VA-HIST Archives

Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history

VA-HIST@LISTLVA.LIB.VA.US

Options: Use Forum View

Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Condense Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Sender:
Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:24:27 -0500
Reply-To:
Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
7bit
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Organization:
Georgetown University
From:
James Hershman <[log in to unmask]>
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (53 lines)
Harold,

Two things on this matter. First, I would suggest reading, if you 
haven't, Sheryll Cashin's excellent book_The Failure of Integration: How 
Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream_. She deals especially 
with black gentrification in Prince George's County, Maryland but also 
she cites some interesting Northern Virginia examples.

Second, about gentrification in the Northern Neck--I remember my 
students at UVA back in the 1970s, when I was teaching Afro-American 
History (a period piece), describing what was beginning to happen in 
that region of Virginia. Even then, a lot of retirees (mostly white) 
were moving in and the land, especially near the water was becoming very 
valuable. Because the railroad near went down there after the civil war, 
the land had not had much value in the late 19th century, so it passed 
often into the hands of black watermen or farmers. A century later their 
descendants were beginning to get high prices for that land--perhaps the 
working out of justice, in a way.

Debra Jackson/Harold Forsythe wrote:

> Gentrification by African-Americans generally brings out very strange, 
> not to say atavistic reactions from rural and small town 
> European-Americans. The story of the shift in Montgomery County, MD is 
> telling.  As tens of thousands of black people moved out of 
> Washington, DC into that suburb, the country became obviously blacker, 
> but also wealtheir and better educated. While this integration was 
> carried out fairly peacefully, I will bet there is a doctoral 
> dissertation lurking in a close research of the process.
>
> A similar gentrification is taking place to the south, in Virginia, 
> where I read even the Northern Neck region is being subdivided.  As an 
> historian of the South, I never simply dispose of race as a subject of 
> analysis, but the moving of portions of the black (and Latino) 
> administrative and professional elite (I hate the term middle class 
> because it describes so little) into developing northern Virginia will 
> also raise sharp questions of class as well.
>
> Harold S. Forsythe
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel Morrow" 
> <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2007 10:10 AM
> Subject: Re: VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE... free speech
>
>
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html

ATOM RSS1 RSS2


LISTLVA.LIB.VA.US