After losing both my best friend and husband within six months, it felt like the universe was targeting me. I later learned that the sweetest thing we can hope for in life is to love and be loved. — The year 2021 brought new superpowers. As it turns out, I can fix a clogged sink, and order and replace a part for a dryer. I can confront a political bully, and win. I can survive parenting crises and milestones alone. …

THE COLOR OF ART: Mapping white privilege in the nation’s capital. By Natalie Hopkinson, Ph.D. I am a scholar and writer, not a politician. So at some point I will write in detail about my most illuminating experiences serving the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities. For…

Commissioner Hopkinson remarks at CVS Presser 9/14/2021 I delivered the following remarks today at a press conference at the Go-Go City Mural Unveiling at the corner of Georgia and Florida Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. I’m Natalie Hopkinson. I’m Associate Professor at Howard University in the Department of Communication, Culture and…

A WHITE SUPREMACIST ‘MESS’ No one living today created white supremacy, but today’s public officials must be held accountable for separate-and-unequal arts policies that tilt the scales in favor of the rich, white and powerful, while mostly locking out the Black and marginalized. I was hoping that with the outcome…

MY TERRIBLE TERRIFIC 2020 After a year of so much loss, I am thinking more and more about the short time we have on this earth, and the messages we are sending to the future. This year I said goodbye to Allison Ranelle Brown, a pioneering education civil rights lawyer…

Build Banneker in Shaw as a Living Monument to Black Excellence May 10, 2019 From: John Settles Jr., Natalie Hopkinson, and Lee Granados Parents, Benjamin Banneker Academic High School To: Members of the Washington, D.C. City Council Re: Build Banneker — A Monument to Black Excellence Dear D.C. Council Members, …