Candidate for Ward 1 City Council

Fellow Affinity Lab member Brian Weaver was recently featured on the Washington City Paper’s website with the debut of his new political commercial. The video features Weaver moving through some of Ward 1′s most notable locales, including restaurants, bars and a other landmarks. The film was directed by Olivia Abtahi, director of Dreaming Out Loud’s “When Dreams Emerge, Communities Arise!” commercial and a forthcoming documentary on the experience of our summer program Project Dream Green.

Weaver has a strong record of community-engagement and youth-advocacy through organizations such as Hoops Sagrado. Sum of Change – a blog dedicated to socially, politically and culturally conscious media – has included the Ward 1 contestant among its coverage of this year’s DC election season.

With the hotly contested Democratic Primaries slated for September 14th, this is a critical stretch-run for all of the candidates. Jeff Smith, Executive Director of DC Voice and incumbent Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham will vie for the seat which Graham has occupied since 1998.

With the increased attention brought by the ad debut on the Citypaper’s site -District’s premier source for all things fresh and new – the Weaver Campaign hopes the momentum can help springboard them to victory.

WASHINGTON – The auditorium in the Blackburn Center was at full capacity on Thursday January 28th, 2010 as expected when the first African-American woman to run a major presidential campaign visits Howard University. The third annual Charles W. Harris Lecture brought the esteemed political strategist Donna Brazile to campus before attentive students, faculty and staff. As dozens of people arrived hoping for seats for this highly anticipated event, crowds gathered in the doorway of the auditorium while others lingered in the hallway. Security directed the those who could not find seating in the auditorium towards an overflow room where speakers carried the veteran campaigner’s passionate and inspirational message.

Executive Director Chris Bradshaw with Donna Brazile

The hour-long lecture titled the “Fierce Urgency of Now,” cast an air of a fireside chat in such an intimate setting. Drawing from Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy, Ms. Brazile – with her usual candor and good humor – summoned students to answer the call to action. “As the President said in last night’s State of the Union address, this is not the time ‘to run for the hills,’” Brazile said. “…You will not get a letter of invitation to serve. Don’t try to find a title. It is not about you, but it is about us, our nation and our world.”

Her accomplishments as an adjunct professor, author, syndicated columnist, television political commentator, Vice Chair of Voter Registration and Participation at the Democratic National Committee, and former chair of the DNCs Voting Rights Institute provide an insight into American political life that can be matched by few, if any. From her vantage point, the exigent circumstances presented today would have moved Dr. King with a unrelenting determination. “He would remind us of the fierce urgency of now,” said Brazile of the slain Civil Rights icon. “Long before the ink on the stimulus bill was dry, he would demand that the funds get to the communities in greatest need.”

The veteran Democratic political strategist’s clarion invocation to service sounded much like a reverberation of Dreaming Out Loud’s very own mission and vision, as team members from the organization sat listening intently in the overflow room. As she fielded questions from the audience, one particular query about the possibilities for change in the recession hit home as she responded, “Even without a job, I still had a cause and a mission.”