Moving Boundaries of Segregation

The forging of a black community: Seattle's Central District

One of the rare books of history of Seattle’s  American African is ‘The forging of a black community: Seattle’s Central District..’ .The author, Quintard Taylor, explores the evolution of black community from its first few residents in the 1870s to much larger population in 1970. Although the entire book is useful, but most relevant to our blog is the last section called ‘Past, present and future’. Link

The author explains that Central District emerged as a racially segregated by 1910 and remained so for almost the entire century. The community has historically suffered from “rigid housing segregation and de facto school segregation” .The neighborhood has been marked by “deteriorating building, crimes, drugs, Intergenerational poverty and welfare dependence”. This has led to anger, alienation and despair among the Black community. Yet “black Seattle’s collective synergy created a distinctive African American culture” which provided a “psychological safe haven from the hostile world”.

What is happening now? “The central district is no longer the center for blacks”. American Africans fear displacement at hands of upper income whites who are moving into the area for the inexpensive housing and the proximity to downtown. The apprehension is that this will drive up the real estate prices making it necessary to find housing elsewhere. The numbers seem to indicate that large number of African American community have been pushed out of CD towards the southernmost part of the city.

Looking at the history it seems racial residential segregation has a moving geographical boundary. In addition to facing racial residential segregation, low income African Americans also face the risk of racial displacement.

Sabeen