From a Green Party press release sent to [email protected]
David Schwartzman, DC Statehood Green candidate for At-Large Member of the City Council of the District of Columbia, has challenged his rivals in the campaign to a footrace on Saturday, November 1, from Northwest to Southeast DC.
Mr. Schwartzman will begin at 9 am at 18th Street and Columbia Road NW in Adams Morgan. He will cross the Sousa Bridge and end the race at Minnesota and Pennsylvania Avenues SE in Anacostia.
“I challenged all my At-Large opponents at several forums to race me, including a forum at Pepco on Wednesday, October 29. None has so far accepted, and all but Carol Schwartzman are significantly younger than I am,” said Mr. Schwartzman. “I have been a jogger for over 30 years. I turn 65 on October 31, so I’m running in celebration and to advance the struggle for DC statehood and human rights.”
On Oct. 28, David Schwartzman received an endorsement from
FixOurSchools.net for his defense of DC Public Schools and the needs of children. FixOurSchools.net praised Mr. Schwartzman as “a staunch advocate for a more progressive tax system” and “an active participant in the social justice movement in the District for decades.”On Oct. 8, Mr. Schwartzman was given an A, the highest grade of the seven At-Large City Council candidates, in Loose Lips’ Washington City Paper blog, based on his performance at an Oct. 7 candidates’ forum.
David Schwartzman is running a strong campaign on a platform that includes ending child poverty in the District; tax relief for working people while making DC millionaires pay their fair share; Green Jobs
for DC youth with training in the public schools, and DC statehood. He has spoken out against Mayor Fenty’s schemes to privatize public schools, libraries, parks, shelters, public housing, and other public
properties for the benefit of real estate and development interests.Mr. Schwartzman, a professor in Howard University’s biology department and a member of the American Friends Service Committee’s Human Rights Learning Project, testified at a town meeting before the UN Special Rapporteur investigating race-related human rights violations in the nation’s capital on June 5, 2008.
The DC Statehood Green Party and its candidates have made statehood for the District of Columbia a major political goal. DC statehood will provide full equality and democratic self-governance for DC’s
majority African American population, freedom from congressional and White House control over local legislation and finances, and full voting representation (two Senators, one Representative) in Congress.Party members have called DC statehood part of the unfinished business of the Civil Rights Movement. The Statehood Green Party does not support the ‘DC Voting Rights’ bill, which would grant DC a single voting seat in the US House but not otherwise change DC’s ‘colonial’ status. The Democratic Party removed the goal of DC statehood from its national platform in 2004 and 2008; the Green Party remains the only national party that supports DC statehood in its platform.