Book cover of Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of Race in a Post-Chocolate City

Book description

While Washington, D.C., is still often referred to as "Chocolate City," it has undergone significant demographic, political, and economic change in the last decade. In D.C., no place represents this shift better than the H Street corridor. In this book, Brandi Thompson Summers documents D.C.'s shift to a "post-chocolate" cosmopolitan…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Black in Place as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Read this book if you want to understand the nuances of blackness in the nation’s capital.

Brandi Thompson Summers argues in her book, Black in Place, that gentrification along the H Street Corridor in DC has involved the embracing of blackness as an aesthetic alongside the displacement of actual Black people. Summers explains how blackness came to be valued as a prized aesthetic at the same time that Black people experienced the heavy policing, predatory lending, and displacement that both make possible and accompany the gentrification of Black neighborhoods.

If you love Black in Place...

Ad

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Want books like Black in Place?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Black in Place.

Browse books like Black in Place

Book cover of Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America
Book cover of Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City
Book cover of African Americans and Gentrification in Washington, D.C.: Race, Class and Social Justice in the Nation's Capital

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,278

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 If you like Black in Place, you might also like...

Book cover of The Bridge: Connecting The Powers of Linear and Circular Thinking

The Bridge by Kim Hudson,

The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…

Book cover of And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown

And Then They Were Gone by Ron Cabral,

Of the 918 Americans who died in the shocking murder-suicides of November 18, 1978, in the tiny South American country of Guyana, a third were under eighteen. More than half were in their twenties or younger.

The authors taught in a small high school in San Francisco where Reverend Jim…

5 book lists we think you will like!