Trayon White

In March 2018, White organized protests against a development in his Ward. Targeting developers Bozzuto and Chapman Development, White complained that they did not hire enough local labor and contractors.

In March 2018, White sparked controversy by stating that Jewish bankers control the weather. Following the response from community members and leaders, White apologized, met with Jewish community leaders, and visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. During his visit on April 19, White reportedly abruptly left the 90-minute tour halfway through.

On March 16, 2018, White posted a video on his official Facebook page showing snow flurries falling, alluding to the conspiracy theory of the Rothschild family conspiring to manipulate the weather. In his post, he stated, "Y'all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation ... And that's a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful." The comment was widely reported in Washington and worldwide media as an endorsement of an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. The Washington City Paper reported on March 19 that this was not the first time White alluded to a Jewish conspiracy to control global weather. White later apologized for making the statement, and said he was working with Jews United for Justice to develop a deeper understanding of anti-semitism. According to The Washington Post, several Jewish organizations in the area said they believed White's apology was sincere and that his comments seemed to have been made from a position of ignorance rather than anti-semitism.

On March 19, 2018, the Council released footage of a February 27, 2018, event in which White claimed that the Rothschilds controlled the World Bank and the U.S. government. In the video, White says, "There's this whole concept with the Rothschilds—control the World Bank, as we all know—infusing dollars into major cities. They really pretty much control the federal government, and now they have this concept called resilient cities in which they are using their money and influence into local cities." Mayor Bowser, council members, and other city leaders attending the event showed puzzlement at White's remarks, but did not condemn them at the time.

White was sworn into office at noon on January 2, 2017.

In June 2017, White posted bail for friend and Ward 8 ANC commissioner Kendall Simmons who was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend in a grocery store. White compared Simmons to Malcolm X and said that the girlfriend's story did not match the facts in the case.

On February 8, 2016, White filed as a candidate for the Ward 8 District Council seat in the Democratic primary. Few other candidates were expected to run in the race, and at the filing deadline White already had the endorsements of Jauhar Abraham, Stuart Anderson, Marion Christopher Barry, and Karl Racine, Attorney General of the District of Columbia. In addition to May, White faced candidates Maurice Dickens, Bonita Goode, and Aaron Holmes.

LaRuby May lost the June 14, 2016, Democratic nomination to Trayon White, 51 percent to 43 percent (4,272 votes to 3,584 votes).

In June 2016, White endorsed a D.C. campaign finance reform proposal to bar any person or corporation from receiving a city contract with $100,000 or more if they donate to a District Council election. The proposal was one of the strictest of several proposals to address corruption and ethics issues facing the council, several of whose members had been found guilty of ethics and fraud charges in the past several years.

On November 8, 2016, White was unopposed in his bid to win the Ward 8 Council seat, and won with 25,870 votes (93.29 percent of all votes cast).

By the end of January 2015, White had raised a mere $2,562 in campaign donations. In comparison, LaRuby May had raised $177,405, and former Vincent C. Gray mayoral aide Sheila Bunn had raised $51,692. Despite the low level of initial fundraising, the Washington City Paper, quoting unnamed Ward 8 political insiders, said White probably shared the lead in the race with May. By the end of February, White had raised over $10,000 and had $12,000 in his campaign coffers.

Turnout in the Ward 8 special election on April 28, 2015, was especially high, with more than 6,200 ballots cast by the ward's nearly 52,000 voters. That was nearly 75 percent of the turnout in the 2014 mayoral primary—far exceeding expectations. Preliminary election results released late in the evening on April 28 showed LaRuby May with 1,711 votes and Trayon White with 1,559 votes, a difference of just 152 ballots. Although May outspent White 16-to-1, election observers said White had surged late in the race as an "anti-establishment vote" and that he had consolidated much of his support by drawing it from other candidates in the crowded field. Will Sommer, writing in the Washington City Paper, argued that White lost the race because Marion Christopher Barry, son of the former mayor, had stayed in the race despite a floundering campaign and his candidacy had diverted votes from White.

The BOE said it would certify the Ward 8 special election on May 14, 2015, and The Washington Post said May would likely be sworn in as a D.C. council member at that time. White said he would ask for a recount. But the BOE said that May would be able to take her seat immediately after the election is certified and she is sworn in, and that she would be able to begin council work right away. The BOE indicated that White's request for a recount would have to wait until the certification was made.

The D.C. Board of Elections certified the election results on May 14, 2015. May won with 1,955 votes to White's 1,877, a difference of 78 votes.

White spent much of the next year maintaining a high profile in Ward 8. He routinely attended demonstrations in favor of better public housing and job training, and against gentrification; visited areas where murders occurred; and led protests against Mayor Bowser's proposed anti-crime proposals. His work attracted strong support among teenagers and young adults in their 20s. On June 18, 2015, White was hired as a temporary employee in the Office of the Attorney General of the District of Columbia. He worked as a Community Development Specialist, focusing on education, engagement, and outreach to organizations and communities. His portfolio focused on at-risk youth, juvenile justice issues, combatting designer drug use, and general outreach to neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River. His employment ended on September 30, 2015.

The Board of Education position paid a stipend (not a salary) of $15,000 a year. In late February 2014, White took a job as a supervisor in the "Roving Leaders" at-risk youth program in the District of Columbia Department of Parks and Recreation. But city law prohibited Board of Education members from holding city employment, and White resigned his position on the Board on March 5, 2014.

In April 2014, eight-year-old Relisha Rudd disappeared while her family was staying in a city-run homeless shelter. The child's disappearance created a citywide outpouring of concern. White, who had met the girl, worked with several community groups to organize three canvases of the area to try to find the girl (or her body). (The girl remained missing as of April 2016.)

On Sunday, November 23, 2014, 78-year-old Marion Barry died at United Medical Center, hours after having been released from Howard University Hospital. White was one of the people Barry called immediately after leaving Howard. On December 16, The Washington Post reported that White was one of many individuals contemplating a run for Barry's Ward 8 council seat. White was one of the first to file as a candidate in the special election to fill the remainder of Barry's term (which expired on December 31, 2016), doing so in late December 2014. Under District of Columbia Board of Elections rules that permit candidates to run under whatever name they wish, White asked for his name on the ballot to be listed as "Trayon 'WardEight' White". White later explained that friends began calling him by the nickname "WardEight" on Facebook, and he intended to use it on the ballot.

On May 9, the D.C. Board of Elections announced its final, unofficial ballot count in the Ward 8 special election. After counting 951 of the 1,031 provisional and absentee ballots, the BOE declared that LaRuby May won the election with 1,955 votes to Trayon White's 1,876—a margin of 79 votes, or 1.08 percent of all ballots cast. May picked up 244 votes (25.66 percent of all provisional and absentee ballots), and White 317 (33.33 percent of all provisional and absentee ballots cast). Under D.C. law, a winning margin of less than 1 percent creates an automatic recount, an outcome May avoided.

White helped break ground on a new Ballou High School building in March 2013. He praised charter schools for improving education, but criticized Kaya Henderson, Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools, for failing to come up with a plan to improve education for children in traditional public school settings.

White's first term on the D.C. Board of Education expired at the end of December 2012, and he ran for reelection in November 2012. Once more, he faced Pannell in the general election, although this time there were no other candidates. White easily won with 73.3 percent of the vote to Pannell's 26.3 percent (a margin of more than 13,500 votes).

Lockridge died of congestive heart failure on January 12, 2011. White ran to fill Lockridge's unexpired term on the Board of Education, winning endorsements from Barry and Lockridge's widow. He won the April 26, 2011, special election with 32.8 percent of the vote in a crowded field. He led second-place candidate Philip Pannell by 6 percent (although this represented only two hundred votes in the low-turnout election).

White then enrolled at a master's degree program in public administration at Southeastern University in Washington, D.C., but apparently did not complete his studies. (The school merged with Graduate School USA in 2010.)

In November 2007, White founded Helping Inner City Kids Succeed (HICKS), a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping poverty-stricken children east of the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C. White received the Linowes Leadership Award from the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region in May 2008 for his work with at-risk young people. In 2011, an editorial in The Washington Post said White's nonprofit "is doing interesting work with inner-city youth" and that White had real insight "into the problems confronted by students in Ward 8 schools".

White became involved with the East of the River Clergy Police Community Partnership (ERCPCP) while in high school. He remained involved as a mentor and sports coach while in college, and joined ERCPCP as a paid community outreach worker about 2006. Interviewed by The Washington Post in January 2008, White said that a large number of his friends were robbed in D.C. in 2007, and he knew five people who had been murdered that year. "Living in the streets, you get numb to it and learn to cope with it. It's hard for me to cry when I go to funerals anymore," he said. White, who lived in the Washington Highlands neighborhood, denounced the 2007 shooting of 14-year-old DeOnte Rawlings by an off-duty D.C. police officer as "injustice."

One of White's teachers began mentoring him. When the teacher died in an automobile accident, White turned toward Christianity. His grades radically improved, and he participated in student government. He attended TechWorld Public Charter School for at least one year of high school before transferring to Ballou High School, where he graduated in 2002.

White enrolled at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Princess Anne, Maryland, in the fall of 2002. Each week, he returned to the District of Columbia to coach sports with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. White graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in business administration in 2006.

Trayon White (born May 11, 1984) is a member of the Council of the District of Columbia, representing Ward 8 of the District of Columbia. From January 2012 to March 2014, he was a member of the District of Columbia State Board of Education. He ran for the Ward 8 seat on the Council of the District of Columbia in a special election in April 2015 and narrowly lost the Democratic primary to eventual Councilmember LaRuby May. He ran for the same seat again in June 2016, defeating May for the Democratic nomination by 688 votes. He won election to the Council in November 2016.

Trayon White was born May 11, 1984, in Washington, D.C. He grew up in a neighborhood in the Southeast, raised by his mother after his father abandoned the family. His family was extremely poor, and he sometimes went hungry or without clean clothes. Violence and drug dealing were common in his neighborhood, and at times he could not go outside due to the violence. In his early teens, White began living with his grandmother. He stole cars, and was arrested by the Metropolitan Police. He was not prosecuted, but his grandmother sent him to live with cousins to be raised. He spent the rest of his teen years living with them in an overcrowded apartment.