Go-Go Musicians Join Second Protest Outside Postmaster General DeJoy’s Kalorama Home

Go-Go Musicians Join Second Protest Outside Postmaster General DeJoy’s Kalorama Home

“You all use profanity in this neighborhood?” asked musician Yaddiya, as he stood on a truck with the D.C. Go-Go band T.O.B. “Let’s head on down to this a**hole’s house!”

The truck trundled through Kalorama, blasting music en route to what organizers said was Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s D.C. residence at Wyoming and Connecticut. They came for a demonstration of solidarity for the postal service and to dance in the streets, with the enthusiastic support of a usually staid neighborhood that is home to the Kushners, the Obamas and the D.C. roost of Jeff Bezos.

Stephanie Myles, who worked for the USPS for eight years, told the crowd the recent news of cost-cutting measures “hurts my heart.”

“I know the people who go out there every day to deliver your mail,” she said. “They cherish your mail!”

She called for increased funding to the post office to facilitate voting by mail and said working for the mail eventually led to enrolling at Harvard Business School.

“There’s a lot of Black people like myself who came up out the hood because of the Postal Service giving us that opportunity,” she added.

This second protest outside DeJoy’s home came hours before the Trump appointee was set to testify at the House of Representatives about cuts to service and decommissioned machines that he has since pledged to stop. Demonstrators in D.C. said they worried he had already caused damage to voting by mail and said they would give him no rest until he reversed course.

The home demonstration and concert was organized by ShutDownDC.org and Long Live GoGo. It was held a day after what would have been the birthday of Chuck Brown, the godfather of go-go.

“No justice, no sleep!” they shouted at his apartment complex.

In between speakers, the crowd of mostly masked demonstrators danced and held signs with messages of “Postmaster Saboteur”, “I love USPS” and “Neither rain nor snow nor corruption.”

Laurie Emrich, 67, and Gael Murphy, 66, danced on a brick patio a few steps away from the truck. The two D.C. residents, both white women, cut a strong contrast to the youthful musicians and dancers at the heart of the crowd.

“I’m a D.C. native. Go-Go is our heritage,” said Murphy, who retired from international public health.

“I love it. That is what real love looks like,” said organizer Kevin Cramer, 25 who is Black and works as a fundraiser in Arlington.

“We need to facilitate and use our right of mail to have our right to vote,” he said.

The previous Saturday, protesters gathered outside DeJoy’s home for what ShutDownDC, a local advocacy group, described as an “early morning noise demonstration to give him a much-needed wakeup call.”

DeJoy, a major Republican donor and ally of President Donald Trump, was appointed to the post in June. He’s since implemented a series of changes, including eliminating overtime, decommissioning high-speed mail sorting machines, and other steps. Postal workers in the D.C. region say they’ve noticed slow-downs in mail as they cope with the changes. Those delays raised alarms that mail-in voting, expected to be at record levels due to the pandemic, could be interrupted in November.

Attorneys general in D.C., Maryland and Virginia have joined lawsuits against DeJoy and the USPS to block the changes. DeJoy said he made the changes to shore up financial losses, but he announced last week that he would suspend the changes until after the election to avoid “even the appearance” of any impact on the election.

In his testimony to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last week, DeJoy said that election mail would be delivered on time. The following day, the Democrat-led House of Representatives passed legislation to repeal the changes and invest $25 million into the Postal Service, but there are no plans for a Senate vote.