In commemoration of both Black History Month and the District's 51^st year of Home Rule government, the DC Council will convene a panel discussion of key figures from the critical eight years (1967-1975) when our local government transitioned twice between three entirely different forms of government. We are lucky enough to hear about our history from the people who made history through their work.

Questions to reflect on: What is it like to create a new form of government from scratch? How do you run a government in its infancy? How do you shut down a defunct form of government? And what lessons from those early days carry through to the unique challenges we are facing today?

When: Monday, February 23 at 5:30PM

Where: Council Chambers, 5^th Floor, John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Panelists

Antoinette Ford, Member of the appointed DC Council, 1973-1975

Reverend James Coates, Home Rule DC Council, Ward 8, 1975-1977

Arrington Dixon, Home Rule DC Council, Ward 4, 1975-1979 (also Council Chair 1979-1983, At-Large Councilmember 1997)

Moderators

Kojo Nnamdi, WAMU Radio

Mark Segraves, NBC 4 Washington

Background

We are currently living through a time when the District's Home Rule form of government has never been more essential or more threatened. As a way of examining this critical phase that our government is living through, we will examine the seven years of District history, when the District's form of government itself completely transformed twice, and the District experienced three very different government structures.

At the beginning of these seven years, the District saw the final days of the form of government it had known for roughly a century: rule by three Presidentially-appointed and Senate-confirmed commissioners. During this phase district residents had literally no vote in any aspect of their local or federal government. When this phase came to an end, a transitional phase that is rarely examined in detail, and forgotten by many residents, began. During this phase, the District was run by a Presidentially-appointed and Senate-confirmed Mayor Commissioner and a seven-member DC Council also chosen by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Finally at the end of this phase, we began the current phase of District government with an elected Mayor and 13-member elected Council. Members.

This brief stretch of time, which saw two shifts between three very different forms of government, has a parallel in the forms of government the American system saw during its earliest days. In just under thirteen years, American government shifted from British rule to the Continental Congress to the Articles of Confederation to our present form of Constitutional government. In both the District and national examples, the middle phase is often forgotten, rarely studied, and poorly understood.

In the District example, we are fortunate to still have living among us individuals who served in these critical early days of transformation.