Don't Mute DC
Social Impact team in
Don’t Mute DC is an organization dedicated to battling Black displacement and cultural erasure in the city of Washington. The #DontMuteDC uprising began April 7, 2019 with a springtime battle over music and public space on an iconic street corner, 7th Street and Florida Ave, NW. It has since morphed into a conversation about how gentrification displaced more than 20,000 Black Washingtonians, the city’s history, culture, and racial justice. D.C.’s indigenous go-go music has given a voice to these issues. The movement has already shifted policy in the arts, preservation, health care and education—and it is just beginning.
The movement drew the support of more than 80,000 people who signed the Don’t Mute DC Music and Culture petition in April 2019, which brought back music to Central Communications/Metro PCS in Shaw. Since then, the movement has activated thousands of Washingtonians to help secure a number of cultural and policy victories. They include: Restoring $22 million in cuts to United Medical Center, the only hospital in Ward 7 and 8; Restoring $53 million funds to Banneker High School’s renovation; Restoring funds to Project Empowerment; Restoring funds to Ward 7 and 8 schools; the introduction of legislation to make Go-Go the official music of Washington, D.C. The movement has also spearheaded cultural experiences such as #DontMuteDC meets #DontMuteNola, which celebrated the history, food, music and resistance to gentrification in the twin Chocolate Cities of New Orleans and Washington, D.C.