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Born and raised in the area until I was 16. As far as the actual city of DC was concerned, I had heard that starting back in the 60s actually Caucasians had started leaving the city of DC in droves for the suburbs of Maryland and Virginia. I was actually too young to remember the 1980s (born in ‘84) but I was curious for anyone who was alive and old enough to remember other than parts of NW DC like Georgetown and etc, were there some or still quite a few working-class whites and white families living in other parts of DC like NE, SE, or SW in the 1980s? I was just curious because in the 90s before gentrification took off you rarely saw Caucasians living in the city. I’m just trying to get a feel of the history of the city from the 80s.
Born and raised in the area until I was 16. As far as the actual city of DC was concerned, I had heard that starting back in the 60s actually Caucasians had started leaving the city of DC in droves for the suburbs of Maryland and Virginia. I was actually too young to remember the 1980s (born in ‘84) but I was curious for anyone who was alive and old enough to remember other than parts of NW DC like Georgetown and etc, were there some or still quite a few working-class whites and white families living in other parts of DC like NE, SE, or SW in the 1980s? I was just curious because in the 90s before gentrification took off you rarely saw Caucasians living in the city. I’m just trying to get a feel of the history of the city from the 80s.
Capitol Hill, Brookland, Adams-Morgan, Colonial Village, Shephard Park, Mt Pleasant, and Logan Circle always had significant white populations.
I knew a few people who grew up in Anacostia, but bolted around the mid 60s.
Northwest DC has always had predominately White neighborhoods. The neighborhoods along the entire Connecticut Ave and Massachusetts Ave corridors, also the Military Road/Missouri Ave corridor and 16th Street Heights/Crestwood as well as Colonial Village/Shepherd Park at the northern tip. From my understanding the Brookland neighborhood in Northeast DC and other areas around Catholic University as well.
Crestwood has always been integrated. Even before the 60s. In the early days the houses in the southern section had racist covenants, but the northern part of the neighborhood was open. By the late 80s it was about 60% black. That's falling today.
I am a white male, age 69 (born in 1950) and have lived in the metro area my whole life, growing up in Oxon Hill (near today's National Harbor).
I have several white friends around the age of 80 who attended Eastern and Anacostia high schools, and who now live in rural southern Maryland. They grew up all over southeast D.C. and around Capitol Hill in families of Federal workers, including some at the "Naval Gun Factory" which closed in 1960 at today's Navy Yard which employed the father of the late country ballad singer and T.V. star Roy Clark who grew up in Washington Highlands, S.E..
I also remember my parents' stories of living in D.C. in the 1940s when they each separately came to the area during the huge population-boom years of World War 2. My parents lived variously in the 1940s in Mount Pleasant, outer Dupont Circle area, Lincoln Park, and Columbia Heights, which were all very thriving popular areas for young white government workers (think the equivalent of the 1960s-70s Shirley Highway corridor -- or the 2000s Clarendon-Ballston corridor) and convenient to bus and streetcar routes.
Before the days of racially integrated businesses, the center of black social and cultural life was U-Street N.W. The black Lincoln Theater, Whitelaw hotel, nightclubs, funeral homes, barber and beauty shops, fraternal lodge halls, and black business-schools ("Cortez Peters") were along U-Street. Howard Univ. and the original Dunbar H.S. (for the black elite) were nearby. But black people lived in other parts of the city as well, such as Georgetown which was an industrial area along the river (I believe the "First Baptist church" in Georgetown is still a black congregation today as is St. Mary's Episcopal in Foggy Bottom) and there were blacks in some areas in the eastern part of D.C. Greater Anacostia (east of the river) was mixed-race, with Barry Farms being one of the first black communities there. The black population had its own amusement park called "Suburban Gardens" in Deanwood, since they were not allowed at Glen Echo or Marshall Hall amusement parks. They had their own Langston golf course, and I think their own boat marina on the Anacostia.
Many prominent white local businessmen and city-council and civic leaders (some of them Jewish like Hahn (shoe stores), Haft (dart drug and crown book stores), Hechinger (building supply stores) and Izzy Cohen (founder of Giant Food) grew up in the central core of D.C. and attended (correct me if I'm wrong) "Central High School" which later became Cardozo H.S. and then gradually migrated northward and into Montgomery County. Maury Povich, known today for his sleazy, lurid reality T.V. show, attended Coolidge H.S.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision to integrate public schoolsin the mid-1950s, was a huge factor driving white flight to the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s to the suburbs in all directions. In the 1960s the redevelopment of inner S.W. - D.C. displaced the black population there who had been living there in shameful, substandard "alley dwellings" (although there was also a small Jewish population there) and the blacks moved further out into S.E. and inner P.G. County displacing the whites. By the late 60s or 1970, nearly all white people had left S.E.- D.C. (the race riots were in 1968) but there were still some older whites remaining who were childless, especially in "Naylor Gardens". Saint Theresa's school in the very heart of Anacostia still was all-white in the 1960s. White teenagers from P.G. County would still come to all-white bars in Anacostia throughout the 1960s because of the lower drinking-age in D.C..
I can remember as late as 1960, my mother routinely going shopping at the various department stores at today's "Metro Center" (F- street ). The suburbs were just starting to get shopping centers such as Shirlington, Seven Corners, Penn-Daw, Hybla Valley, Eastover, Marlow Heights, Capital Plaza, Wheaton Plaza, Penn-Mar.... and then later in the mid-to late 60s came P.G. Plaza. Landmark, Landover mall, Iverson Mall, Springfield Mall, Montgomery Mall, etc.
If you are on Facebook, there are nostalgia sites there such as "Ghosts of D.C.".... "Old Time D.C.".... and "Vintage Photos DC-MD-VA" which daily post photos and comments of old buildings, old neighborhoods, and old remembrances of local life.
Last edited by slowlane3; 04-14-2020 at 09:04 PM..
Here's an animated racial dot map of the area, 1970-2017, which illustrates how race & residence have shifted over the past 50 years. Overall, you can very easily see that segregation has substantially declined over time.
Capitol Hill, Brookland, and Southwest stand out as areas east of the park with white majority populations in 1990. In 1970, east of the river was not as segregated as it is today.
As noted above, far Southeast DC rapidly resegregated from 1950 (83% white) to 1970 (85% black). Historic Anacostia was first built as Uniontown, one of the country's first subdivisions with racist restrictive covenants that barred African Americans. This history is recounted in sources like Asch & Musgrove's "Chocolate City" (I've excerpted a bit in this Twitter thread) and in this CityPaper cover story.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMVboy
in the 90s before gentrification took off you rarely saw Caucasians living in the city.
Gentrification took off long before the 1990s. Gentrifying whites displaced Georgetown's substantial African American community in... the 1910s-1930s.
I am a white male, age 69 (born in 1950) and have lived in the metro area my whole life, growing up in Oxon Hill (near today's National Harbor).
I have several white friends around the age of 80 who attended Eastern and Anacostia high schools, and who now live in rural southern Maryland. They grew up all over southeast D.C. and around Capitol Hill in families of Federal workers, including some at the "Naval Gun Factory" which closed in 1960 at today's Navy Yard which employed the father of the late country ballad singer and T.V. star Roy Clark who grew up in Washington Highlands, S.E..
I also remember my parents' stories of living in D.C. in the 1940s when they each separately came to the area during the huge population-boom years of World War 2. My parents lived variously in the 1940s in Mount Pleasant, outer Dupont Circle area, Lincoln Park, and Columbia Heights, which were all very thriving popular areas for young white government workers (think the equivalent of the 1960s-70s Shirley Highway corridor -- or the 2000s Clarendon-Ballston corridor) and convenient to bus and streetcar routes.
Before the days of racially integrated businesses, the center of black social and cultural life was U-Street N.W. The black Lincoln Theater, Whitelaw hotel, nightclubs, funeral homes, barber and beauty shops, fraternal lodge halls, and black business-schools ("Cortez Peters") were along U-Street. Howard Univ. and the original Dunbar H.S. (for the black elite) were nearby. But black people lived in other parts of the city as well, such as Georgetown which was an industrial area along the river (I believe the "First Baptist church" in Georgetown is still a black congregation today as is St. Mary's Episcopal in Foggy Bottom) and there were blacks in some areas in the eastern part of D.C. Greater Anacostia (east of the river) was mixed-race, with Barry Farms being one of the first black communities there. The black population had its own amusement park called "Suburban Gardens" in Deanwood, since they were not allowed at Glen Echo or Marshall Hall amusement parks. They had their own Langston golf course, and I think their own boat marina on the Anacostia.
Many prominent white local businessmen and city-council and civic leaders (some of them Jewish like Hahn (shoe stores), Haft (dart drug and crown book stores), Hechinger (building supply stores) and Izzy Cohen (founder of Giant Food) grew up in the central core of D.C. and attended (correct me if I'm wrong) "Central High School" which later became Cardozo H.S. and then gradually migrated northward and into Montgomery County. Maury Povich, known today for his sleazy, lurid reality T.V. show, attended Coolidge H.S.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision to integrate public schoolsin the mid-1950s, was a huge factor driving white flight to the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s to the suburbs in all directions. In the 1960s the redevelopment of inner S.W. - D.C. displaced the black population there who had been living there in shameful, substandard "alley dwellings" (although there was also a small Jewish population there) and the blacks moved further out into S.E. and inner P.G. County displacing the whites. By the late 60s or 1970, nearly all white people had left S.E.- D.C. (the race riots were in 1968) but there were still some older whites remaining who were childless, especially in "Naylor Gardens". Saint Theresa's school in the very heart of Anacostia still was all-white in the 1960s. White teenagers from P.G. County would still come to all-white bars in Anacostia throughout the 1960s because of the lower drinking-age in D.C..
I can remember as late as 1960, my mother routinely going shopping at the various department stores at today's "Metro Center" (F- street ). The suburbs were just starting to get shopping centers such as Shirlington, Seven Corners, Penn-Daw, Hybla Valley, Eastover, Marlow Heights, Capital Plaza, Wheaton Plaza, Penn-Mar.... and then later in the mid-to late 60s came P.G. Plaza. Landmark, Landover mall, Iverson Mall, Springfield Mall, Montgomery Mall, etc.
If you are on Facebook, there are nostalgia sites there such as "Ghosts of D.C.".... "Old Time D.C.".... and "Vintage Photos DC-MD-VA" which daily post photos and comments of old buildings, old neighborhoods, and old remembrances of local life.
Great piece. Incidentally many of the Jewish families that you named lived at that time in the northern portion of Crestwood. Where the 19th Street Baptist Church sits today (on 16th street) was the B'nai Israel Jewish Synagogue.
I’m 61, white. I lived in Adams-Morgan in in the early ‘80s. I felt somewhat like a pioneer, but it had just become mixed enough for me to feel like I fit in well enough. I lived for a while on Ontario Road just off of Columbia Road and then on Belmont at Columbia Road. I didn’t have a car. I used to walk mostly all over NW, but didn’t venture too far into the eastern part of it, and to Dupont Circle, and up and down Connecticut Avenue to the zoo, and down 18th, 17th or 16th to downtown and all over downtown to about 14th, and of course Georgetown. And I used the bus and Metro a lot. I had people visit who would say after a good many excursions within my territory, “So where’s the bad part? That’s all I hear about Washington.” I never went to NE, but Capitol Hill seemed mostly in good shape from what I remember.
I’m 61, white. I lived in Adams-Morgan in in the early ‘80s. I felt somewhat like a pioneer, but it had just become mixed enough for me to feel like I fit in well enough. I lived for a while on Ontario Road just off of Columbia Road and then on Belmont at Columbia Road. I didn’t have a car. I used to walk mostly all over NW, but didn’t venture too far into the eastern part of it, and to Dupont Circle, and up and down Connecticut Avenue to the zoo, and down 18th, 17th or 16th to downtown and all over downtown to about 14th, and of course Georgetown. And I used the bus and Metro a lot. I had people visit who would say after a good many excursions within my territory, “So where’s the bad part? That’s all I hear about Washington.” I never went to NE, but Capitol Hill seemed mostly in good shape from what I remember.
Calvert Street was always fairly chic. My parents used to bring us to Mama Ayesha's Restaurant in the mid and late 70s. Some guys I went to middle and high school with lived in the townhouses across the street. Another friend's conservative father got a place around there after splitting up with his wife.
Now, where you lived was a bit more ... sporadic. I recall hitting gigs at the Ontario Theater. We would score weed behind it. Some housing was run down while other places were fixed up.
During high school (early 80s) our pool broke down during swim team season. So a buddy and I would huff it over to Maria Read and practice there on our own.
I miss the Adams-Morgan of that era. Revolutionary Books- remember that place?
“I miss the Adams-Morgan of that era. Revolutionary Books- remember that place?”
The bookstore on Columbia Road across from the grocery store (Safeway?). I was reading a book in there once and got scared that I was going to end up organizing a revolt and put the book back and left. There was also a newsstand closer to McDonald’s.
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