Kimi Gray was DC’s home-grown public housing leader, who helped take a 1980s resident management movement national. When she moved into Kenilworth Courts in 1966, she was a 21-year old divorced mother of five on public assistance. By the time she died, she had advised successive presidential administrations on public housing policy. All without leaving the Courts.

I remember “Miss Kimi,” as many neighbors called her, from my childhood in the Kenilworth area. But it wasn’t until I researched and wrote my 2006 Kenilworth history booklet that I realized how big a deal she was outside the community. She had a real moment in the 1980s and into the 1990s, leading a renaissance in Kenilworth Courts and impacting the national conversation about how to improve life in urban public housing complexes.

In the early 2020s, redevelopment began on ‘her’ complex – Kimi Gray passed in March of 2000. I’m not sure if this gentrification-driven change is the fulfillment of her dreams or the final nail in her coffin. Either way, I celebrate her visionary leadership, local commitment, and the courage that led her to take on both presidents and drug dealers as she did her best to empower fellow public housing constituents, in DC and beyond.

Scroll on to learn more about Kenilworth’s remarkable leader, Kimi Gray.

The Unforgettable Kimi Gray

DC Raw & Uncut / Nightryda707 found some amazing archival footage of Kimi Gray from back in the day in the 1980s, when she was getting featured on the news and at press conferences on a regular basis. The filmmaker lived in Kenilworth Courts when he was young, and his strong narrative voice carries this tribute to Miss Kimi. Look for footage of her iconic blue van, that she drove up and down supporting public housing leaders across the city.

DC Raw & Uncut covers the kind of ‘hood history that is too often ignored in the District, check out the YouTube channel.

C-SPAN Couldn’t Contain Kimi

Interviewed on C-SPAN in 1990 for a series on Washington DC leaders, Kimi exhibited plenty of the pull-no-bull directness that made her a favorite – and earned her some enemies – in the alleys of Kenilworth Courts and in the halls of local and national power downtown.

Kimi Gray, Kenilworth hero

Miss Kimi’s grandmother told her that a roach – which were unfortunately infamous in the kind of places she had to live – could pull a cart. In prose aimed at elementary school students, read about how Kimi put that kind of determination into becoming a leader who transformed her home neighborhood.

Kimi Gray news coverage

Kimi Gray’s Dream Project, Washington Post, September 24, 1980, by Edward D. Sargent

‘They Can’t Stop Us Now‘, Washington Post Magazine, July 30, 1989, by David Osborne

Washington at Work; Jack Kemp’s Favorite Public Housing Tenant, The New York Times, July 13, 1990, by Jason Deparle

Public Housing Advocate Kimi Gray Dies, Washington Post, March 3, 2000, by Louie Estrada

A 1978 “Voices From the Projects” Washington Post series on public housing culture in DC, penned by correspondent Lewis M. Simons, features Kimi Gray in each of the five articles. Simons’ writing appears to have gotten the attention of DC politicos, kickstarting Kimi Gray’s career as a housing advocate. These articles aren’t available publicly, so you’ll have to get access to an online archive to read them.