The Bicentennial and the Battle over DC’s Downtown Redevelopment during the 1970s

Abstract

Few studies of post–World War II, Washington, DC, focus on the development decisions local black officials made following the passage of limited home rule measures during the 1960s–1970s. This article uses the 1976 Bicentennial as a lens to study the divisions that urban development sowed locally while the city’s government was in transition. It focuses on one of the most deeply divisive projects contested during the Bicentennial, the construction of a convention center in Downtown DC, and argues that a new coalition of stakeholders used the Bicentennial to implement a prodevelopment agenda at the expense of the city’s black residents.