On a bright fall morning, Georgia Avenue looks like a city in transition. Coffee shops with sleek glass facades spill onto sidewalks once lined with soul food diners and record stores. Strollers glide past the storefronts, pushed by new residents who, only a decade ago, might have thought twice about moving into the area. And just across the street, Howard University students, most of them young and Black, are running to class, juggling backpacks, SmarTrip cards, and long commutes.
“It feels like we’re not supposed to be here, even though this was designed for us,” says Madison Nicome, a junior studying marketing at Howard. “I’ll be walking to class, and I’ll see a group of white people walking up campus or down Georgia Ave, and it feels… off. Like they’re intruding. But then you realize, no, they’re not intruding. They’re just here. They’ve moved in. And somehow, we’re the ones who feel out of place.”
This is the paradox of Howard University today, A historically Black university, world-renowned for its cultural and political influence, now sits at the epicenter of D.C.’s gentrification. Students are watching their campus neighborhood transform around them, often without them. And many can’t even afford to live near it…