Our Work
Empowering Working Class Americans
As workers rights advocates, the Sincere Seven is dedicated to aiding, supporting, educating and advocating for working class Americans. Here, we share the means, effects and impact we've experienced through our tried and true methodologies over our quarter-of-a-century community organizing...as well as the work we're doing today through our concerted program initiatives to make better American community living conditions.
Where hope, compassion and desire live, so does the capacity for change. The work of Sincere Seven uplifted the East Knoxville community to a place of empowerment...and now, we're doing that same work in Washington, D.C.
Join Sincere Seven in our mission to create positive change, empower communities, and advocate for the legal rights of working class Americans.
The S7 2nd Amendment
Re-Definition & Firearm Abolition Campaign
Americans are being killed unnecessarily by firearms every day in the US. The S7 is of the mind that this doesn't have to be the case; just because something has been, doesn't mean that that's the way it shall be. We've noted that efforts to institute background checks, "red flag" laws and bans on assault weapons have been consistently stifled by ultra-loyal, right-wing, conservative gun advocates, backed by firearm manufacturers. None of that has worked; not because those aren't good intentions, but because the gun lobby has captured the narrative. We are of the mind that that narrative has to be stomped out and re-written, by those most greatly affected--young Americans.
"Thoughts and prayers," tears and vigils are far too commonplace to ignore the common denominator in every--EVERY--gun homicide or suicide in this country and in the District: the gun. Our 2nd Amendment Re-Definition and Firearm Abolition Campaign exists to educate young people to actual wording and legislative intent in the US Constitution, the misapplication of those words and judicial interpretation and provide them with the tools to effect legislators--beginning at home.
This is the genesis of a long-term campaign of legislative change, using the tools of conservatives, who, after 50 years of determined relentlessness, overturned a woman's right to choose and abortion in the Supreme Court's Roe v Wade decision.
2nd Amendment Re-Definition Youth Summer Camp Engagement 2025
The S7 took our anti-gun message to a community adversely affected by gun violence in DC's most economically-challenged sector--Ward 8.
Young people residing in the Randle Hill apartment complex met with the S7 for six weeks to learn of the negative impact on them--and young people nationwide--and allow them to share the realities of guns in their lives.
These youth learned of ways to extricate firearms
from their social and individual lives and the history
and pathways that lead to guns that end up
wreaking tragedy and trauma in their
neighborhoods.
After reaching consensus on the premise that,
"guns haven't done us any favors," the 18 young
summer camp participants "Took the Pledge" of NO MORE GUNS!
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Stop Wage Theft Project
For millions of the country’s lowest-paid workers, financial security is even more fleeting because of unscrupulous employers stealing a portion of their paychecks.
Wage Theft, the practice of employers failing to pay workers the full wages to which they are legally entitled, is a widespread and deep-rooted problem that directly harms millions of U.S. workers each year. Employers refusing to pay promised wages, paying less than legally mandated minimums, failing to pay for all hours worked, or not paying overtime premiums deprives working people of billions of dollars annually. It also leaves hundreds of thousands of affected workers and their families in poverty. Wage theft does not just harm the workers and families who directly suffer exploitation; it also weakens the bargaining power of workers more broadly by putting downward pressure on hourly wages in affected industries and occupations. For many low-income families who suffer wage theft, the resulting loss of income forces them to rely more heavily on public assistance programs, unduly straining safety net programs and hamstringing efforts to reduce poverty.
The HEART Act
The HEART (Housing Equity and Advance Repair Tax) Act was authored in the fall of 2023 by Perry Redd and Dr. Rhonda L. Hamilton as a proactive response to the alarming number of low-income DC residents, chiefly in DC’s most economically-challenged wards (7 and 8) whose attempts to secure repairs on their rental apartment units, were ignored, sub-standardly repaired, or used as a pre-text to evict them from their rental housing; the Act also was designed to address the under-serving methodology of selective enforcement of the DC Tenants’ Rights Act by DC’s Office of the Attorney General. It’s purpose is concertedly intended to raise the quality of low-income—and effectively, ALL DC apartment rental stock to an acceptable—and legal—level of habitability.
The Act has its roots in the DC Tenant’s Rights Act and was introduced to The DC Council by Redd and Hamilton as an amendment to the Act after a painstakingly detailed compilation by the Healthy DC and Me Leadership Coalition of three previous years worth of documentation of requested and necessary repairs. This documentation of tenants’ complaints, landlord responses—or lack thereof—led to efforts to address foregone and long overdue rental unit repairs, resulting in The HEART Act.
Though the legislation is full-throated and comprehensive, its premise is simple: 1) lift all DC apartment housing stock to an acceptable quality of habitability, and 2) make repairs on rental housing in the District when profit-benefitting landlords fail to make the necessary and/or requested repairs—with code enforcement “on the front end,” (in making the repairs in the immediate)–and leave fines, collections and sanctions to The Office of the Attorney General—on the “back end.”
Following inspection confirmation by The DC Department of Buildings (DOB), and sufficient opportunity to remedy the requested repair (based on suitable habitability), the apartment unit repairs shall be executed through the HEART Task Force via the four-channeled secure funded HEART Fund in conjunction with credible and vetted local vendors to carry out the necessary repairs.
Housing In Dignity
The Housing In Dignity (HID) program was designed to chronicle, document, educate and advocate DC tenants' untenable , unsafe, unhealthy and possibly illegal living conditions in rental housing that may run counter to DC's Tenant's Rights Act.
We aim to serve as listeners and translators of tenants' complaints and entreaties to their landlords and turn those entreaties into viable and just practical, policy and/or legislative solutions.
Direct Advocacy for Collective Tenants
Forcing DC's Elected Leaders to Answer to the Tenants
The S7, alongside our partners at The Healthy DC & Me Leadership Coalition, has heavily engaged members of the DC Council, HUD, DCHA, the Office of The Attorney General, DOB and other agencies to respectively respond to the dire needs of DC renters to honor the law that we all might enjoy a healthier, civil and just DC
Lifting the Voices of Tenants
Resistant Public Protest
On Labor Day 2024, Tenants representing 12 different apartment complexes took to the streets to make their dissatisfaction with leadership known...and shut down the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge for four hours in order to force a serious move toward implenting a remedy.
Interactive Renter Tenant Policy Education
Teaching DC Tenants Where Their Power Is
Since 2022, working alongside our partners at The Healthy DC & Me Coalition, we have educated tenants at Woodberry Village apartments on their rental protections and legal rights under DC's Tenants' Rights Act. Woodberry Village, Marbury Plaza, Wingate and Chesapeake aprtment renters, among others, have lobbied the DC Council to force their landlord to enact standard repairs--with very little concern and virtually NO action--from their elected leaders.
...the struggle continues.
#whataboutWoodberry
Legislative Drafting Advocacy
The HEART Act
(see the bill below)
Because of the ongoing DC landlords' denial of repair and remediation of sub-standard maintenance, alongside our partners at The Healthy DC & Me Leadership Coalition, we have drafted complimentary legislation that shall cure the non-prosecution of "slumlords" by the Attorney General and make repairs immediate upon verification of DC code violations
Forming A Non-Profit
This study is an accelerated academic discipline in popular-education form of the essential elements necessary to understand and apply purposes, policies, practices and procedures to serve as seed knowledge to effectively undertake the noble task of beginning, growing, maintaining and sustaining--with practicality and legality--a non-profit organization
The History
The Program
The Workshop
This course of study is a concerted compilation from several tried and trusted sources over many years, periodically updated with the latest policy changes, social innovations and mandated amendments to IRS statutory code. This course was first delivered in 2005 by S7 Executive Director, Perry Redd...his course of direction and instructed discipline has demonstrated that this teaching is what works!
This study is a compilation of procedures of both practicality and legality. It will also address the essential elements necessary to understand purpose, policies, practices, and procedures needed to efficiently undertake the noble task of beginning, growing, maintaining and sustaining a non-profit organization.
Take our workshop and learn to get your community-based non-profit up & running! Facilitated by a community leader with decades of experienced in starting and maintaining a functioning non-profit organization.
Our workshop is 4 one-hour classes held at the Capital One Café, Anacostia-1203 Marion Barry Avenue, Southeast, Washington, DC, 20020...6-7pm (arrive by 5:45pm)
The total cost: $50
Our Team
Perry Redd
Perry is our Executive Director, co-founder and Lead Advocate with well over two decades of community organizing experience, specializing in workers' rights, political science and anti-racism.
His dedication and expertise have been instrumental in social change campaigns, championing the rights of the working class from Knoxville, Tennessee to Washington, DC, spurring popular education workshops and policy strategy, driving impactful change.
Perry has grown has leadership credentials over the years serving as a Baptist Church Pastor (Knoxville, TN) in the early 2000's and labor leader, co-founding Sincere Seven in 1999. He is also a 2002 graduate of Midwest Academy (Chicago, Ill.) and a 2023 graduate of the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy with a executive certificate in Non-Profit Management (Wash., DC)
James Jones
James serves as our Lead Community Organizer, fostering connections and mobilizing communities to stand united in the pursuit of fair labor practices and social justice. His passion for advocacy and community empowerment drives our grassroots initiatives. He also heads our Social Media Outreach efforts.
James works daily engaging residents, both youth and senior, as a Community Engagement Officer and is a 2023 graduate of the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy with a executive certificate in Non-Profit Management (Wash., DC)
Belinda Taylor
Belinda is our Special Events Coordinator and lead organizer of our Housing In Dignity (HID) program...leading efforts to reach and inform individuals in the places they may be about their rights as rental tenants in the District.
Her commitment to empowering the low-income and working class residents through her quest for knowledge, vast experience and fervent passion strengthens our mission at Sincere Seven.
Social Change takes money...and our supporting funders put their money where their hearts are
