The Georgetown neighborhood of Washington...
The Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. has a national reputation as a status neighborhood. It has, however, had an economically and racially mixed past also. Since the Kennedy era, the name has been synonymous with the chic wealthy. In more recent years upscale national chains have replaced boutiques on Wisconsin Avenue and on "M" Street. Georgetown has become a traffic-clogged tourist neighborhood. Part of what I've tried to do with River, Cross My Heart is to give back to my folks and the other "Old Georgetowners"--the mostly elderly black people who attend the Old Georgetown Reunion Dinner Dance--the Georgetown they knew from their early years. I've wanted to reestablish it in the imagination. I've tried not to be didactic. I simply wanted to say "they were there, they existed, they came from some place, they weren't simply background players in the lives of wealthy white people. They had lives of their own."
The development of River, Cross My Heart has been a process of reclaiming the tales that my parents had related over the years about growing up in Georgetown. Throughout our childhood, they took us driving in the family car through the streets of Georgetown. We enjoyed riding, but I remember feeling a little embarrassed to be in the car with them as they pointed at the tony facades of townhouses and said that they had once lived there or there. Could they be making it all up? Then when I decided that I did believe them, I was puzzled as to why they no longer lived there or there. The Clarkes--my father's family--were among the last of the black Georgetown families to remain after the changes brought about by the Old Georgetown Act and other economic factors. The Clarkes' house at 2721 "P" St. was sold in 1983. The house next door is still occupied by Miss Eva Calloway, a close friend of my grandmother, who will celebrate her 100th birthday this fall.
The novel grew out of a short story that was based on a tape recording of my mother talking about her early years in Georgetown. Her recitation was bright and cheerful until she got to the part about the "whites only" swimming pool where she'd always longed to swim. To this day, my mother's recollection of this injustice is painful and still fresh.
But River, Cross My Heart is completely fictional. I've only depended on my folks' recollections for details about the neighborhood in that era. Most importantly, the novel is about loss. What happens to an individual and/or a family when a beloved member dies. The loss is mine. That's the part I know best. My only child, a son, died in an accidental fall in 1989.
Expectations of death are different. We expect our elderly people to die. We're accustomed to thinking that we'll lose them so we brace ourselves. The death of a child though, seems to go against the perceived natural order of things. The parent is not supposed to out live the child. There is not even a word in our language to describe a parent whose child has died. This, too, is the landscape I try to illumine in River, Cross My Heart.
The Old Georgetown Act of 1950 called for an architectural board to approve construction projects in the Georgetown neighborhood. Its ostensible aim was to preserve the architectural character of the historic neighborhood. The collateral impact of the act was that many renters and struggling property owners--a great many of the black residents--were forced to move away from Georgetown. Rents already high, went steadily higher. Some blacks were evicted so that whites, eager to live in the desirable neighborhood, could move in. Long-time black renters and property owners were unable to obtain loans to make required improvements or to purchase their homes. A few families managed to hang on and several churches remained though their congregations moved away.
This is what I've learned: a neighborhood is not simply architecture. A neighborhood is not a collection of buildings. Its architecture is in the heart of the people who live or lived there. So many of the old Georgetowners--the black community of Georgetown--took bits of the neighborhood away with them when they left.
Copyright © Breena Clarke
