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Reflections on Washington, 1968-1998
Seven Writers Examine the African American Experience
Reflections on Chocolate City
By Eugene Robinson
 | | 1991: Three mayors and an inauguration (James A. Parcell/TWP) |
Thirty years ago, Washington was torn apart by riots following the slaying of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Today, writes Eugene Robinson, Washington is four cities: "one white and well-off, one black and well-off, one made up of struggling recent immigrants, and one black and poor."
The Changes
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington, D.C., is home to the best-educated and most affluent black community in the nation. But in the past 30 years, the black intelligentsia and business leaders have steadily moved from the city to the suburbs.
 | Corner of U and 13th streets NW
(By Ken Schles/TWP) |
Landscape: U Street
By Mary Battiata
U Street has had many lives. In the first half of the century, it was a grand boulevard of streetcars and speakeasies. After 1968, it was a burned-out strip. Now it has taken on another identity: the "New U."
The Funk
By Kenneth Carroll
"A Chocolate City is no dream," sang Parliament-Funkadelic founder George Clinton. For black Washingtonians, it was their reality in the late '70s and early '80s. According to DJ Bobby "The Mighty Burner" Bennett, Chocolate City was "the expression of D.C.'s classy funk and confident blackness."
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Home rule rally in October 1973 at District Building
(Margaret Thomas/TWP)
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The Power
By Colbert I. King
The history of the District is inextricably tied to the history of control over the city. Practically since the city's founding, there has been debate about who governs the city — and who pays for it.
Perrywood
By David Finkel
Due east of Washington, in a quiet corner of neighboring Prince George's County, a subdivision called Perrywood is home to an increasing number of the black middle class populace that used to call Washington home.
The Future
By William Raspberry
Longtime Post columnist William Raspberry looks at the future of the District through the prism of the past 30 years.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
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