Globalization and "Little Ethiopia"

Globalization is a firmly entrenched reality that presents new challenges and opportunities.  It allows us to travel, do business, and communicate more easily with people thousands of miles away.  It flattens the world, as Tom Friedman argues, so that someone in a remote Chinese village can compete in the world of ideas and commerce with someone else in the most developed and sophisticated locale.  That the world has become smaller is due entirely to the forces of globalization and this is a good thing.  The downside of globalization, however, is that it can accelerate a culture clash  through the immigration it facilitates.  The culture clash is evident in many places around the world including here in Washington, D.C. where Ethiopian immigrants are pushing the City Council to rename part of a city neighborhood “Little Ethiopia.”  This is a bad idea because the neighborhood in question is so steeped in African American history that it was dubbed “Black Broadway.”  Given the history of the neighborhood and the infinitesimal Ethiopian presence therein, the effort to rename it Little Ethiopia is historically unjustified and is a slap in the face to the memory of all the important African American individuals, organizations, and institutions that have made that neighborhood great. 

The volume of Ethiopian restaurants, churches, hair salons, and a community services center cited by plan supporters, pale in comparison to the multi-generational record of long-standing African American businesses, churches, hair salons, community organizations, and other entities that have served this neighborhood.  For example, African American churches in the neighborhood, such as New Bethel Baptist and Metropolitan Baptist, played key organizing roles in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and continue to assist the residents of the neighborhood.  Businesses such as Ben’s Chili Bowl and Lee’s Flower Shop, and organizations such as the Mason’s helped sustain the neighborhood during the difficult times following the 1968 riots and the seemingly interminable period when Metro construction delays made it nearly impossible to do business on U Street.  And Industrial Bank is one of the largest African American-owned banks in the world anchors a corner in the heart of the area.  Each of these businesses has a long and storied history in the community.  Civic organizations such as the Model Inner City Community Development Organization created urban redevelopment plans for housing low-income and senior residents were supported and funded by President Lyndon Johnson.  Given this history, it is not a stretch to suggest that this neighborhood would not be what it is today without the significant and long-lasting contributions of African Americans.  These and other contributions would be significantly overshadowed by designating the area as Little Ethiopia.

As a fourth-generation Washingtonian who lives in the same house in which my grandparents raised my father and his brothers and sisters, I am intimately aware of what this neighborhood has meant to this city generally, and African Americans in particular.  I am also sufficiently versed in the history of this community to know that the “Little Ethiopia” proposal is an attempt to attach a label to this community that is not supported by the historical record.

Hopefully this will be one of the smaller globalization fights and not the start of a long and painful intraracial and intercultural struggle between newcomers to America and those who’ve been here for generations and still struggle to secure their place in America.

© Michael K. Fauntroy, October 28, 2005