Programs
The Women and Fair Practices Department is devoted to promoting the civil,
- June 7, 2025: Capital Pride/World Pride Parade
- June 10, 2025: Trans Rights Panel
- June 25, 2025: Legislation Fighting for the 2SLGBTQIA+ Community
- June 26, 2025: Allyship Through Representation
Hispanic Heritage Month
Each year from September 15-October 15, Hispanic Heritage Month pays tribute to Hispanic and Latinx culture, community, and contribution today and throughout history. This observance began in 1968 under Lyndon B. Johnson as Hispanic Heritage Week, before being signed into law by Ronald Reagan as a month-long commemoration beginning on September 15th to honor the independence anniversaries of El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras.
In 2024, WFP and AFGE HISCO are celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with a series of virtual events: Mindfulness for the Hispanic/Latinx Community, Intersectionality Panels, YOUNG/HISCO Workers, Hispanic American Colleges and Universities Presentation, and an overview of Hispanic Culture.
Native American Heritage Month
November is National Native American Heritage Month, an annual celebration of the culture, heritage, and history of American Indians and Alaska Natives. Efforts to institutionalize a time to honor Indigenous peoples go back over a century. In 1916, the first American Indian Day was declared by the State of New York. Over the course of the 20th Century, a number of states declared similar holidays. In 1990, President George H. W. Bush first issued a proclamation designating November as National Native American Heritage Month.
National Native American Heritage Month is an opportunity for celebration, but it's also an important opportunity to reflect on the dispossession and displacement faced by Indigenous peoples now and in the past, and all of the resilience and activism done to ensure the continuance of Indigenous culture and community today.
The AFGE Women and Fair Practices Department recognizes that Washington D.C., seat of the Federal and D.C. Governments and home to AFGE Headquarters, sits on the traditional ancestral land of the Piscataway people, including the Nacotchtank (or Anacostan) peoples.
Before the arrival of Europeans, the Piscataway were one of the predominant Indigenous groups living along the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. They were made up of several small bands living throughout what is now Washington D.C., Southern Maryland, and the area between the Potomac River, Patapsco River, and the Chesapeake Bay.
Despite everything wrought by English colonization, groups of Piscataway survived and maintain their presence in this area today. In 2012, after years of advocacy and activism, the Piscataway Indian Nation and Piscataway Conoy Tribe became the first two American Indian groups indigenous to Maryland to be formally recognized by the state.
Learn more about the traditional Piscataway territory here, through this searchable map of Native territories, languages and treaties, developed by Native Land Digital, an Indigenous-led nonprofit. To better understand the traditional Indigenous lands you live and work on, check the map out here.
In 2024, WFP is excited to announce that we are currently working on the creation of a new constituency group for Indigenous and Native Alaskan AFGE Members.
Top News
- AFGE VA Contract Restored in Major Win for Workers, Veterans
- AFGE Ramps Up Pressure to Pay Workers as DHS Shutdown Reaches One Month
- Major AFGE Win as Arbitrator Orders SSA to Reinstate Telework
- Judge Invalidates Trump Administration’s Attempts to Dismantle Voice of America
- AFGE Education Local Still Fighting for Members One Year After Mass Firing
