Mourning Candidate for Life: Faith Dane Crannitch

1925 to 2021

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Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) with Faith in their 2004 mayoral campaigns. Photo: Andrew Lightman

I served on the organizing committee for the creation of the program on Sept. 3rd, 2021 for Faith Dane Crannitch.  Faith the unceasing perpetual candidate for Mayor of DC.  She died at 96 years old.

But old is not  word that you can use next to her name   Because she was beautiful and never old!  She was that person who interrupted the serious mayoral campaigns with a shrill bugle blast!  No only Mayoral campaigns, but even presidential ones.  She even disrupted President Bill Clinton’s and even had him protecting her in a few word from the Secret Service by joking  that she and he had prepared the moment in advance keep the audience awake!

I believe that her blasts were just that —- a way too wake up staid DC during a campaign that meant very little to the bored audience because they knew that little would change without true DC statehood — or without a rule breaking bugle blast that Faith could truly accomplish.  She chose to encourage secession more than DC Statehood!

The event was perfect to introduce Faith to those who barely knew her or had never heard of her with a multicultural mix of African dancers and drummer rom Malcolm X Park and along with a Hispanic flavor filled background.  Photographs were posted everywhere with her posing with available celebrities to let you know she was one herself. ‘Mayor’ Faith would have LOVED it.  The music was fantastic!

Faith ran for Mayor 6 times always as a write in.  Never won, never gave up!  She believed!

Anise Jenkins, life time DC resident, born in 1949, is the executive director of Stand Up! for Democracy in DC (Free DC).  graduate of Howard University with a BA in Political and Masters in Marketing an Philosophy.  Jenkins met Faith many years ago, while working (volunteering) for DC Statehood.  She was born in 2023.  Jenkins thought she was for Statehood, but Faith’s husband Jude corrected me and said she was for DC succession from the U.S.  Faith fascinated her.