Health, Place & Space: Familiar Diasporic Narratives in the Nation’s Capital and Beyond
In Southeast DC, root shock looks like elevated depression among elders who can no longer walk familiar streets, like mothers rerouting daily journeys to get children to school, and like a quiet cultural erosion when landmarks are replaced by spaces that do not reflect the African Diaspora’s history or needs.
By Chantay P. Moye, PhD
They call it revitalization. But for people who identify as part of the African Diaspora in Washington, DC, especially those who live or have lived southeast of the Anacostia River, health has always been tied to place. Space isn’t just geography—it’s identity, belonging, and survival.
In Wards 7 and 8, race, space, and health outcomes intersect in ways that can mean the difference between thriving and merely getting by. When your hospital closes, your grocery store is replaced by a boutique shop, and your neighbors are scattered. The change is not only felt in your spirit but in your body.
In this article, I explore how place and space shape health, culture, and community in Southeast DC. While this writing focuses on Washington, DC, in the United States as a primary location, the interplay of place, space, and health is also shaping communities across the globe—from rural Jamaican parishes where limited health infrastructure intersects with geographic isolation to Brazil’s favelas, where spatial inequities and resource scarcity impact daily well-being.
Growing up in Chocolate City, a nickname for Washington, DC, I always knew who I was because of where I was. My doctors, teachers, and neighbors all looked like me. There was strength in that; wholeness in that. For members of the African Diaspora—whose histories are marked by forced displacement, migration, and the constant fight for place—such rootedness is not only a comfort but also a form of resistance. But today, there’s a struggle for the very soul of DC’s historically Black neighborhoods east of the river.
New building developments, “wellness” spaces, and retail ventures may signal progress to some, but for many, they raise an urgent question: at what cost to community health, and at what cost to the culture?
In my doctoral research, I sat with residents whose voices are too often ignored in city planning meetings and policy debates. One longtime resident told me, “They’re not just changing the buildings—they’re changing who belongs here.” This reality has deep implications for healthcare access, the trust between providers and patients, and the informal social networks that the African Diaspora has always relied on for survival and healing.
Across history, whether in West African villages, Caribbean enclaves, or southern African American neighborhoods, health has been as much about who you can turn to as it has been about the clinic on the corner. Similar dynamics are visible in Haiti, where post-disaster displacement has disrupted community-based care networks, and in Trinidad and Tobago, where urban expansion has deepened disparities between central cities and surrounding rural communities.
From the African Diaspora’s forced removal from ancestral homelands to displacement through segregation and discriminatory housing policy, the fight for rootedness has always been about more than property—it’s about health, dignity, and the right to exist in a place that sustains you.
The closure of historic DC General Hospital symbolized more than the loss of a health facility; it represented a breakdown of trust. The new Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center is a promising step, but it comes with the question: will the residents who need it most still be here to use it?
Public health scholar Dr. Mindy Fullilove calls the trauma of losing home and neighborhood “root shock.” In Southeast DC, root shock looks like elevated depression among elders who can no longer walk familiar streets, like mothers rerouting daily journeys to get children to school, and like a quiet cultural erosion when landmarks are replaced by spaces that do not reflect the African Diaspora’s history or needs.
This mirrors historical patterns—whether through urban renewal in the U.S. or colonial land seizures abroad—where displacement reshaped communities’ ability to care for themselves.
And yet, there is resilience. Community gardens thrive in church parking lots, echoing agricultural traditions carried across oceans by the African Diaspora. Go-go rhythms still pulse in alleyways reclaimed for joy resembling African drum circles that have always been spaces of healing and solidarity. Storytellers archive the humor, pain, and triumph of life east of the river, ensuring that even when the map changes, the narrative remains.
This isn’t just about saving a neighborhood. It’s about safeguarding the health and humanity of a people deeply rooted in a particular place. If Southeast DC is to thrive, residents’ voices must not only be heard; they must lead.
Dr. Chantay Moye is an award-winning communications and marketing executive with a distinguished career working with public health organizations. https://www.linkedin.com/in/chantay-moye
