Washington D.C. has become the nation’s frontline in the fight for democracy, as its politically disenfranchised residents are subjected to the President’s military takeover while still being denied full representation in Congress. On August 11th, President Trump signed an executive order that deployed the National Guard to D.C. and declared a crime emergency to take control of the Metropolitan Police Department, justifying the move with false crime statistics.
For over a month, armed, uniformed, and increasingly weary troops have patrolled D.C.’s neighborhoods, metro stations, and tourist areas, doing everything from patrolling the peaceful National Mall to picking up trash, costing U.S. taxpayers over $1.8 million a day. Contrary to what the administration claims, D.C. residents feel less safe, especially immigrants and Black communities due to the increase in racial profiling, arrests for low-level crimes, and indiscriminate detention.
In the nation’s capital, residents were only granted the right to vote in presidential elections by the 23rd Amendment in 1961. Here, license plates read “Taxation Without Representation,” calling out how D.C.’s population of over 700,000 has no representation in the U.S. Congress other than a single non-voting member in the House of Representatives. The 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act allowed Washington D.C. residents a local government they could elect. However, Congress retains the power to veto local laws, as it did in 2023 with a bipartisan resolution that overruled the D.C. city council’s criminal code revision, which hasn’t been comprehensively revised since 1901.
The lack of D.C. statehood is a structural injustice, one that is rooted in racism as it denies the residents of this historically Black city full voting rights and self-determination. It is also a public health issue which has affected HIV prevention and Covid-19 relief efforts, and continues to hurt reproductive healthcare access, the effects of which are seen in the Black maternal mortality crisis. In D.C., Black people account for 90% of all pregnancy-related deaths and their maternal mortality rate of 70.9/100,000 live births is significantly higher than the national average.
The Hyde Amendment’s more evil twin, the Dornan Amendment, prohibits federal funding for abortions in D.C., restricting low-income residents from accessing critical care. The fall of Roe makes this a more pressing issue, as current D.C. laws provide expansive and progressive abortion protections but Dobbs’ removal of federal protections make this access vulnerable to congressional interference. The disenfranchisement of D.C. also exacerbates economic inequality along racial lines. Recognizing the intersections of race and gender on this issue, women of color have taken a lead in advocating for D.C. statehood by organizing grassroots movements like Free D.C. and working with organizations like Planned Parenthood and the NAACP to confront Congress.
For student activists in D.C., the current militarization is a litmus test for the spread of authoritarian repression across the country. Echoing the Palestine solidarity protests of the past two years, students have organized en masse to protest Trump’s overreach and pressure their college administrations, local officials, and Congress to to stand with and protect D.C. residents. Throughout history, youth-driven movements have been powerful in creating change, and while these students fear a federalized police force and ICE presence on their campuses, they also see this as a critical battle for democracy.
Kaden Ouimet, a D.C. based activist who founded and leads students’ rights organization Task Force for Democracy, alongside his work with Free D.C. and Frontline for Freedom, says that young people are “fighting for the thriving democracy of tomorrow.” Ouimet was heavily involved with organizing the September 6th “We Are All D.C.” march that saw thousands of people in the streets demanding an end to Trump’s military takeover, as well as the city-wide college protests on September 9th that saw students from American, Georgetown, George Washington, and Howard University walking out in protest of the federal takeover and to pressure their administrations to not cooperate with ICE or align with Trump.
College campuses are powerful spaces that have long served as incubators for activism through their proclaimed values of academic freedom and diversity, and access to knowledge, resources, and networks that foster social consciousness and provide a platform for student voices. Student organizers like Ouimet understand the value of these campuses as “pillars of support” and want to turn them into “pillars of resistance.”
In this new era of federal and law enforcement overreach, activists are focusing on mutual aid, staying informed, and protecting marginalized students, along with accelerating their campaigns and absorbing new supporters into the movement. They realize that continuing to fight is a necessity for survival in the face of repression and are empowering others to join them. Ouimet emphasizes that this movement of student organizing is expanding across the country, and that allies elsewhere should get involved through local campaigns, amplifying national days of action, and pressuring their congressional representatives to support D.C. statehood.
The fight for a free D.C. goes beyond local governance; it is a fight for intersectional justice in the face of creeping authoritarianism enabled by systemic racism and inequality. Until Washington D.C. achieves true representation through statehood, its residents will remain at the center of both repression and resistance, a symbol of America’s generational injustice and the vulnerability of its democracy.