This question surfaced for me at a recent book club meeting, while we were in the thick of discussing The Seven Daughters of Dupree. One of the characters migrated from the family home in Land’s End Alabama to Chicago, and the conversation meanders to whether D.C. is a northern or southern city.
The group’s opinions are strident, and considering their hometowns, unsurprising: A sister from New York City declares D.C. is not in the North and very much South. A brother from Alabama (though not from Land’s End) is ten-toes down that it’s not in the South.
For me, this is not a geographical debate. The District was carved out of two Southern states, and sits just below the Mason-Dixon line — the demarcation of North and South. This is a cultural question — and as a native Washingtonian, one I take personally.
I inserted my improbable hot take into the bookclub debate: D.C. is neither in the South or the North.
“D.C. is Up South,” I say, referencing a term I was introduced to in college. “Up South is not a thing,” says Panama Jackson, the Alabamian and two-decade D.C. resident.
Thirty years ago, I would have agreed with him and said D.C. was definitely North.
Growing up, I perceived northern cities as having urban and dense landscapes with progressive-leaning values. The best museums, galleries, and concert venues were in cities like D.C., Philadelphia, and New York, I thought. These places offered everything I wanted to be a part of.
“The South” was the opposite: slower-paced, not as ethnically diverse, with dramatically fewer cultural institutions.
I remember at 10 years old, my Pittsburgh-raised grandmother, Beulah, wanted to attend her maternal family reunion in Natchez, Mississippi. Of all her children, my mother was most willing to make the drive. So one summer, our family of five children, two parents, and one delighted grandma loaded into our fire-engine red Suburban and drove what seemed like a thousand hours “down South.” It was the first time in my life I’d felt the entire heat of the sun on my face. Those interminable hours of highway, stretches of farm land, and the immensity of the sun on my face confirmed that D.C. was North.
Years later, during my first few weeks of undergrad in New York City, I engaged in the ritual of sorting out where everyone grew up, and asserted that I was from D.C. — a northern city.
Someone from a certifiable Northern city yanked my card: “No, D.C. is Up South.”
Being 225 miles north of my hometown, I couldn’t argue with D.C. being the South from a geographic standpoint. But if we’re comfortable classifying any place South of the Mason-Dixon line as “Down South” and the most-southern points like Mississippi and Alabama as the “Deep South,” I agree that “Up South” is feasible.
In the years since the conversation in college, I’ve lived in Charlottesville, Va. and Cambridge, Ma., while visiting numerous southern towns and cities in between. And I’ve thought a lot about what characterizes an “Up South” city like D.C., which sits on the border where North meets South.
My working — albeit imperfect — definition is that an “Up South” city is dense, rich with cultural institutions and venues, diverse in population, has a mass transportation system, and northern-adjacent politics. Yet we can not extract from its DNA certain expressions implanted by migrants from the South, like a dynamic history of protest against racial and economic apartheid and Southern hospitality.
It’s the latter that reminds Levita Mondie, who lives in Anacostia, of her native city. “The sense of community in Anacostia feels like my grandmother’s neighborhood in Memphis. We know our neighbors. We’ve been in each other’s homes,” she told me.
For me, the more urgent question is why does it matter if D.C. identifies as North, South, or something in between?
In this moment, as the National Guard patrols our streets, residents are abducted by ICE agents, and the president has threatened an (unconstitutional) takeover, it is imperative that we know who we are, where we come from, and what we stand for.
Minnesotans have articulated their cry against ICE as “Minnesota Strong.” New Yorkers coalesce around shared love for the Big Apple: “New York or Nowhere.”
For D.C. natives, where we grew up in the city sparks a sense of pride. Have you ever heard the Southside chant: “Southeast! South, Southeast!”? The resounding call emerges from the soul of Southeast residents, rivaled by no other quadrant, and speaks to a unique experience. And, we must be similarly unified as a city if we want to protect home rule and advocate for statehood.
No one is more surprised that I am making this argument than 18-year-old me, who wanted nothing more than to shed any association with Southern D.C. Today, make me a city girl who takes the subway from an art gallery to a diver bar, says “good evening” to the stranger sharing an elevator, checks on her neighbors, and rallies against oppression.
Rhonda Henderson curates public humanities programs, and coaches individuals to speak with clarity and power. She is a native Washingtonian, and co-creator of the Dap Project. Find her at a local coffee shop, art museum, or library. Say what's up.
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