Ever since Washington was carved from two slaveholding states in 1791, it has been a special place for black Americans. Lincoln freed the slaves in Washington about nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation, prompting blacks from the region to flock here. It was the birthplace of Duke Ellington and home to other artists like Zora Neale Hurston and Sterling Allen Brown, who later fueled the Harlem Renaissance. By 1957, blacks had become the majority of the city’s residents, exceeding numbers in any major city in the United States. Ever since Walter E. Washington was appointed mayor by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967, the city has been led by black politicians and shaped by black institutions. This has fostered a sense of black privilege, swagger and, yes, the hubris that comes with leadership.

For the past half-century, the city’s black majority has also yielded a distinct culture. But in the midst of gentrification that is now fading fast. Last month, hundreds of mourners streamed into the Howard Theater to say goodbye to the late guitarist Chuck Brown, the godfather of go-go music, perhaps the city’s only indigenous art form. The music that Mr. Brown created was once ubiquitous here, but most newcomers today have never heard it.

The political landscape is changing, too: recent federal investigations have led to the downfall of several members of the city’s black leadership, from the City Council chairman, Kwame R. Brown, and the Ward 5 councilman Harry Thomas Jr., to two campaign aides for Mayor Vincent C. Gray.

During the decades that Washington had a black majority, national policy makers and investors left the city’s aging infrastructure for dead. So it is astonishing to witness the about-face that has accompanied the influx of white professionals in the past decade. Now there are urban-friendly transportation policies, lavish corporate spending on education and billions in private real estate investment and development. As residents finally get the city they have always deserved, many black Washingtonians are feeling the rage of the loyal first wife, kicked to the curb as soon as things started looking up.

Move out of the way!

Black privilege has always been relative. The city’s median black household income is $36,948; for whites it is $99,401. This demographic reality creates a crude, ethically charged math, and everyone who owns a stake in Washington calculates with it. The presence of white faces is the most reliable sign of the quality of a school. The more white people move in, the higher the property values go. The city’s population is growing, but each black family that leaves a school or neighborhood makes it richer.