Will the Future Lead to Black Washington Remembered?

In Unit 2, we have been studying the influence African Americans had on the founding of Georgetown and their significance to the city of Washington. In "Number of Black DC Plummets as Majority Status slips Away" Carol Morello and Dan Keating discuss a new phenomenon occuring in the District. According to the two, the number of African Americans has fallen drastically in the recent decade while the number of Whites has soared. This is a shocking idea due to African Americans have held large numbers in the city since the ending of the Civil War. Jaqueline Moore notes in "The Washington Black Elite", "The nation's capital attracted many race leaders .... Blacks and whites rightly recognized the city as the center of Black culture long before New York's Harlem ..."(Moore, 9). From the city's beginnings African Americans have been a dominant group whether enslaved or free. Washington was the original epic center of social life for prominent African Americans and the guinea pig for race relations in the nation. Keating and Morello also point out that the cause could be due to the drastic differences in income and education. Due to Whites moving in to the area because of cheaper housing, life became harder for working class Blacks. Those with higher levels of education were able to obtain higher income. This is not new to Washington, Moore highlights the Black elite's desire to separate themselves from the masses (or working class Blacks) in her article. Unfortunately, this has led to the working-class being pushed out of a city they helped create, a city of which they could trace their families back for generations. This phenomenon is not that unique after all. This story contains a striking similarity to the outcome of the community of Georgetown.