Halfway to Freedom (The History of Black Washington, DC)

Halfway to Freedom is a social, political, intellectual, and cultural history of African Americans in Washington, DC, looking at the role that race, gender, color, culture, class, and power have played in the city and its relationship with the federal government, the nation, and the world.

For over two hundred years, the history and culture of the District of Columbia has been in great part shaped by its Black residents. Several Black men were elected to political positions citywide only a handful of years after the end of the Civil War, and while the years after Reconstruction saw the region plagued with segregation and racial violence, the capital’s Black population continued to grow at all economic levels. Washington became the first major US city with a majority Black population in 1957, a status it held for almost 70 years as gentrification has led to the decline of Black political and economic power in DC in the twenty-first century.

Halfway to Freedom is a social, political, intellectual, and cultural history of African Americans in Washington, DC, looking at the role that race, gender, color, class, and power have played in the city and its relationship with the federal government. Maurice Jackson explores the material conditions that shaped life for African Americans, free and enslaved, from the earliest moments of the District's history to more contemporary times of organization and activism. Through an array of archival materials, especially first-hand accounts of Black residents in the area, Jackson critiques how and why DC exists as a haven within the Black American imaginary given the realities of conflict its Black residents have faced and continue to face today. In doing so, he also highlights and honors the gains they have earned through the concerted struggles of labor organizations, women’s movements, sports, music, art, legal activism, and more.