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AFRO Spotlight on Black Excellence: Peter Bug Shoe Academy, Fixing Souls and Soles

THE AFRO — A native of Southeast D.C., John “Peter Bug” Matthews is a fifth-generation Washingtonian. He started his nonprofit, Peter Bug Shoe and Leather Repair in 1977. The small shop has since doubled as a cobbler academy — known as the Peter Bug Shoe Repair Academy — for neighborhood children seeking part-time, paid employment opportunities.
The post AFRO Spotlight on Black Excellence: Peter Bug Shoe Academy, Fixing Souls and Soles first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

2 years ago

February 27, 2024

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By Mennatalla Ibrahim | Special to the AFRO

As the sun sets in the nation’s capital, painting the sky vibrant shades of reds and purples, John “Peter Bug” Matthews stands proudly outside his historic shoe shop on Capitol Hill. Even on his day off, Matthews is at the shop on his own, tirelessly repairing shoes for the community.

At 75, he wears a bright orange hoodie that matches the kufi cap on his head, a long, stained leather apron and a myriad of ethnic bracelets on either wrist. As he seamlessly works his way through the sea of tattered shoes sprawled across his floor, he tells origin stories of the African décor adorning the walls.

A native of Southeast D.C., Matthews is a fifth-generation Washingtonian. He started his nonprofit, Peter Bug Shoe and Leather Repair in 1977. The small shop has since doubled as a cobbler academy — known as the Peter Bug Shoe Repair Academy — for neighborhood children seeking part-time, paid employment opportunities.

The academy trains students in Capitol Hill as young as fifth graders. The year-round programs not only encompass the art of the trade but also lessons in anatomy, professionalism, community service, leadership, entrepreneurship and mentorship.

“Our goal here is to save souls and heal people,” Matthews said, spelling out the words “souls” and “heal” to play on the homonyms of “heel” and “sole.”

In 2010, the 400 block of 13th Street in Southeast Washington, D.C., was renamed Peter Bug Matthews Way. (Courtesy photo)

Recognizing the many steps the shop and academy have taken in the past 46 years toward fulfilling that goal, Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6B, which represents the Capitol Hill and Barney Circle neighborhoods, unanimously voted to designate the Peter Bug Shoe Repair Academy a D.C. Historical Landmark.

“The nomination recognizes and remembers the long legacy of community engagement and public service the academy represents for the Capitol Hill community,” Historic Preservation Specialist Todd Jones told the ANC’s Planning and Zoning Committee.

Aside from a grant from the African American Heritage Preservation Foundation to restore the structural integrity of the building, Matthews said that since the designation, the Academy has not received any additional funding from the city. However, he said the designation brought about something of equal importance: a sense of permanency.

“Our programs will now be memorialized, so that people can recognize that this entity and the life it has brought to this community will live in perpetuity,” said Michael Banner, executive director and a former student of the academy.

Preservation of local history is particularly important in neighborhoods like Capitol Hill where gentrification is rapidly changing its landscape.

A 2019 study conducted by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition found that D.C. had the greatest amount of gentrification of any United States city between 2000 and 2013, with around 20,000 Black residents displaced.

In the past two decades alone, Capitol Hill’s Black population has decreased by 47 percent, according to a 2022 report by the Politico media company.

At its inception, the academy was neighbored by a playground, a multipurpose sunken court and condos and townhouses filled with Black families. Today, the academy and the sunken court are the only remnants of the neighborhood’s past, now surrounded by new luxury residential developments and a growing White population.

Matthews said that under no circumstance would he accept getting pushed out of the community, but the landmark status is still a comforting symbol that he no longer has to fight for his space.

“Peter Bug has weathered a lot of storms — the drug infestation, the redlining, the gentrification, the entire community changing,” Banner said. “But everyone needs shoes. That is our connecting factor.”

Historic D.C. shoe shop academy is persevering through decades of changes on Capitol Hill. (Courtesy photo)

The landmark status is just the most recent in a long line of city-wide recognitions for the shop and academy. Since 1997, residents of Capitol Hill have gathered every June 8 to celebrate Peter Bug Day, a community-wide event filled with music, families and opportunities to connect. And in 2010, the 400 block of 13th Street in Southeast D.C. was renamed Peter Bug Matthews Way.

Matthews’ impact on the Capitol Hill community has long preceded the city-wide recognition.

Growing up with a stutter, he said he found his life’s work after spending his early education in schools for disabled children, gaining early skills in shoe repair at Phelps Vocational High School. However, before leaving for Oklahoma Technical Institute to continue refining his craft, Matthews was put in charge of the Youth Courtesy Patrol of the District of Columbia. Run by the Department of Justice in the 1960s, this program aimed to promote safety and reduce crime in metropolitan cities like D.C.

“I was in charge of leading a bunch of 13-year-old boys in escorting older women in the community from bus stops back to their homes at night so no one would mess with them. I had no idea why they’d listen to me. I wasn’t that much older than them. But we pulled it off,” Matthews said.

After returning from Oklahoma, Matthews attended Federal City College, now known as the University of the District of Columbia, where he was given access to speech therapy. Desperate for a job after earning his sociology degree, Matthews secured a part-time role teaching shoe repair to children with disabilities at his old vocational high school.

“I understood them because I was a part of them. I was misinterpreted and misjudged, and I knew they were, too. They just needed someone to slow down a little bit. If you let them see it and put their hands on it, they can get it. It’s just a different way of learning,” Matthews said. “I realized pretty quick that my goal was to start my own school.”

In 1977, Matthews successfully petitioned the District government to transform what was then the pavilion of a freshly foreclosed elementary school plaza into his shoe repair shop and academy. Though it received some government funding in the late-’70s and early-’80s, the academy, which is in a 99-year lease agreement with the city, has primarily run on donations, money generated from the shop and his team’s personal financial contributions.

He has since cultivated deep, restorative connections with nearly five decades worth of students, who call themselves the Shoe Shop Boyz — more than 500 of whom have been through the program.

Among the most notable is Banner. One of the children in Matthews’ first group of Shoe Shop Boyz, Banner started at the academy at just 12 years old and didn’t leave until he graduated from high school.

“The first thing that caught my eye about the Academy as I was running the streets of Capitol Hill was that it was a cultural program that told me about myself. No one told me I was an African. That was the hook. It was telling me about myself and I wanted to know more,” Banner said.

Banner went on to attend three historically Black colleges and universities and earn an MBA before returning to Peter Bug Academy as the full-time, acting executive director.

“The program instilled in me that we have to want to make things better in our community,” Banner said. “After you’ve gained additional skill sets, you have to give back to where you were planted, so that you can see things grow and flourish in a positive and loving way.”

Matthews shares this mindset and has applied it to many ventures beyond the shop and the academy.

Though he retired from teaching almost a decade ago, Matthews spent 30 years as an educator, teaching a shoe-repair class that bounced around a series of D.C. schools — most of which no longer exist. He has also had a hand in city politics, running for school board, actively participating in neighborhood council meetings and serving as a delegate for the Rev. Jesse Jackson in his 1984 presidential campaign. His many philanthropic efforts include administering the COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine out of his shop at the height of the pandemic.

He also created football and soccer teams that double as mentorship programs for school kids with good grades, and unpaid volunteer opportunities at the shop for Capitol Hill youth.

Adam Marou can attest to many of these ventures firsthand. Marou and his family moved across the street from Peter Bug Shoe and Leather Repair in 2004. He distinctly remembers his parents deeply connecting with Matthews on their African roots and the sense of excitement and community he felt on Peter Bug Day each year. In 2013, Marou volunteered at the Peter Bug Shop to accrue community-service hours toward his middle school graduation.

“I got to see how he conducts business and how passionate he is about his shop, his academy and our community. Seeing a local neighborhood guy like him and how much respect he got, opened my eyes,” Marou said.

“He’s kind of a community legend in a sense, which I guess gave me someone to look up to,” Marou said. “He’s a good role model and a very welcoming person. You feel no sort of judgment around him.”

Looking ahead, Matthews and his team are aiming for the federal historical landmark designation. They are also looking into turning the neighboring sunken-in court into an amphitheater where they can hold events and activities for the community year-round, such as concerts, poetry recitals, plays and more.

Until then, Matthews remains in his quaint corner of Capitol Hill, repairing shoes and teaching neighborhood children his craft from his shop as everything around him changes.

With a slight, inconspicuous stutter in his voice, he shares what he considers to be the craziest part of all this: “I had no interest in fixing shoes. I just had holes in mine.”

The post AFRO spotlight on Black excellence: Peter Bug Shoe Academy, fixing souls and soles appeared first on Afro American Newspapers.

The post AFRO Spotlight on Black Excellence: Peter Bug Shoe Academy, Fixing Souls and Soles first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

1 day ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

4 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke

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PRESS ROOM: NBA Hall of Fame Nominee Terry Cummings Joins 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to Launch Victory & Values Initiative

NNPA NEWSWIRE — NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th.

Published

4 days ago

February 27, 2026

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Cummings becomes an honorary member, joining other role model sports stars

NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings has officially become an honorary member of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County, marking a powerful new chapter for the 100 Black Men and youth development across the region.

Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th. The moment signified more than membership — it marked the launch of the organization’s transformative new platform, the Victory & Values Initiative.

The Victory & Values Initiative is a groundbreaking youth development program designed to empower elementary and middle school students through a dynamic blend of sports, mentorship, and STEM exposure. The initiative focuses on building health, discipline, character, leadership, and access to opportunity — creating pathways for long-term academic and personal success.

“This is about more than sports,” said Cummings during the ceremony. “It’s about using the platform of athletics to teach life lessons, create access, and build the next generation of leaders.”

The induction ceremony also featured notable guests including NASCAR’s newest Star Driver, Lavar Scott and NASCAR Director of Athletic Performance, Phil Horton, who joined Cummings for a powerful Victory & Values Town Hall discussion. The Town Hall was moderated by renowned Sports Emcee John Hollins and focused on leadership, resilience, discipline, and the importance of mentorship in shaping young lives.

A “Day at NASCAR” for 75+ Youth

Cummings wasted no time getting to work. On his first full day as an honorary member, he joined his new brothers of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to host a “Day at NASCAR,” escorting more than 75 youth to a once-in-a-lifetime experience at EchoPark Motor Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway).

The youth participants received behind-the-scenes access including: an exclusive tour of Pit Row, access to the Garage Area and exploration of the interactive Fan Zone.

The experience culminated with a surprise meet-and-greet and Q&A session with NASCAR Superstar Bubba Wallace, who shared insights on perseverance, preparation, and breaking barriers in professional sports.

The day served as a living example of the ‘Victory & Values’ Initiative in action — exposing youth to new industries, expanding their vision for the future, and connecting them directly with high- level mentors and role models.

Building Leaders Through Access and Mentorship

The 100 Black Men of DeKalb County – a chapter of the largest, national mentoring organization in the county – continues to expand its footprint with programs focused on academic excellence, economic empowerment, leadership development, and health & wellness.

The launch of ‘Victory & Values’ represents a strategic expansion of the organization’s impact

intentionally integrating athletics and STEM to engage youth at an early age while reinforcing core principles such as integrity, accountability, teamwork, and perseverance.

“Our mission has always been to mentor the next generation,” said Vaughn Irons, President-Elect of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County. “With Terry Cummings joining the brotherhood, along with partners in NASCAR and professional sports, we are creating unprecedented access and exposure for our youth. Victory & Values is about turning inspiration into structured opportunity.”

By connecting elementary and middle school students to professional athletes, executives, STEM professionals, and community leaders, the initiative aims to:

Increase youth exposure to careers in sports business, engineering, and performance science
Strengthen mentorship pipelines
Promote physical wellness and mental resilience
Build character-driven leadership at an early age

Open Invitation to Youth and Families

All youth are invited to participate in the Victory & Values Initiative, along with the other countless, impactful programs offered by the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County.

Parents and guardians seeking mentorship, leadership development, academic enrichment, and transformative exposure opportunities for their children are encouraged to connect with the organization.

As NBA Legend Terry Cummings’ induction demonstrates, Victory & Values is more than a program — it is a movement designed to build champions in life, not just in sports.

For more information about the Victory & Values Initiative or to enroll a student, contact: 100 Black Men of DeKalb County at Phone at 404.241.1338, info@100bmod.org or Tee Foxx at 404.791.6525,