusterfuck of chaos.
Self-proclaimed convoy leaders claim the trucks won’t clog local DC streets, but will strangle the surrounding Beltway displaying protest signs and banners. An anti-Obama trucker protest tried to strangle the Beltway back in 2013 but couldn’t, since it would take about 10,000 eighteen-wheelers to do that, and they got 30.
But this isn’t 2013, so it’s likely a few extemist truckers will park in choke points, if not on DC streets then at key Beltway exits, bridges, and overpasses. That was the Canadian truckers’ tactic in Windsor-Detroit, and in truck protests in Brazil (2018) and Chile (2020). Police in the DC-MD-VA area are on alert, as are Capitol Hill Police and the National Guard.
More:
“Here’s What We Know So Far About Possible Trucker Convoy Protests Coming To D.C. Soon,” Margaret Barthel, DCist
“A Truck Caravan With Far-Right Links Heads to Washington, D.C.,” Shawn Hubler and Alan Feuer, New York Times
“Many Of The Groups Behind Jan. 6 Are Now Organizing U.S. Trucker Convoys,” Jesselyn Cook, HuffPost
“‘Be as Disruptive as They Can’: What to Know About the Trucker Convoys’ Plans for DC,” Andrew Beaujon, Washingtonian
“Trucker Protest Convoy’s Grievances Include Streets Named for Biden,” Margaret Hartmann, New York Magazine
Updates:
“Republicans who opposed racial justice protests hope truckers ‘clog up’ US cities,” Sergio Olmos, The Guardian
“‘Don Quixote-like quest’: Ukraine attack and easing Covid mandates leave US trucker protest on the fringe,” Sergio Olmos, The Guardian
Meeting in Salt Lake City on Friday, the Republican National Committee (RNC) passed a resolution declaring that the actions of the Insurrection of January 6, 2021, including the violent attempt to overthrow the elected government of the United States and the defilement of the Capitol building, were “legitimate political discourse.” The resolution (co-authored by Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel) was passed by voice vote, without debate, so individual Republican leaders could avoid personal (and legal) responsibility for this outrage against two centuries of American democratic values. They’re not just fascists, they’re weasels.
More:
“Republican party calls January 6 attack ‘legitimate political discourse,’” Martin Pengelly, The Guardian
“GOP leaders approve resolution that says Jan. 6 was ‘legitimate political discourse,’” Bryan Schott, Salt Lake City Tribune
“G.O.P. Declares Jan. 6 Attack ‘Legitimate Political Discourse,’” Jonathan Weisman and Reid J. Epstein, New York Times
Updates:
“Murkowski criticizes RNC calling Jan. 6 attack ‘legitimate political discourse,'” Caroline Vakil,The Hill
“‘Legitimate Political Discourse’ Is Now an Official Republican Party Description of the Jan. 6 Attack on the Capitol,” Ryan Bort, Rolling Stone
Anyway, football fans in the DC area have seven months, until the start of the 2022 season, to practice saying “How ’bout them ‘Mandos?” Probably while shaking their heads.
More:
“Washington Football Team announces Commanders as new NFL nickname,” Steve Gardner, USA Today
“Like It Or Not, the Washington Commanders Are Officially Here,” Kelyn Soong, Washington City Paper
“Washington Has A New NFL Team Name: The Commanders,” Elliot C. Williams, DCist
“Washington Commanders Is an Appropriately Boring Name,” Benjamin Hart, New York Magazine
“The Commanders name lands ‘with a thud’ for some Washington fans,” Andrew Golden, Washington Post
Updates:
“Experts Aren’t Wowed by New Commanders Branding,” Andrew Beaujon, Washingtonian
“On Capitol Hill, ex-Washington NFL employees levy new harassment claims against Daniel Snyder,” Liz Clarke, Washington Post
“The Best (and Worst) Reactions to the Washington Football Team’s New Name,” Lauren Mccaffrey and Anna Spiegel, Washingtonian
“The Rebrand Is the Least Bad Thing About the Washington Commanders,” Matt Terl, Washington City Paper
Related:
“Washington Commanders investigating sexual harassment allegation against owner,” Chloe Folmar, The Hill
“NFL says it will control investigation into Commanders owner Dan Snyder, not the team,” Jonathan Franklin, NPR News
“RFK Jr. apologizes after condemnation for Anne Frank comment,” Michelle R. Smith, Associated Press
More:
“Thousands march on Washington, D.C., in rally against vaccine mandates,” Daniel Uria, UPI
“Anti-vaccine activists march in D.C. — a city that mandates coronavirus vaccination — to protest mandates,” Katie Mettler, Lizzie Johnson, Justin Wm. Moyer, et al., Washington Post
“Anti-Vaccine Mandate Rally Draws Misinformation, RFK Jr., and Comparisons to Nazi Germany,” Eli Weiner, Washington City Paper
“‘Defeat The Mandates’ Rally Against Covid-19 Precautions Held During Omicron Surge,” Bruce Y. Lee, Forbes
Related:
“5 Republican Politicians Freaking Out About DC’s Vaccine Mandates,” Jessica Sidman, Washingtonian
“Omicron Cases Appear to Peak in U.S., but Deaths Continue to Rise,” Mitch Smith, Julie Bosman and Tracey Tully, New York Times
“The Anti-vaccine Right Brought Human Sacrifice to America,” Kurt Andersen, The Atlantic
Other name candidates include the Commanders, Admirals, Armada, Brigade, Sentinels, Defenders, Red Hogs, Presidents and “Washington Football Team.” If only they could replace Dan Snyder with a generic “Washington Football Team Owner.”
Related:
“Washington Football Team Awaits a New Name, But the Mediocrity Remains,” Matt Terl, Washington City Paper
America’a red-hatted MAGAheads will be celebrating January 6th, but not as the Feast of the Epiphany (which features swarthy, undocumented Magi immigrants) or as a national day of prayer and mourning for the near-death of American democracy last year. The right-wing paranoid and election-denying alt-right, GOP coup plotters, Proud Boys, QAnon, Boogaloo Bois, Oath Keepers, Trump loyalists, white nationalists and Infowars fanatics and their ilk will commemorate their deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol last year, when they attempted to overturn the presidential election, as directed by the election’s clear loser.
“A Roundup of January 6 Anniversary Commemorations in DC,” Damare Baker, Washingtonian
“Right-wing and liberal vigils planned in D.C. on anniversary of Capitol riot,” Ellie Silverman, Washington Post
“At time of Capitol prayer service Jan. 6, Trump will deliver remarks doubling down on the ‘Big Lie,’” David Siders, Politico
“Bannon, Trump to counterprogram Dems for Jan. 6 anniversary,” Jonathan Swan, Axios
Updates:
“Ingraham, Graham talked Trump out of Jan. 6 press conference,” Axios
“Trump cancels Jan. 6 news conference at Mar-a-Lago, blames news media and House committee investigating attack on Capitol,” Felicia Sonmez and Josh Dawsey, Washington Post
“It used to be that D.C. architecture consisted of graceful Georgetown mansions, neoclassical federal buildings — and, of course, the monuments. When the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts was founded in 1910 to guide Washington’s architectural development, it reviewed designs such as those of the Lincoln Memorial and the Federal Triangle. Over the seven years I’ve served on the commission, however, an increasing amount of time is spent discussing security-improvement projects: screening facilities, hardened gatehouses, Delta barriers, perimeter fences, and seemingly endless rows of bollards. We used to mock an earlier generation that peppered the U.S. capital with Civil War generals on horseback; now I wonder what future generations will make of our architectural legacy of crash-resistant walls and blast-proof glass.”
— Wittold Rybczynski, Meyerson professor of urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania.
Read more:
“The Blast-Proof City,” Wittold Rybczynski, Foreign Policy
“We Built DC Into an Urban Fortress After 9/11. And January 6 Proved It Was Penetrable.” Jane Recker, Washingtonian
“I Came, Eyesore, I Conquered,” Witold Rybczynski, Slate
Tuesday was Bagel Day at the software development center, and I favored Bagels & Baguettes near Stanton Park. There was a line when I got there, around 8:30 AM. The shop was near the Senate office buildings and the Heritage Foundation, so there was a TV tuned to CNN to keep news-obsessed customers occupied.
By the time I got my two dozen hot bagels, the damnedest thing was on that television. An airplane had crashed into a World Trade Center tower in New York, and the building was on fire. It was September 11, 2001.
I went to the office break room and put out the bagels, cream cheese, and smoked salmon. I guess I was making coffee when the second plane hit the other tower. I figured people still had to eat.
245 years ago, British colonists in North America rallied around the cry of “No taxation without representation” to fight for freedom, but the tax-paying residents of the nation’s capital still don’t have a vote in Congress. Mo Rocca looks at the issue for CBS Sunday Morning.
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