Founding and 1994 general election Kemry Hughes helped found the Umoja Party in December 1993, and the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics approved its name on February 2, 1994. A 27-year-old student activist in favor of
statehood, Hughes said the Umoja Party would focus on the specific needs of communities of people of color. Mark A. Thompson ran for chair of the
Council of the District of Columbia, In 1990, Thompson led a protest that shut down the
University of the District of Columbia for eleven days that resulted in the resignation of several members of the
Board of Trustees. Hughes said he was running for office to help the disenfranchised.
1995 special election In 1995, the Umoja Party ran a candidate, Rahim Jenkins, in the
special election for the
Ward 8 seat on the council.
1996 general election With 750 registered voters, the Umoja Party fielded multiple candidates on the general election ballot in 1996. Thompson ran for the at-large seat on the council, and Jenkins ran for the Ward 8 seat on the council. Malachi was a student at the
University of the District of Columbia, working as a supervisor of the District's Summer Youth Employment Services program. Pope was a community activist and chair of D.C. Coalition to Save Our Schools, a group that advocated for the privatization of public schools in the District. Thompson campaigned door-to-door, emphasizing constituent services and
self-determination and reducing Congressional financial oversight. Thompson said that, while the District's mayor and Council had lax oversight of the District's finances, the degree of corruption in the District government had been exaggerated and that there were still good people working in the government. Thompson protested the
Central Intelligence Agency's admitted drug trafficking in Los Angeles to support Nicaraguan Contras. Thompson said
United States Attorney Eric Holder and the
Metropolitan Police Department should investigate whether the CIA was involved in drug trafficking in the District as well. He said that Council hearings and school board hearings were held in the middle of weekdays in order to silence dissent. enough for the Umoji Party to continue to qualify to appear on voter registration forms and hold primary elections. Malachi received 21 percent of the vote in the Ward 4 race, Jenkins received six percent in the Ward 8 race, and Pope received nine percent for shadow senator. Instead, Archbishop
George Augustus Stallings Jr. ran for the seat under the Umoja Party. Stallings was a former Roman Catholic priest who left the Catholic Church after two former altar boys said he had raped them when they were 11 and 16 years old. Stallings founded the African American Catholic Church, which combined Catholic rites with African themes, and served as the head of
Imani Temple. Stallings said he would increase funding to social programs, such as job training, health care, education, and welfare. He supported balancing the budget through reductions in energy costs and printing costs, sale of vacant government-owned land to private companies, ending the income tax exemption for non-residents working in the District, and layoffs of some of the government's management personnel. He advocated reducing crime through
community-oriented policing. In November 1997, Umoja Party co-founder Brian Harris was murdered in an alley behind a church near
H Street NE after being robbed of his cash and leather coat.
1998 general election In 1998, Nik Earnes declared his candidacy for the Ward 1 seat on the council, running against incumbent
Frank Smith Jr. Earns was an engineering student at
Howard University and an
Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for
LeDroit Park. George Pope ran an at-large seat on the District of Columbia Board of Education, officially
nonpartisan on the ballot. Thompson announced that he would run for an at-large seat on the council, trying to unseat incumbents
Hilda Mason and
David A. Catania. Thompson said he would focus on employment, elder services, education, law enforcement, affordable housing, and health care. He said that economic development was especially needed for
Anacostia,
U Street, and
Barracks Row.
Anita Bonds served as the chair of Thompson's campaign. His wife said, after they separated, Thompson broke into her apartment and beat her in front of their daughter. Thompson was convicted of assault. If that were to happen, Thompson said
rent control, home rule, and employment would be in serious risk. The District of Columbia Chamber of Commerce also endorsed Thompson's candidacy. Thomas' divorce proceedings in October revealed that Thompson was delinquent on paying child support for his five-year-old daughter and did not file income tax returns for the previous six years. His wife said her car had been impounded because of unpaid parking tickets Thomas received while driving her car. In September, Thomas pleaded guilty to not paying District taxes and not filing District income tax returns for 1995. In exchange for pleading guilty, prosecutors dropped the charges for 1996 and 1997. Earnes came in second place, with thirteen percent of the vote, for the Ward 1 seat on the council. The judge
suspended the sentence and put Thomas on probation for three years on the condition that Thomas pays four years of back taxes, files and pays all future taxes, and obeys the law. Olusegun was a retired social service administrator who highlighted his advocacy for the poor and disenfranchised as well as his forty years of social activism. He said he would advocate for justice, truth, and democracy. The party platform included establishing a
living wage, expanding the
earned income tax credit, affordable housing, government-subsidized health insurance for all poor children, and preserving the University of the District of Columbia and D.C. General Hospital. When asked about the possibility that African Americans may no longer hold the majority of the seats on the Board of Education, Marilyn Preston Killingham, deputy chairman of the Umoja Party, said, "The general design for D.C. is
one of white takeover. I think that this follows that general design and plan. ... A racist design will lead to a racist conglomeration." In the general election, Olusegun came in fourth place with 4,032 votes, fewer than the 7,500 needed to retain its major-party status in the District. ==References==