By Sara Soteras i Acosta |
Washington (BLAZETRENDS).- In the so-called “chocolate city” for its black population, Washington, one of the ounces of the tablet is about to disappear. At 66, Neville Waters is one of the few remaining native African-Americans in Georgetown, a neighborhood in the US capital that was once home to a large black community.
Waters’ case is “unique,” laments the sixth-generation homeowner, after many have had to leave their homes because of gentrification, before the phenomenon had a name.
Walking through Georgetown, one can enter the most exclusive shops in the city, with the typical cafes and restaurants of a wealthy neighborhood, which without any resemblance to its past has now become a white enclave.
“Many black families have left, there are only about six left,” explains the African-American Monica Roaché, 50, who has been living in the same house that her ancestors bought in 1941, to BLAZETRENDS. Her relatives have been some of the victims of the house speculation. Reason that has led them to move to other areas of the city and to the adjacent state of Maryland.
arrival of slaves
What was once an area with about 40% black population, currently only has 7%, according to the “Black Book of Georgetown.” And it is that the Afro-American community has been “since day one” in the neighborhood. With a history of slavery that marks the beginning of the region, Lisa Fager, director of the Black Georgetown Foundation, claims BLAZETRENDS.
“The story of blacks in Georgetown really tells the story of blacks in America,” says Fager, who in turn points to the need to “make sure people understand” the past.
Waters recalls that the first generation of his family to come to Georgetown were Charles and James Turner, twin slaves who were freed when they were six years old with the abolition of slavery in 1962. The compensation for both was around $90. From that moment on, the Afro-American population began to make a place for itself in society.
Unlike Waters, her parents did live in an environment where “there was a real sense of black community.” Given the number of churches, schools, doctors and other services. It was during the sixties, when gentrification caused many to leave their homes.
Measures such as the “Old Georgetown Law” were implemented which, under the pretext of protecting historic architecture, opened the door to greater government discrimination, especially due to the bureaucracy associated with the process.
Stay in Georgetown
As prices rose, many African-American citizens could not afford to meet these requirements and keep their homes, so they began to move to other areas of the city.
In addition, Roaché recounts that, in the case of rentals, the owners made the conditions of the houses so bad that they could not be lived in, in order to throw out the African-American tenants.
Roaché regrets that he could not be part of those African-American organizations that “strongly united” the community, such as the Girl Scouts or baseball teams, since during his childhood they had already disappeared.
“My family worked hard to stay in Georgetown. My grandfather, for example, had two jobs. They made an effort to stay here and that’s why I’m staying”, defends Roaché.
This commitment is also shared by Walters, who promised his grandfather before he died that he would keep the house: “Our grandparents saw this achievement of buying a home and wanted to pass it on to future generations. I don’t think they were thinking that one day they would be multi-million dollar houses with politicians and businessmen,” he argues.
African American burial grounds
Some African-American churches continue to operate, such as the Epiphany Catholic Church attended by the women in Roaché’s family, who remains a member of the same congregation.
The men, by contrast, went to Mount Zion, which still houses one of the oldest African-American cemeteries in Washington. Where there are buried people who were born and died slaves. Precisely, the organization led by Fager works to preserve it, since “it does not receive funding on a regular basis.”
One of the main demands is to “receive the same treatment that many of the cemeteries in the District of Columbia – where Washington is located – received that were previously only for whites.”
Only four historic black cemeteries remain in the city. And all of them “need to be saved,” recalls Fager, because “if anyone deserves to rest in peace and with dignity, it’s them.”
Now, the African-American community linked to this “chocolate” neighborhood is concerned that their heritage may end up buried in these cemeteries and they continue to fight for history to be “recognized and celebrated.”