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Most of the whites who worked construction in the 70's were from neighboring areas such as PG County and Northern Virginia. These areas had large pockets of middle class whites at the time. Now today, that has changed considerably. But in the 70's, you could definitely find them. And yes, they were not ethnic at all. They most likely were good ole boys.
That is so true.
I remember throughout the 70s my parents announcing that the "roofers were coming" or "the tree guys will be working." And sure enough, a bunch of fellas that were carbon copies of Lynrd Skynrd (before the crash) would roll in. They were invariably good ole boys- very friendly, great workers.
The theory in my high school was that they were DC101's target radio demographic.
The only reason I used the word Redneck is because I was trying to say Working-Class WASP. However, when we think of WASPs, we think of rich people. Sorry I meant no offense to anyone.
[quote=HellaFool;11508987]I live right outside of DC, and I was wondering if anyone could tell me the reason that DC has such a large African-American population, making up close to 80% of the city.
First off, 80 percent is no longer true at all - the Census gives the current population of the District of Columbia as only around 50 percent African-American. Offhand, I believe half of the city council members are white. Back in the 1970, there were only one or two (the Washington Magazine did an article on this). The city public schools, as is true anywhere in the country for that matter, have far higher minority percentages. As a life-long resident, I have found that most white caucasian, blue-collar workers working in D.C. commute from in far-distant areas like Stafford, Manassas, Waldorf, Deale Md, or even toward the Blue Ridge region. They find the cost of housing and the schools systems superior in those distant areas.
One reason the District has a higher percentage of African-Americans is that the physical area of the District (just over 60 square miles) comprises a smaller share of its metro area, than is true of other metro areas. For instance, in either N.Y.C., Chicago, or Philly, you will find approximately 40 percent of the entire metro area population lives with their core city limits, because their incorporated city limits physically extend more miles out than does D.C.'s. Therefore you will find more caucasian, family-type neighborhoods (like much of Queens and Staten Island and northeast Philly) encompassed within their city limits, which brings up those cities' white percentages. With D.C. offhand I would say (without looking it up) that only 15 percent of the metropolitan area's population lives right in D.C. If D.C. were to re-claim its original Arlington boundary, then the percentages of African-Americans would go down. Some people claim that another reason is that the Federal Government starting in the 1960s had affirmative action hiring which encouraged blacks to get Federal jobs, which they would not have gotten as readily in private industry.
At the turn of the century the Irish had an ethnic neighborhood called "Swampoodle" - the remnant of it is Gonzaga catholic high school. It was convenient to Union Station and Catholic University. There were also Jewish people in southwest D.C. (including the famous vaudeville singer/entertainer Al Jolson) before it was all razed and redeveloped in the 1960s. Holy Rosary Church at 3rd and F. St. N.W. is a remnant of the Italian community.
I live right outside of DC, and I was wondering if anyone could tell me the reason that DC has such a large African-American population, making up close to 80% of the city.
LA has a high Mexican population because it is on the border of Mexico. Miami has a high Cuban population because it is right across the sea from Cuba. San Francisco is heavily Chinese because that was the Pacific coast port, whereas New York and Boston were made up of heavily European immigrants. But my question is what is it about Washington, DC that attracted such a high African-American population in history.
With New York and other Northeastern cities, the population was made up of Irish, Italian, and Eastern European immigrants until 1950, when the Puerto Ricans and blacks began moving in, and alot of the European-Americans moved into the Suburbs. Now there's alot of immigrants from all over Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia in Northeastern cities. So cities like Boston, Philly, New York, and even Baltimore have a mix of all those cultures.
But DC, like Baltimore, are between the North and the South. But it is still a major Eastern seaboard urban center. I am wondering why no Irish or Italians or Poles or Jews moved there back in the 1900s. From everything I've read, it doesn't seem like there was ever a "There goes the Neighborhood" phenomenon in DC like there was in the other cities. I'm pretty sure there was never a "Little Italy" in Washington DC.
So this brings up alot of questions. Did Washington, DC have a culture before 1950 like the urban Northeast, or was it like a Southern city like Atlanta? Did most of the blacks migrate to DC from Southern Virginia and North Carolina? Also when did this migration happen? Are there any blue-collar white neighborhoods in DC? It seems like all the white neighborhoods in DC are extremely wealthy, whereas the rest are middle, working, and poor neighborhoods, almost all African-American. If there are any urban working-class whites in DC, are they White Ethnics (immigrant descent from the Northeast) or WASPs (white people with families native to the Virginia area)
I have been wondering this for a long time, could anybody help me.
I've always asked the same question but could only assume for reasons.
I think it's all about perspective. Honestly and truly having grown up in an area that's almost half black, I never really thought the black population of DC was all that high. (My hometown total metro area is 40% black DC metro area 26% black. In the city it's 54%.) This is particularly true for me since I don't live in DC proper but in the VA burbs. If anything I felt a little self conscious about the lack of black folks on the VA side of things. So yeah perspective is everything.
DC is becoming less black. Just to provide a comparison - Cleveland was 46% A-A in 1990, DC 66% - not even close. Yet by 2008, Cleveland was 53%, DC 54%.
Where are most of them going? To Maryland or going southward to Atlanta, Houston, etc.? Just curious...
Or is it that so many others are coming in that the percentage-wise it just looks less?
PG County is now 66% black, and has nearly twice as many African-Americans as the District, in 1990 it was just 51% black and had fewer A-A people than DC
Now the reason the % got so high after WW2 is the following. DC never had a large population of white Catholics like Boston, NY, Philly, Chicago, etc, and Catholics were the whites most likely to stay in the city during the 60s and 70s, partly because they didn't want to leave their parishes. But the middle-class whites in DC were largely Jewish and Protestant, and they high tailed it to Maryland mostly.
Good point. For those who think spatially like me, take a look at the maps in this article: Religious Geography
Jewish and Protestant congregations move frequently -- particularly remarkable for Orthodox Jews, who must live within walking distance of temple -- and have ended up in the suburbs. Catholic parishes, on the other hand, rarely move; population changes are usually accommodated by opening/closing churches.
I live right outside of DC, and I was wondering if anyone could tell me the reason that DC has such a large African-American population, making up close to 80% of the city.
Not that it matters, but to set the record straight, African American population in the District of Columbia in 2008 was 54.4%. I've seen some estimates put it at about 52% currently. http://goodspeedupdate.com/2008/2265
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