READ THE STORY
What Eric Hilton said was true about DC, but as a constant presence in DC for over 30 years it saddens me, and most here that the white face is telling the story of Chocolate City (Washington DC) afresh. Discounting the presence and powerful influences of Black Washington residents from the arts to politics, and the vilifying of our leaders and activists for decades upon decades stings. Eric is a fixture in DC. He has the street creds, and is respected amongst musicians, many others in DC. He helped a lot of us when it was tough to be an artist in DC and it was violent a place to live for some residents.
Petey Greene, Baba Ngoma, Brother Bey (one of the Blacks who introduced natural health care to DC), Kathy Hughes and her husband who established WOL radio station, now gone national, as Radio One; Mayor-for-life Marion Barry, Frank Agbro, Brook & Ajax, who started Joe's Movement Emporium, Chief Turner, Mayor Walter Washington, RAP, Bishop Smallwood, Rev. Samuel G. Hines, Rev. Fauntleroy, Daddy Grace, Melvin Deal's African Heritage Drummers & Dancers, the early HIV/AIDS activists, the countless missionaries, and Black activists working in the city, the famous and consistent youth centers, shelters, and churches that created and established communities within the larger community, and the many many others are those who built this city from a slave port into a metropolis that wealthier 'visitors' are now making their home to the exclusion of the 'others'.
The city is sprouting wings! New homes I call 'Not for Me houses' are reaching closer to the sky, and blocking out the memories of the ancestors, and the downtrodden tho' warned, are in the retreating shadows their stories vanishing into the air above the city, beneath the city's makeover!
In DC, for Blacks it is the same adjustment every other group around the nation has made when the whites decide what you have is valuable and they want in. Those of us who can afford to remain in the city will find a way to adjust to their coldness, and rude way of rendering us invisible in their presence. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 5.12.13
What Eric Hilton said was true about DC, but as a constant presence in DC for over 30 years it saddens me, and most here that the white face is telling the story of Chocolate City (Washington DC) afresh. Discounting the presence and powerful influences of Black Washington residents from the arts to politics, and the vilifying of our leaders and activists for decades upon decades stings. Eric is a fixture in DC. He has the street creds, and is respected amongst musicians, many others in DC. He helped a lot of us when it was tough to be an artist in DC and it was violent a place to live for some residents.
Petey Greene, Baba Ngoma, Brother Bey (one of the Blacks who introduced natural health care to DC), Kathy Hughes and her husband who established WOL radio station, now gone national, as Radio One; Mayor-for-life Marion Barry, Frank Agbro, Brook & Ajax, who started Joe's Movement Emporium, Chief Turner, Mayor Walter Washington, RAP, Bishop Smallwood, Rev. Samuel G. Hines, Rev. Fauntleroy, Daddy Grace, Melvin Deal's African Heritage Drummers & Dancers, the early HIV/AIDS activists, the countless missionaries, and Black activists working in the city, the famous and consistent youth centers, shelters, and churches that created and established communities within the larger community, and the many many others are those who built this city from a slave port into a metropolis that wealthier 'visitors' are now making their home to the exclusion of the 'others'.
The city is sprouting wings! New homes I call 'Not for Me houses' are reaching closer to the sky, and blocking out the memories of the ancestors, and the downtrodden tho' warned, are in the retreating shadows their stories vanishing into the air above the city, beneath the city's makeover!
In DC, for Blacks it is the same adjustment every other group around the nation has made when the whites decide what you have is valuable and they want in. Those of us who can afford to remain in the city will find a way to adjust to their coldness, and rude way of rendering us invisible in their presence. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 5.12.13
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