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Talking About Tally's Corner: Church Elders Reflect on Race, Place, and Removal in Washington, DC
Author(s) -
Chatman Michelle Coghill
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
transforming anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.325
H-Index - 9
eISSN - 1548-7466
pISSN - 1051-0559
DOI - 10.1111/traa.12086
Subject(s) - gentrification , gender studies , race (biology) , sociology , black church , politics , white (mutation) , space (punctuation) , criminology , political science , law , economic growth , african american , ethnology , biochemistry , chemistry , linguistics , philosophy , economics , gene
A bevy of research highlights how racial minority and long‐term are impacted when their neighborhoods undergo gentrification. Less discussed is how Black institutions are affected when their surrounding neighborhoods undergo these processes. Based on research conducted at an eighty‐year‐old Black church in Washington, DC, this article examines some of the ways in which these institutions are responding to neighborhood changes brought on by gentrification and unequal development. This article enriches our understanding of the subtle ways in which Black churches are being pushed out of their communities as a result of political and cultural displacement. Differing views about neighborhood social norms, parking tensions, and complaints about church façade and noise levels, are some of the micro‐aggressive acts that church members feel threaten their sense of belonging. Such acts create an inhospitable tension with which parishioners must contend. As certain Black neighborhoods yield to a white and more affluent residential base, the future of Black churches becomes uncertain. Centering the experiences of elder church members, this article highlights how Black churches are responding to tensions around race, space, and urban change.