Grassroots Organization Gathers Southeast D.C. Residents to Exercise Democratic Power

For Immediate Release

Pan-African Community Action aims to expand its platform for community empowerment through upcoming assembly.

September 24, 2026 — Washington, D.C., along with other major cities nationwide, is experiencing major changes to its city government, most aptly reflected in the anticipated mayoral transfer of power and the implementation of the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act.  As seen in the recent approval of RFK Stadium development and deteriorated public infrastructures, Washingtonians are also living in a period of both booming construction and neighborhood disinvestment.

Southeast’s wards 7 & 8 have long been subject to intersecting disparities in housing, healthcare, income, and education- dissimilar to D.C.’s wealthier wards 2 and 3. 

The organization, Pan-African Community Action (PACA), says they are building toward solutions to the issues most affecting Black, working-class residents east of the Anacostia River with “Building a People’s Democracy: A Southeast Community Townhall”.

“We organize this event not only to allow our communities to participate in alternative governing structures, but to educate people on their utility and necessity”, commented PACA member, Netfa. “By creating the conditions for community members to be change-makers in our own neighborhoods, we can begin to build a culture of leadership, ownership, and responsibility for ourselves and each other.”

PACA is inviting all residents for a community assembly process that will include voting to determine the project and a budget that the organization and the people of Southeast can cultivate entering into 2027. The assembly will be Sunday, September 27th, 2026, at the RISE Demonstration Center, 2730 Martin Luther King Junior Avenue Southeast.

Simultaneously, at the same location, the organization will be holding the People’s Pan-African Wellness Front, a program launched earlier this year to address the healthcare gap in Southeast. In addition to community building, attendees can expect lunch, free produce and hygiene kits, and preventive healthcare information.

About Pan-African Community Action (PACA):

Emerging in November 2015 in direct response to the killing of 27 year-old Alonzo Smith by DC Special Police, Pan African Community Action is a grassroots group of African/Black people organizing for community-based power. This organization, based in Washington, D.C., works to actualize this power through political education and participatory programs of action.

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