Introduction Midcolonial

Abstract

Dante, Joan of Arc, Malcolm X: Postcolonial Time Due north of the White House along 16th Street rises the steep incline of Meridian Hill. Famous for a public park designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the slope’s expanse of cascading fountains and green lawns bears an alternate name, Malcolm X Park. In the 1960s the District of Columbia was torn apart by riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King,Jr. Since Meridian Hill Park marked a boundary between poor, “colored” Washington and the wealthy, “white” sections of Upper Northwest, renaming the area to honor another slain hero of the civil rights movement was a small way for some citizens to countercolonize the space. Twenty years later the hill bears traces of other struggles as displaced and diasporic communities (especially African and Caribbean) setded in the District. The surrounding area is also now the home of many Latin American families who fled the U.S.-aided strife in their homelands. At night the park becomes a gay cruising ground, a place where drugs are sold, and the location of community concerts and festivals. Multiple histories are being lived along the hill as multiple cultures make use of its geography.² Meridian Hill and its park are hybrid places where heterogeneous cultures mingle, compete, coexist. Less obvious, perhaps, is that Malcolm X/Meridian Hill Park is composed of multiple, hybridized temporalities.