
This week we celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day honoring the civil rights leader’s legacy and vision for a more just, equitable and inclusive world. For me, remembering Dr. King this year has had particular resonance.
We live in a polarized country, where hate and vitriol are widespread. It is flooding our air waves and social media channels, pulling us further apart. Increasingly, we live separate lives guided by fear, isolation and suspicion of those who are not like us. Dr. King dreamed of a different world, one anchored in the redemptive and creative power of love as a means to “transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.” He believed in the promise of a beloved community where all people could thrive and prosper.
Dr. King devoted his life to the struggle for civil rights through nonviolence. His leadership helped to end entrenched segregation which forced Black Americans to live in neighborhoods with poor quality housing and schools that contributed to limited economic opportunities.
Despite his enormous achievements in mobilizing a movement for racial justice leading to the 1964 passage of the Civil Rights Act, it would take nearly 15 years after his death for legislation to pass in 1983 creating this Federal holiday, the only such holiday that is also a National Day of Service.
Dr. King is best known for his beautiful and rousing “I Have a Dream” speech in which he called out the injustice of Black people who are “still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.” A lesser-known aspect of Dr. King’s legacy is his fight for fair housing.
From 1965 to 1966 he co-led the Chicago Freedom Movement to combat housing discrimination in the Windy City, which at that time was one of the most residentially segregated cities in the US. Fair housing, he believed, was integral to achieving racial justice. King and his family moved into a rundown apartment on Chicago’s West Side to protest the redlining and steering of Black Americans to under-invested neighborhoods with substandard living conditions. The Chicago Freedom Movement conducted testing to show that when Black Americans approached realtors about purchasing homes, they were told there were none available, but when whites did, they were shown many options. King’s joining with local civil rights groups brought national attention to the issue of fair housing. Within a week after his assassination, the Fair Housing Act was passed, ending legalized discriminatory housing practices.
At the Washington Housing Conservancy, Dr. King’s concept of beloved communities is the foundation of our approach. A beloved community is a society grounded in justice and equal opportunity, where conflict is resolved not through violence but through a mutual commitment to respect, understanding and collaboration across lines of difference. In such a society, bigotry, homelessness, poverty and hunger would not be tolerated because it violates all standards of human decency.
At WHC, we preserve housing that is affordable in high opportunity neighborhoods with access to high performing schools, quality healthcare, parks and recreation, employment centers and public transportation. For us, housing is only part of the equation. We invest heavily in our social impact work to build rental communities where people at different income levels, with different life experiences can live in a place where they know and connect with their neighbors, and where they can increase their economic mobility rather than worry about escalating rents that rob them of opportunity. We are also working hard to offer a model of inclusive property management, where in addition to maintaining our properties, we work with our residents to address their needs and aspirations and intentionally create opportunities for the community to come together for mutual benefit. We do this because such communities offer hope, opportunity and a chance to attain a better future.
So, this year, rather than focusing on the anger, vitriol and the things that divide us, I choose to lean into Dr. King’s belief in the power of love and redouble our efforts around housing affordability as a crucial node in our social infrastructure that puts us on the path to realizing Dr. King’s dream for a more just and equitable world. We must never give up on creating beloved communities.
Sincerely,
Kimberly Driggins, CEO

Preserving housing affordability and promoting economic mobility in the DC-region
The Washington Housing Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Your investment helps us expand our work. Your gift is 100% tax-deductible. EIN 83-1866109


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