Representative Moreland earned his Bachelor of Science Degree in International Affairs in 1974 from Antioch University. In his senior year, he participated in Antioch's highly acclaimed "Education Abroad Program," which required him to study in Europe and West Africa, attached to the University of Lagos, where he conducted field research in Nigeria, visiting villages and cities from Badagary in the south to Nguru north of Kanu.
He earned his Juris Doctor Degree from Antioch School of Law in 1979. Honors awarded in Law School include the prestigious Lyndon Bains Johnson Congressional Internship. Representative Moreland was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in June 1980.
In 1990 the voters of Washington, D.C. elected Charles J. Moreland to the position of United States Representative. U.S. Senators Jesse L. Jackson and Florence Pendleton were elected at the same time to lobby the U.S. Senate for D.C. Statehood.
Representative Moreland was re-elected to a second term in November 1992, receiving more than 140,000 votes--one of the highest vote-totals in Washington, D.C. history. He chose not to seek re-election in 1994. From 1991 to 1994 Rep. Moreland taught Business Law at Southeastern University in Washington, D.C. Charles J. Moreland is a skilled and experienced lobbyist who has worked on Capitol Hill as a political professional since 1978. He served as the chief National Lobbyist for The D.C. Voting Rights Amendment, and traveled to 15 states to introduce the bill before state legislatures.
Representative Moreland is Founder and Chairman of The New Columbia Publishing Company, Inc. He is The Publisher of the New Columbia Times Newspaper, and Author of “The Way To Freedom From Life’s Many Addictions,” a faith-based healing guide

Johnny Barnes is the self-described “People’s Lawyer” who spent more than a quarter of a century in various Congressional staff positions, including service as Chief of Staff for three Members of Congress. In addition, he has taught law and college courses at area schools and has practiced law in the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands. Of his time spent in the Virgin Islands as a trial lawyer, Barnes unapologetically states, “Someone had to do it.  So I made the sacrifice.”

Other related experience includes his appointment as the first male Member of the D.C. Commission for Women; as a Member of the D.C. Commission on Residential Mortgage Investment, an entity that tackled the prevalent problem of redlining and mortgage loan discrimination; as a Member of the D.C. Human Rights Commission; and as an attorney on a Special Task Force that addressed ill treatment of small Minority farmers by the Reagan and Bush administrations and discrimination by rural loan officers. That activity resulted in a resolution --- supported by the Congressional Republican Leadership --- in which billions of dollars was slated to flow to the Minority farmers. Barnes is particularly proud of the role he played in helping to create the “Street Law” Program at Georgetown University Law Center; a program that began in two D.C. High Schools and is now taught throughout the United States in schools and prisons and in thirty-five foreign countries.

A Distinguished Military Graduate, Commissioned and Honorably Discharged, Regular Army, Combat Engineer Officer, Barnes graduated, Cum Laude, from Central State University and received his Juris Doctor Degree from Georgetown University Law Center. He is the Father of two grown sons, a grown daughter and three grandchildren; his latest, a girl, is named in part after his Mother, Pinkie, who Barnes believes was a modern day Saint on earth. Barnes recently retired after serving a decade as the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union for the Nation’s Capital. He is currently in private law practice as a trial lawyer, taking and litigating select “cause” cases.

During his time at the ACLU-NCA, he led several successful efforts to conserve the Constitution and preserve the Bill of Rights. Among those efforts were resisting the proliferation of video surveillance cameras in D.C.; fighting against proposed warrantless searches by the D.C. Police; standing up against unconstitutional police checkpoints in the Trinidad Neighborhood; and pushing back against the Secure Communities program in behalf of D.C.’s Immigrant population.  Barnes recently worked with several interns in updating and completing a soon-to-be-released law article on D.C. Statehood, the unfinished human rights business in America. He continues to devote much of his time to the quest for D.C. Statehood and predicts it will happen in our lifetime.