It’s Probably Time To Reserve Land For Classic Black DC Culture

The music is back on at 7th and Florida Avenues, NW, but that’s probably not enough.

After writing about go-go and gentrification for The FADER, I was sitting in my bed and after falling down a YouTube hole, was watching a documentary about the Trail of Tears. While watching, I began to craft, in my head, the idea that reserving a mile long by mile wide area of land in Northwest DC for the preservation of Black-crafted culture organic-to-DC’s “Chocolate City”-era roots, was fantastic. Yes, the comparison to 1830–1850, when 16,000 Cherokees were moved 1000 miles, and 2000–2013 when 20,000 Black Washingtonians were relocated within a 30-mile radius of the Nation’s Capital is a little wonky, but, it still felt damning enough to warrant deep consideration.

Indian reservations in America came to exist and still persist here because of the massive failure that was the systematic removal and forced assimilation of Native peoples with a non-Native population. In response, giving Natives the ability to create methods of economic development and to preserve indigenous cultural practices, was seen as an ideal solution. Though historically fraught with the potential for eventual dire straits, we’re in a situation where like a recent New York Times article is titled…