Registration now closed

Before Gentrification with Tanya Golash-Boza

Author Talk

The People’s Archive is proud to present Before Gentrification: The Creation of DC's Racial Wealth Gap, an author talk with Tanya Maria Golash-Boza.

Through conversation with Niki McCombs, Tanya Maria Golash-Boza will discuss her latest book, Before Gentrification: The Creation of DC’s Racial Wealth Gap. Before Gentrification shows how a century of redlining, disinvestment, and the War on Drugs wreaked devastation on Black people and paved the way for gentrification in Washington, DC. 

For reasonable accommodations, please contact the Center for Accessibility at 202-727-2142 or DCPLaccess@dc.gov. For ASL or tactile interpretation, please allow at least seven (7) days notice.

About the Author

Tanya Golash-Boza is a proud graduate of DC Public Schools, the University of Maryland (B.A., Philosophy), and the University of North Carolina (MA, PhD, Sociology). She is the Executive Director of the University of California Washington Center, a Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Merced, and the author of five previous books on race, racism, and immigration policy.

About the Moderator

Nikol “Niki” McCombs is proud to be born and raised in Washington, DC and currently resides in the Northwest DC home her family has owned since 1958. She is a strong advocate for DC Public Charter Schools and mother to an active middle schooler and a high schooler. Niki serves on the Board of Directors of the DC Audubon Society to fulfill their mission for every resident in the District to feel meaningful benefits of bird conservation through education and advocacy.

About the Book

In Before Gentrification: The Creation of DC’s Racial Wealth Gap, Tanya Maria Golash-Boza tracks the cycles of state abandonment and punishment that have shaped the city, revealing how policies and policing work to displace and decimate the Black middle class.

Through the stories of those who have lost their homes and livelihoods, the author explores how DC came to be the nation's "murder capital" and incarceration capital, and why it is now a haven for wealthy White people. This troubling history makes clear that the choice to use prisons and policing to solve problems faced by Black communities in the twentieth century—instead of investing in schools, community centers, social services, health care, and violence prevention—is what made gentrification possible in the twenty-first. Before Gentrification unveils a pattern of anti-Blackness and racial capitalism in DC that has implications for all US cities.

About The People’s Archive

The People’s Archive is DC Public Library’s local history center and home to the Washingtoniana, Black Studies, and the Peabody Room collections. Its mission is to connect you to unique resources that illustrate the District of Columbia’s local history and culture.

Upcoming events