GOD BLESS
Image 1: Wall of Respect, Chicago
CHOCOLATE CITY
CC, funk music architect George Clinton affectionately called Washington D.C. in his 1975 Parliament song: there’s a lot of chocolate cities around / we got Newark, we got Gary / somebody told me we got LA / and we’re working on Atlanta / but you’re the capital, CC. Demographically, he was more than right to do so. The African American community in fact made up over 70% of D.C.’s total population by then. But if we understand Chocolate City as an architectural concept, the analogy is not as evident. Slave-built America had been designed by and for a white society after all. Whilst the smoke of the Harlem Renaissance and civil rights movement echoes in CC’s groovy chord progression and edgy lyrics, a question arises: what legacy have these revolutions left in American black neighbourhoods?
It is 1916 when the largest-ever shift in US demographics took off. Up until then, 90% of the African American population lived in the rural South – formerly as slaves, now as free yet heavily exploited sharecroppers. Racism was backed by law here, and severe acts of violence happened on a daily basis. At the same time, cities up North were confronted with a significant labour shortage as many men had left to fight in World War I. These strongly contrasting conditions, complemented with pull factors like promising education and living conditions, convinced six million African Americans to leave their southern life. The so-called Great Migration went on until 1968 and resulted in a strongly urbanised black population. Although segregation was illegal in the Northern states, racism still existed de facto as they found out upon arrival. Black people were given the most dangerous and lowest paying jobs, and were collectively pushed into the least desirable areas of the city. Examples of such ghettos are New York’s Harlem, Detroit’s Black Bottom and Chicago’s South Side. Moving up the ladder was hardly possible
either. African Americans were denied mortgages in their own area, and property owners had agreed not to sell them houses in white neighbourhoods. Urban segregation was thus designed and maintained until present day. Even though their position was far from flawless, at least the African American people now lived unrestrained in a like-minded, black community. The new circumstances provided them with the opportunity to develop in areas they had been denied to for centuries. This exploration for identity and cultural self-determination started in Harlem. Through visual arts, music, literature and theatre, “blackness” was expressed and proudly promoted, leaving the community uplifted. Well-known children of the Harlem Renaissance (1910s to 1930s) were jazz legends Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, writers W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain Locke and artists Jacob Lawrence and Lois Mailou Jones. Although no architects were involved in the artistic movement, a few artists did leave a physical mark on the city. The most prominent figure in this is Aaron Douglas (1899-1979). By means of a number of murals in public buildings across the United States, Douglas depicted significant stages of the turbulent history of the African American people. One of his most notable works is Aspects of a Negro Life (1934), a collection of murals in the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library. Four vast paintings picture stories shared by all: the story of arrival, of slavery, of emancipation and of cultural rebirth. Besides thematic identification, the community also recognises itself in an aesthetic that draws on traditional African art in form and colour. Douglas’ murals educated and celebrated black identity, beautified and appropriated their buildings, but all of it happened in the city’s interior space. Where the Harlem Renaissance sought identity from