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Long-time Shaw community organizer Dominic Moulden is preparing to open a new center in place of the Shaw Community Center, which last October after more than 30 years because it failed to meet fund raising goals for failing to meet community needs.

The Elephant Free School, named after elephants鈥� memory, ability to mourn, and migration, will have its Saturday, Oct. 10. The school is moving into the Shaw Community Center鈥檚 former space at the historic Lincoln Temple United Church of Christ on 11th Street NW at R Street.

Moulden, who founded the Elephant Free School in 2020, said the organization plans to use the space for political education and other programs focused on nutrition, culture and the arts, language education, film and photography, and youth development.

Dominic Moulden: Anti-Gentrification Resources for All

Moulden鈥檚 career began in tenants鈥� rights activism, and he said he has been working to combat the 鈥淐hocolate City鈥� diaspora caused by D.C.鈥檚 gentrification for four decades.

Moulden said the Elephant Free School will work to educate local youth about gentrification and provide locals with resources to withstand and fight back.

The Elephant Free School has partnered with The Center for Social Housing and Public Investment, founded and run by former tenant association attorney to serve as a think tank for social housing.

The partnership is reminiscent of the Shaw Community Center鈥檚 former relationship with Lincoln-Westmoreland Housing. The center was originally located in the nonprofit’s building.

Lincoln-Westmoreland Housing is an affordable housing-focused established in 1967 between the Lincoln Temple Congregation and the predominately white, suburban Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ on the border in Westmoreland Hills, Maryland.

The Elephant Free School has also partnered with the Ward 6 mutual aid group Serve Your City. Moulden said the partnership seeks to inform the working class about the politics of mutual aid. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not charity; it鈥檚 solidarity,鈥� he said.

Moulden was born in Baltimore and moved to D.C. early on. Moulden said he started organizing in Shaw in 1986 and said he connected with the Shaw Community Center about 20 years ago. Moulden said he knew a few of the people running the center, but he became close through 鈥渢he parents and children in the buildings that we were trying to save鈥� from redevelopment.

Moulden said he wants the Elephant Free School to meet the community鈥檚 needs in ways the Shaw Community Center failed to.

鈥淲e鈥檙e built in the basement,鈥� he said, 鈥淵ou have to have a relationship with people in the immediate community.鈥�

During his 40 years, Moulden has become a prolific activist, lecturer and writer with several publications. Moulden said he teaches the importance of building power from the base up.

The Elephant Free School will seek to unite 鈥渢he working class, black, brown, and immigrant people,鈥� he said.

The Loss of 鈥淐hocolate City鈥�

Moulden said he has watched Shaw change dramatically over the last 40 years, and he said he remembers what the District was like when it was known as 鈥淐hocolate City.鈥�

The D.C. Black demographic peaked in the 1970 Census, according to the D.C. Policy Center, a non-partisan think tank. However, by 2000 that number had to 60%, according to a 2014 D.C. Department of Health report. The percentage had to 50.7% by 2010, according to the D.C. report.

As Black residents were pushed out by rapidly increasing costs, they began to move to wards 7 and 8 and Prince George鈥檚 County, then out to Baltimore and Baltimore County, and today as far as Frederick, Maryland, Moulden said. Many residents have been forced to move multiple times, further and further out, he said.

Moulden said he wants the Elephant Free School to provide support to the families who鈥檝e experienced structural harm under serial displacement, and hopefully even invite them back through the social housing think tank鈥檚 work.

Moulden said he welcomes the Latin Community, a key demographic historically rooted in Mt. Pleasant, Columbia Heights, and Cardozo to join programs at the Elephant Free School. Moulden said he hopes to partner with the one of the Hispanic churches that now occupies the Lincoln Temple to provide Spanish lessons.

The Historic Temple and Community Center

The Lincoln Temple was originally home to the historic Lincoln Congregational Temple United Church of Christ, an influential gathering place for social justice for decades. The congregation dissolved as gentrification and the cost of living in the District throughout the 2010s and long-time black residents were of D.C.,聽 the Washington Post reported in 2018.

The congregation held its on Sept. 30, 2018.

The Shaw Community Center was founded as the Shaw Community Ministry by the Lincoln Temple Congregation in 1991 and originally operated out of ground floor of the Lincoln-Westmoreland Housing building on 7th Street.

The Shaw Community Ministry moved into the basement of the Lincoln Temple in 2013, updating its name in 2014.

Under the leadership of Executive Director Sudi West, the center鈥檚 operating budget increased to $1 million as it expanded year-round after school and summer programs for black youth from affordable housing programs, then later for Hispanic and Africa immigrant families as the neighborhood鈥檚 demographics continued to change.

, following the Lincoln Temple Congregation鈥檚 closure, the Shaw Community Center continued to operate as a separate entity, renting the space from the Church鈥檚 governing board. However, tensions between Shaw Community Center staff and the center鈥檚 board of directors flared up towards the end of 2023.

The center鈥檚 staff, community members, and contractors signed off on a letter demanding the resignation of the board for a failure to maintain the level of involvement required to uphold its duties to the community and staff alike, .

West was dismissed by the board later that month over a disagreement about policies that may have marginalized some students without bank accounts, then-staff member Melissa Laws .

Following the controversies, the Shaw Community Center failed to raise enough funds to continue operating, and the center closed in October 2025.

Hispanic Churches at the Lincoln Temple

Today, the Lincoln Temple building is occupied by the Iglesia Ebeneezer Congregation of the Assemblies of God and the Iglesia Cristo Te Llama Church of God.

Sarai Salmeron, secretary of the Iglesia Ebeneezer Congregation, said that the congregation is excited to share space and work with the Elephant Free School.

Salmeron said that gentrification has been hard on the congregation, and the broader Hispanic population of northern D.C. She described changes in the neighborhood over the last decade as 鈥渂ittersweet,鈥� noting that although nighttime services were safer, the Hispanic community was being “pulled away” by costs of living and rise of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Salmeron said that the Iglesia Ebeneezer Congregation used to have members from across D.C. and Maryland, but many had stopped coming to church, or even into the District, as ICE raids had risen in recent years.

Salmeron, a U.S. citizen, grew up in Columbia Heights and said gentrification had taken a lot of the places she grew up with. 鈥淚 still remember bits and pieces of what Columbia Heights was like,鈥� she said.

As costs of living have risen, Salmeron鈥檚 father was forced to sell the family home in Columbia Heights four years ago, she noted.

Salmeron, who is Salvadoran, said she moved to El Salvador with her husband and children for a year last summer to escape the climate of D.C. for a while. She said she was grateful for the opportunity when many in her community had been deported and pressured to leave the U.S., but added, 鈥淚t was a shock to realize, it was not home to me.鈥�

Salmeron said her kids, who grew up speaking Spanish and attending church in Spanish, struggled with fluency in El Salvadore, and she feels for other families that have been forced back to Latin America. While raids have slowed in recent months, she said the immigration situation is still very hurtful to her and the community, but she stressed the importance of peace and understanding under the Church鈥檚 teaching.

Salmeron said she hopes that youth programming makes a successful return through the Elephant Free School. She said she misses when the Shaw Community Center kept up the little garden beside the Temple building.

Neither Khadijah Huggins-El and Will Merrifield were available for comment before publication.

You can RSVP for the Elephant Free School鈥檚 Grand Opening .