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Wilson, who lives in the Anacostia Historic District, considers redistricting a symbolic reunification of historically connected areas on both sides of the Anacostia as well as the potential for increased civic engagement and attention paid to heavily-Black neighborhoods.

“Now we’ll be able to call the west side, the opposite side of Anacostia River, which has been known to kind of divide communities, to be considered a part of Ward 8,” Wilson said. “That’s exciting because not only will the ward have ‘more’ grocery store options or economic development options, but it will increase voter turnout because you’re adding additional voters to the Ward 8 rolls. When it comes time for election season, candidates running for office will have to pay more attention to this side of the city because they know there’ll be a higher voter turnout.”

Certainly, redrawing the ward lines will help numerically balance out unequal distribution of groceries, book stores, and other services that Ward 8 residents currently see a dearth of; however, the physical distance between families and food across the river will not change until new facilities are built east of the river. The larger problem of unequal access may not be immediately solved by redistricting, but some residents are hopeful it will spark a change.

“We want development. We don’t want to be stuck in a certain time period. However, we want development that does not lead to displacement but leads to an opportunity that leads to progress for our community,” White said. “We want to be a part of that development. We want to shape that development. We want it to be equitable and community-centered.”

These exact changes have been rapidly occurring in Ward 6, yet development is often accompanied by gentrification and displacement of low-income residents, which often has racially disproportionate outcomes displacing residents of color.

The threat of displacement has led to hesitation from some of White’s neighbors to wholly embrace redistricting.

“I feel like my feelings are still mixed,” Bàbá Alejaibra Badu, a long-term resident and community healer in the Anacostia Historic District said of D.C.’s redrawn boundaries. “I am a person that embraces change, though change can sometimes show up in the displacement of other people, or more so the displacement of people that are native to the space.”

White and other residents are hoping that the redistricting process furthers these conversations about gentrification in D.C. and why booming development in Ward 6 has not translated into nearly stagnated growth in Wards 7 and 8.

“I think this is an opportunity for the city, and for all residents quite frankly, to push for more equitable development for Ward 8, and ask themselves why is that Ward 6 has developed so fast, and not just so fast but through so many resources, and that Wards 7 and 8 haven’t?” White said.

It’s the hope of community members like Wilson and Badu that these questions will play into an even larger conversation about the constructed narrative of the neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River, especially as those borderlines extend and challenge that distinction.

“Ward 8 has been known to be that place over there that nobody really wanted to go to or needed to go to, and a place people wanted to avoid,” Wilson said.

“It’s in the messaging, it’s in the media, every article tells us we’re garbage. Every article: marginalized, vulnerable, poor Black population—talk about the why. Poverty is a policy issue, it is not a moral failure, so talk about why is it that this community has been starved,” White said. “We’re not marginalized, we’re not vulnerable. We’re excluded.”

This narrative surrounding wards became clear at the redistricting hearings, streamed live on Facebook, when residents expressed their frustration at the prospect of being associated with a new ward. While some cited issues such as parking, other comments about specific wards broke into less logistical territory.

Over the past few weeks, some Ward 6 residents have expressed discontent for their inevitable “move” to Wards 7 and 8. Given that Ward 6 is plurality white (49.52 percent) while Wards 7 and 8 are majority Black (91.74 percent and 91.84 percent respectively), these concerns bear resemblance to longstanding racist connotations of the neighborhoods east of the Anacostia.

These connotations seem to be central to a great deal of the concerns around redistricting. In one hearing, Rosen-Amy explained, a Ward 2 resident called Ward 1 a “horrible place” as a reason for not wanting a border change. “We’ve had similar things said about Wards 7 and 8 about why people didn’t want to join those wards, and we pushed back on those too. That is not acceptable,” Rosen-Amy added.

Before the hearings began, Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen warned residents against engaging in dogwhistle racism about ward change.“If we hear someone say, ‘I’m concerned about my property values being reduced if I moved into a different ward,’ shut that down,” Allen said, referencing a thinly-veiled racist idea that the inclusion of people of color in a neighborhood drives down home prices. “It does not have a place in this debate. It’s not based on any kind of fact.”

This is not the first time D.C. residents have protested the redrawing of ward boundaries. According to Corey Holman, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 6, in 2010, a Ward 6 councilmember led marches against a proposal to move more of Ward 6 into Ward 7.

Oftentimes, these objections fell along racial divides in the District. In 1981, the Georgetown neighborhood fought against being moved from Ward 3 to Ward 2 (the ward the university is currently in), partially due to the fact that the majority-white neighborhood would be merged with the areas of Dupont and Shaw, then more racially diverse.

With the shifting boundaries, members of Ward 6 have the potential to be represented by a council member they did not vote for—at least until 2022 when six new members will be elected to the D.C. Council. And, as Holman noted, most people who voted for Councilmember Allen in Ward 6, a white man, looked like him. With their upcoming reclassification in majority-Black wards, that could change come December.

“Your representative may not look like you anymore, and your representative may hold different views than you do, but that doesn’t make it wrong or bad,” Holman said.

The redrawing of wards will also necessitate the redrawing of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) Single Member District (SMD) boundaries, which connect D.C. residents with their government through their commissioners, who are elected one per district. With the growth of the District, many new SMDs will need to be added, according to Christian Damiana, a student advisory neighborhood commissioner for American University. “I think the ANCs are a really important way for local voices to be heard and they really serve as a liaison between the general public and the D.C. government,” he said.

Despite hesitancy, Holman notes that at the end of the day, not much will really change the lives of everyday residents in Ward 6. In fact, according to him, not even the parking boundaries will alter much. “How does it matter? Not a whole lot,” Holman said. “In the end, your city services will not change, your interactions with agencies will not change. It is simply who represents you, and some people are struggling with that.”

Whether it’s the ANC SMD boundaries or those of the wards, commissioners are aware that the racial equity principle of redistricting is critical in D.C. “I think there’s a lot of wealthy white homeowners who believe the lines should be drawn in a certain way, and while they’re constituents and their views should be considered, that should not necessarily be a priority when balanced against other things,” Damiana said.

The redrawing of lines, however, won’t solve the racial and social tensions extant in D.C. “We can build another building, we can build another bridge, and have celebrations, but not be honest with the people about what happens when you cross that bridge,” Badu said.

As the redistricting bill makes its way through the legislative process over the next month, some residents are choosing to see this as a chance for important conversations about identity in the District and the potential for more diverse and equitable communities in the face of pushback and discontent.

“It’s an opportunity that only comes every 10 years, right?” Wilson said. “We need to take full advantage of it.” G

“We want to be a part of that development. We want to shape that development. We want it to be equitable and communitycentered.”