Washington, D.C. has many nicknames, from “the District” to “the swamp.” But the city’s most popular nickname is more than just a name—it’s a symbol of centuries of Black community, history, and fights for justice.
Welcome to Chocolate City.
D.C. earned the title “Chocolate City” when it became widely considered the first large city in the country to have a majority Black population. At its peak in 1970, Black residents made up 71% of the city. But the District of today no longer embodies its historic nickname.
Today, only about 44% of D.C.’s population is Black. Compared to other U.S. cities, D.C. has experienced some of the highest rates of gentrification, the process where new residents and development transform an area, often displacing current residents. For Georgetown students—new and returning—understanding this history is a part of respecting the city and its full-time residents.
“D.C. was founded on displacement,” Andria Chatmon, community organizer for Empower D.C., an economic justice advocacy organization, said. “It was founded on the displacement, not only of enslaved Black Africans, but also on the displacement of Indigenous communities. So it’s really important to keep that history in mind.”
Much of this history is obscured by D.C.’s image as the seat of American government with its monuments and tourist attractions. But for those people to whom D.C. is more than a vacation, displacement and gentrification have been a defining part of the city’s story.
How We Got Here: D.C. Since the ’90s
Part of D.C.’s demographic shift has been fueled by the growth of government-adjacent fields, such as think tanks, tech, and the defense industry, according to American Studies and English professor Sherry Linkon. These fields have attracted a high number of white and college-educated workers, particularly since the 1990s.
Kelly Andreae, executive director of the Georgetown Ministry Center, a homelessness advocacy and outreach organization, explained that an influx of new residents, combined with policies that limit housing availability and affordability, has pushed out people who have lived here for decades.
“It’s a great city, and a lot of people come here and want to be here, but there isn’t enough housing for that,” Andreae said. “So when that supply-demand curve drives up housing costs, that displaces longtime residents, as well as those that are lower on the socioeconomic scale.”
Rental and housing costs have risen at an alarming rate, with the price of D.C. homes more than tripling since 2000. While D.C.’s median income is high—more than $100,000 per household—there’s also high inequality. Housing costs are a great burden for much of D.C.’s population, and nearly 60,000 households in the District spend over half their income on housing.
The unaffordability of housing has fueled gentrification, which has uprooted thousands of residents in D.C. One study estimated that 20,000 Black residents were displaced from the District from 2000 to 2013 alone.
Zoning policies, which determine how land can be used, have contributed to a lack of affordable housing and fueled gentrification, according to Andreae. While some of these policies aimed to improve living conditions, they often favored single-family, low-density, and luxury housing that isn’t affordable for many residents.
“There were some really squalor conditions that existed at certain points in times,” Andreae said, “So there is a need for that, for some regulations, but the pendulum has over-swung, and so, as a result, we have significant problems in places like D.C.”
Linkon also emphasized that gentrification in D.C. has often involved well-intentioned government policies.
“Gentrification is more complicated than just the story of greedy, wealthy white folks coming in and displacing poor Black victims,” Linkon said. “That is part of the story. But it’s not the whole story.”
At times, Linkon said, the local government encouraged gentrification because they hoped that new development would increase the tax base, allowing the city to better provide services to low-income residents. Policies aiming to revitalize the city can have the inadvertent effect of raising property values and causing displacement, a concern that remains relevant in D.C. today. Earlier this year, for example, Mayor Muriel Bowser introduced the Downtown Action Plan, which allocates more than $400 million to projects aiming to make D.C. a destination for new residents, visitors, and businesses.
Zoning, new development, revitalization efforts, and other policies have also led to high levels of segregation across D.C. For example, while Wards 7 and 8 are 90% Black, Georgetown’s ward, Ward 2, is only 11% Black. Today, the District is more segregated than it was in 1990.
Elise Merchant (CAS ’25), co-president of Homeless Outreach Programs and Education, a Georgetown student group, encouraged students to remember the human impact of housing policies and ensuing demographic shifts.
“These aren’t just demographics. These are real people,” Merchant said. “Every number is an individual person who has experienced this kind of push out and effect from the gentrification of such a historically Black city.”
Georgetown’s Black Heritage
Just as the demographics of the District as a whole have shifted, so has the makeup of Georgetown.
In the 1800s, what is now the Georgetown Waterfront was a major port in the trading of enslaved people. The neighborhood had nearly 1,500 enslaved Black people, and slavery was a key part of both the local economy and the labor and revenue that Georgetown University exploited to stay afloat.
After the Civil War, Georgetown became a center of the Black aristocracy, home to wealthy and well-known Black families and professionals with prestigious jobs in medicine, law, education, and government. In 1930, Georgetown’s population was 30% Black, and had a thriving Black community, including Black churches, social groups, and Black-owned businesses.
Today, Georgetown’s population is 73% white and only 5% Black.
“People forget that Georgetown was actually a Black neighborhood first,” Andreae said. “And people were pushed out. It was a working class neighborhood at one point in time. Zoning and the organizing of various communities have shaped the landscape of D.C. and Georgetown specifically to what it looks like today.”
In the 1930s, New Deal policies intended to spur recovery from the Great Depression and grow the federal bureaucracy led to an influx of white federal employees in D.C. Georgetown’s historic—and often dilapidated—townhouses were seen as attractive housing options for these newer and wealthier residents. In turn, housing costs rose, and longtime Black residents were displaced.
“Now, it’s almost a status symbol to live here—if you can afford a house in the Georgetown neighborhood, out of all the neighborhoods in D.C., that really speaks to a kind of wealth and generational wealth,” Merchant said. “But a lot of those houses and townhouses were originally owned by Black citizens, and then there were renovation projects, reconstruction projects, and now, obviously [Georgetown] is a majority white district.”
This was exacerbated in 1936 with the introduction of a zoning law called the Alley Dwelling Act, which led many Georgetown townhouses to be renovated or demolished and rebuilt before going back on the market at a higher price, causing property taxes to skyrocket. The act also banned the leasing of rooms in the townhouses, a common practice among Georgetown residents, requiring that these buildings be single-family homes.
In the decades following, organizations like the Georgetown Citizens Association and the Progressive Citizens Association of Georgetown, which didn’t allow Black members, continued to lobby against the creation of higher-density and often more affordable housing. Gentrification intensified, and Georgetown became an increasingly unaffordable and segregated neighborhood.
Today’s Georgetown is far from the Georgetown of 1930. A number of significant locations—like Herring Hill, a stretch of east Georgetown that served as a center of Black community and business in the 1920s, and the Mount Zion United Methodist Church, the oldest Black congregation in D.C.—still symbolize the neighborhood’s Black history. However, the area has lost many of its Black-owned businesses and spaces designed to serve Black residents.
Andreae emphasized that the lack of certain spaces is not accidental.
“There’s a lot of exclusionary zoning in this area and throughout the city,” Andreae said. “The reason certain things don’t exist in certain communities is on purpose and by design.”
Popping the Georgetown Bubble
Georgetown is only one of many D.C. neighborhoods—132 of them, as unofficially defined by the D.C. Office of Planning—with a unique history.
Interviewees encouraged students to get out of “the Georgetown bubble,” a common term on campus used to describe the insular and privileged nature of the university and the surrounding neighborhood. Leaving “the bubble” allows students to enjoy the rich culture that D.C. has to offer and to expand their own understanding of their new home.
“Especially at an institution where we have so many students who have a commitment to social justice, who want to work in government and policy,” Linkon said. “You’ve got to get out to the city and see what all of that looks like in person. I think it’s going to change people’s points of view in many ways.”
Getting out of the Georgetown bubble takes a commitment, but isn’t hard, according to Linkon.
“We talk about the bubble as if it were this cast iron thing that you have to just really struggle to tear down,” she said. “My sense is that the question of getting out of the Georgetown bubble isn’t about, ‘How do I do that?’ It’s about, ‘How do I talk myself into making the time and effort to do it?’”
According to Andreae, making that time and effort is worth it: Exploring D.C.’s neighborhoods offers students a wide range of exciting experiences.
“D.C. has so much to offer, and even the campus is different than the Georgetown neighborhood as well. There’s a vibrancy of community,” Andreae said. “I view D.C. as sort of a patchwork of different communities, like a quilt, and each of them has sort of its own vibe and opportunities to engage in culture and try new things.”
Public transportation can help students explore D.C. Georgetown doesn’t have a Metro station, in part due to resistance from residents who opposed connecting the wealthier, whiter neighborhood with the rest of the District. However, the Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle Buses and D.C.’s Metrobus are options for students to get around the city and the Hoya Transit program provides students with a monthly credit to spend on Metro and bus fares.
Linkon emphasized that escaping ‘the bubble’ means going beyond visiting the popular destinations in D.C.
“Go get on a bus and ride the bus to somewhere other than the National Mall and Federal Triangle. Go to neighborhoods that are not Navy Yard and 14th and U—but also, go to those neighborhoods, and look for the evidence of the history of those neighborhoods,” she said.
Linkon encouraged students to learn about the history of D.C.’s neighborhoods on their own and by exploring museums dedicated to local history, like the Anacostia Community Museum and the D.C. History Center.
Chatmon added that getting involved in advocacy organizations in D.C. is one way to see the city through a new lens.
“I think that it is helpful to find an organizing home,” Chatmon said. “I would say that probably the number one way to get out of the bubble is to be working to make an inclusive D.C.”
Even within Georgetown, engaging in advocacy can give students a different perspective on the neighborhood.
“One way to get a different vibe of the city is to come volunteer at a place like Georgetown Ministry Center,” Andreae said. “It is not far from the Georgetown University bubble, but I can tell you it is an entirely different world by being a half mile away. And that sort of gets you to the true character of the city.”
While Linkon also suggested getting involved in community organizations as a way to escape “the bubble,” she cautioned students to approach this work with respect for the people who’ve called D.C. home for decades.
“When you go out into the city, be conscious that you’re an outsider,” Linkon said. “You may not be in a position to solve the problems of D.C. You’re young and energetic, but you’re still getting an education, and you’re still learning your way through this. So, be humble.”
