Nov. 29, 2015

Nov. 29, 2015

A growing number of Washingtonians have moved to Prince George’s County, tripling from 8 percent to 27 percent from the late 1960s to 1980. (Graphic: Danielle Ledbetter and Kaylah Waite)

Tax breaks and other policies made the District attractive to businesses, says author and historian Derek Musgrove. (Photo: Kaylah Waite/TruthBeTold.news)

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from TruthBeTold.News

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Washington, D.C., the nation's capital, was one of the Blackest cities in the United States during the 1970s. The population of African- Americans peaked at 71.1 percent, and everyone from residents to radio personalities began calling it the “Chocolate City.” Parliament even released an album and single titled “Chocolate City” as a tribute to the nation’s capital with its “vanilla suburbs.”

Since then, however, census figures have shown a steady decline in the population of Black residents — many of whom wonder whether the District of Columbia can still be labeled the Chocolate City.

Washington’s Black history can be traced back to the early 19th century. By 1830, most of the enslaved Blacks in D.C. had been freed. Although slavery still remained, free African-Americans took it upon themselves to create churches, schools and businesses for their community. In 1862, Congress passed the District of Columbia Emancipation Act, making Washington the first free part of the nation. This was months before Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

During the Great Migration, at least 5.5 million African-Americans left the South between the 1910s and 1970s, notes Isabel Wilkerson, a native Washingtonian and author of “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of American’s Great Migration.” More than 50,000 African-Americans moved to Washington, because it was seen as a place full of educational, economical and political opportunity for Black people, according to an excerpt from W.E.B. Dubois’ 1917 “The Migration of Negroes.”

As the Black population grew in Washington and other urban cities, so did “White flight,” or the exodus of White people to suburban neighborhoods in the 1950s and beyond. Between 1950 and 1960, Washington’s White population fell from 64.6 percent to 45.2 percent, census figures show, while the Black population grew from 35 percent to 53.9 percent.

By this point, the Shaw area north of downtown was booming with Black businesses and was home to numerous landmarks such as Howard University, the Lincoln Theater and the first African-American YMCA. It was not uncommon to see prominent Black people like Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. strolling down U Street.

The decline of African-American residents in D.C. was first noticed in the 1970s as they started to move to Maryland and Northern Virginia. Only 8 percent of D.C.-born African-Americans lived in Maryland prior to passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which provided access to housing options that were previously unavailable. By 1980, the number tripled to 27 percent, according to the University of Minnesota’s Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, using data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Meanwhile, the White population fluctuated, inching upward from 27.7 percent in 1970 to 29.6 percent in 1990 and starting the transformation of centrally located neighborhoods. While this was only a 2 percent increase, the Black population dropped by more than twice as much, falling 5.3 percent during the same period, from a peak of 71.1 percent to 65.8 percent.

“Once the city gets home rule in 1974, Black constituents now as opposed to being subjects of the federal government now demanded that the city government do something about gentrification,” said George Derek Musgrove, history professor at the University of Maryland who is co-authoring a history of race and democracy in the District.

As a result, Musgrove said, the city passed various laws that allowed poor people to fight back against gentrification. These laws regulated rent control and established cooperatives to buy apartments. Some community groups were able to do that in places like Adams Morgan.

For more than three decades, some residents have been claiming that the renewal and rebuilding in Shaw and other neighborhoods, along with the steady decline in the city’s Black population, are all part of “The Plan” for White people to “take back” D.C. Lillian Wiggins, a former columnist at the Washington Afro-American newspaper, first wrote about the conspiracy theory in 1979.

“I’ve been living here since the ’80s, and D.C. is not the same that it was in the ’80s,” says Timothy Ford. “It’s just like something in the air — like they’re mad at us; like we’re losing our culture.”

Throughout the District’s history, Musgrove said, mayors have made it easy for White residents and businesses to buy property and invest. “Mayor Anthony Williams just says flat out I’m going to bring 100,000 people back to the city, and I’m going to go into business conventions and beg everyone to come here and invest,” he stated.

Williams put various policies in place that made it very attractive for businesses to come into D.C. The mayor gave these businesses and residents tax breaks and real estate bargains, Musgrove said. ”His efforts were helped out by the housing boom, and he meets his goal.”

 Gregory McNeal, an African-American who grew up in Washington, sees no end in sight. “They’re going to push all of the Black businesses out too, because there’s no one to support them,” McNeal says. “That’s what’s gonna happen to go-go. It’s set up to fail.”

Once the heart of African-American business and culture — from jazz to go-go, the conga-driven music that is considered the soundtrack of D.C. — Shaw is now home to fusion restaurants and new condominiums. The DCist labeled Shaw the “most whitened”`neighborhood in the District, based on a national analysis of Zip codes by Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington.

On Petrilli’s list of the top 25 fastest-gentrifying neighborhoods in America, the Shaw neighborhood (Zip code 20001) is ranked 10th. That area saw a 27.2 percent increase in non-Hispanic white residents from 5.6 percent in 2000 to 32.8 percent in 2010.
“I feel like D.C. is no longer the Chocolate City, because of the amount of gentrification and the demographics are changing,” says Kobi Marshall, 22, who was born in Washington.

“They are ripping down mom-and-pop shops and replacing them with high-priced condos,” she adds. “It’s causing the cost of living for the city to go up to where a lot of African-Americans can no longer afford it, and they’re moving out to the suburbs of Maryland.”

While McNeal laments the changes, he tries to take an objective look at gentrification. “We could’ve did all these things — build the buildings, fixed this and that — but we didn’t,” he says. “At the end of the day, we have to take responsibility, too.”

So, is D.C. still the Chocolate City? Like Marshall, Ford also says no. TruthBeTold.news rates their statements as being half true. Washington, D.C., is no longer No. 1 in the proportion of African-American residents, among places with a population of 100,000 or more. That distinction now belongs to Detroit, which had a Black population of 82.7 percent based on the 2010 census, versus 50.7 percent for Washington.

At the height of D.C.’s Chocolate City days in the seventies, the population was 71.1 percent black, compared to 43.7 percent for Detroit. The Motor City took the lead the 1990s and has held onto it ever since.

The bottom line is that the black population in the nation’s capital has fallen below 50 percent for the first time in half a century, and the gap is narrowing. According to the most recent census estimate, the Black population in D.C. dropped to 49 percent in 2014, while the White population rose to 43.6 percent — a difference of only 5.4 percent. However, the name Chocolate City still resonates with some District residents who have fond memories of a lively, cultural movement to a go-go beat.

Danielle Ledbetter and Kaylah Waite are reporters for TruthBeTold.news, a fact-checking site based at Howard University.

Nov. 29, 2015

Citizens Shouldn't Have to Demonstrate to Be Treated Justly
By Rev. Jesse Jackson

November 29, 2015

To Be Equal 

Act Now to Make Anti-Poverty Tax Credits Permanent
By Marc H. Morial

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - "The Earned Income Tax Credit is the most effective anti-poverty program in the United State. It both encourages and rewards work by allowing low-income workers to recoup money that otherwise would have gone to taxes. And since low-income people are more likely to spend their income than to save it out of necessity, it is also an economic stimulus." – Alice Lieberman, Professor, University of Kansas School of Social Welfare.

With only a few weeks left in the year, Congress is debating a series of key issues for working families.  One of the most important is the fate of key parts of two tax credits that help millions of low-income working Americans.

The two credits — the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC) — are powerful tools that reduce poverty and encourage and reward work.  Together, they lift more children out of poverty than any other program, while also promoting greater mobility and opportunity for families. And, with four million African American children living in poverty today, the EITC and CTC make a critical difference in our communities.

In 2009, President Obama signed into law temporary improvements to the credits that dramatically expand access to the CTC to very low income working families and provide additional help for some families receiving the EITC.

Although these very important improvements to both tax credits were extended in 2012, they will expire in 2017 unless Congress acts to make them permanent.

This fall may be the best opportunity that Congress has as it debates legislation that could make some business tax breaks permanent. As the House and Senate consider this legislation, they cannot leave working families behind. They must make the improvements of the EITC and CTC permanent as well.

If they don’t, African Americans would be disproportionately harmed: two million working African American families and 4 million children would lose an average of $1,200 per year.  A single mother of two working full time at the federal minimum wage would lose every penny of her CTC. 

“In many cases, these two measures are what allows working families to stay in their homes,” said Don Cravins, Jr., Executive Director of National Urban League Washington Bureau. “The consequences of ending the credits would be nothing of devastating.”

In the course of these discussions, Congress also has a chance to address the plight of lower-income workers without kids, many of whom are left out of the EITC. Expanding the EITC to cover these workers has bipartisan support and would help promote work, could reduce incarceration rates, and boost earnings.

The Obama administration is calling for Congress to make the improvements to these working family tax credits permanent.

Now is the time to make your voice heard in the halls of Congress. You can help by contacting your senators and representatives, urging them to make the improvements to the EITC and CTC permanent and reminding them of the importance of fixing the glaring hole in the EITC that leaves out childless workers without kids.

With your help, we can make the key provisions of these credits permanent so that they can keep making a difference in our communities.

Nov. 29, 2015

Acts of Terrorism
By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - I am among the tens of millions who had to be peeled away from their television set on Friday, November 13 and in the days after ISIS terrorists randomly massacred at least 130 people and wounded hundreds more in Paris.  Then, there was the nearly 30 people executed at a hotel in Bamako, Mali.  And there were the several threats against New York City, and the Presidential and police responses to those threats.  This terrorism has caused fear and insecurity in France, Belgium and the United States.

Terrorism is defined as the use of criminal acts to inspire human fear.  ISIS engages in their criminal acts to create a sense of instability in parts of the Western world.  Days after the massacre, those who planned and participated in the carnage were found, and some were killed (or blew themselves us). Catching these few terrorists will not stop.

Some of the commentary have appeared on news programs urging the United States and others to consider the “root causes” of ISIS, and some think that actions in the West are to blame (consider the Charlie Hebdo attack and those who blamed a magazine cover for the assassination of journalists).  I’m not sure this is the most appropriate or compassionate response so quickly after the terrorist attacks.  Still, these are questions that must eventually be answered.  What should our response be?  Is this war? Are we prepared to endure another Vietnam, committing US lives to a ground war that is perhaps unwinnable?

We can expect more security and scrutiny, and appropriately so.  It is also unfortunately likely, however, that some of the scrutiny will have an element of profiling (especially racial profiling) involved, since many (perhaps most) of the ISIS terrorists are young, male, and Muslim.  But despite Donald Trump’s jingoistic insanity, do we want to stop everyone who “looks” like a Muslim.  What does a Muslim look like?  What does a terrorist look like?

Just a few days before the Paris massacre, the news was dominated by black student protests around country, at the University of Missouri at Columbia, and at Ithaca College, Yale University, Smith College, Claremont McKenna College and the University of Kansas.  Many of these protests were in solidarity with the Mizzou students and in solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement.  There is no comparison between what happened in Paris and what has happened on many campuses, it occurs to me that the “n—“ word bandied about is an act of terror that is designed to make African American students feel insecure and unsafe.  This is why the students who ask for “safe space” should be encouraged, not ridiculed.

Strewing cotton balls on the lawn in front of the black culture center on Mizzou Campus is an act of terror, designed to exploit feelings of insecurity.  It is neither a trivial act, nor a prank, but an act of hate.  It is especially hateful when the perpetrators are fairly certain that they will not be caught and that there are few consequences for their actions.  In the domestic context, anonymous terrorism is especially unsettling because one rarely understands exactly who the terrorists are.  Anonymous terrorism reminds me of the KKK, the criminals who only felt safe when they hid behind hoods and sheets.

Campus racism has long-term consequences for young African Americans.  Some will learn how to protest and carry the spirit of protest with them for the rest of their lives.  Others, unfortunately, will learn to “go along to get along”, internalizing the lessons of intimidation.  They are the young people who dismiss racism as “no big thing”. But it was a big thing when white Tulsans burned down Black Wall Street, and no one stood in solidarity.  Lynching was a terrorist act, but Congress would not pass anti-lynching legislation.  Those terrorist actions took place in the early 20^th century, but later, Bull Connor was a terrorist.  George Wallace was a terrorist.  Comb our history and you’ll find any number of terrorists who perpetrated criminal acts against African Americans. Those who ignored those criminal acts create a climate where racial terrorism can occur.

The white thug who massacred nine people at Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina committed a heinous act of terrorism.  The people of Emanuel fought back with a loving defiance.  They wouldn’t stop going to church, they wouldn’t stoop to hate.  Still, the slaughter of nine people had a national impact.

Julianne Malveaux is an author and economist based in Washington, DC. Her latest book “Are We Better Off? Race, Obama and Public Policy” will be released in 2015 and is available for preorder at www.juliannemalveaux.com