ABSTRACT
In 1975, the District of Columbia formally began home rule. During the previous 100 years, the US Congress directly governed DC through the House and Senate Committees on the District of Columbia and through an appointed Board of Commissioners.1 For many of those years, segregationist congressmen, like John L. McMillan of South Carolina, chair of the House Committee almost continuously from 1948 to 1972 (Fauntroy, 2003), dominated these committees. In addition, neighborhood associations composed mostly of White residents made local community decisions in the District (Travis, 2010). Rather than wait for society to change and offer equal participation in political and economic life, DC residents, in particular African Americans, excluded from these institutions built autonomous spheres to gain control over their lives and forged new resources in the District beyond formal government. When formal home rule did come to the District, it built on and expanded many of these already existing grassroots strategies to create areas of autonomy and local control in DC. Specifically, I argue that DC residents used the cooperative movement as a form of “home rule from below.”
