The D.C. Black Fathers Matter motorcade is an unabashedly upbeat public celebration of the Black dad. The Father’s Day parade starts at the African American Civil War Memorial in Northwest, which honors Black people who fought to end slavery — Black men who fought for the freedom to be the best fathers and family men they could be.

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       After winding about five miles through mostly Black neighborhoods on Sunday, the motorcade ends in Southeast Washington. If those brave soldiers from the Civil War somehow joined the motorcade, they would see a city at once both unimaginable and all too familiar.

       It’s unlikely they would have dreamed that the nation’s capital would be run by a Black woman, that another Black woman would be about to join a Black man on the nation’s highest court. But they certainly would have recognized Black residents living in segregated, underfunded sections of the city.

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       More than 157 years after the Civil War, as the nation prepares to celebrate June 19 or “Juneteenth,” as we call the symbolic end of slavery, Black people in the District are battling a different kind of war. Many of D.C.’s Black residents are still being left out and left behind.

       Affordable housing is nonexistent for many low-wage Black households. Educational gaps continue to expand. And homicide is the leading cause of death for Black males roughly ages 15 to 44, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

       An April study by the Brookings Institution pointed to one reason violence may seem so seemingly entrenched: economic inequity and a sense that the opportunity game is rigged.

       In Washington, D.C., Black people have “the lowest per capita annual median income and the greatest disparities in income at $29,927 when compared to that of white people at $92,758 and Latinos at $41,151,” the study said. In addition, Black people in D.C. experienced the highest unemployment rate at 4.8 percent than any jurisdiction reviewed by Brookings. The study also said the “largest percentage of Black residents living below the poverty line, 21.6%, lived in Washington, D.C.”

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       Black life expectancy in Washington, D.C., was the lowest among all races at an average of 72.7 years, compared to an average of 88 years for White people, 88.3 years for Latinos, and 88.9 years for Asians in the city.

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       Another study in the 2022 issue of Injury Epidemiology lays out what tends to come next:

       The consequence of extreme economic inequities is “socially structured hardship that result in feelings of ‘resentment, frustration, hopelessness, and alienation’ which ... leads to widespread social disorganization and violent crime,” the researchers noted. They said poverty was among the most consistent predictors of violent crime.

       Of course, there are many Black people in D.C. who are doing just fine. But when you concentrate an impoverished population in life-or-death stressful situations, with little opportunity or hope of getting what they see others obtaining so easily, expect trouble.

       After departing from the Civil War memorial museum at around noon on Sunday, the caravan rolls into Ward 5. Here’s what that looks like by the numbers: There are 92,000 residents — 17,000 of them children under the ages of 18; the population is about 62 percent Black, with 40 percent of the households headed by single mothers, who tend to make less money than their married counterparts. According to the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, the poverty rate in the ward is around 10 percent and the unemployment rate stands at 9 percent.

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       The caravan then heads to Ward 7, which has more than 84,000 residents — 91 percent Black and roughly 20,000 of them under the age of 18. About 73 percent of the households are headed by single mothers. Unemployment is 11 percent; the poverty rate hovers around 25 percent.

       The motorcade ends at the Big Chair on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, in Ward 8. It is the poorest ward — with about 86,000 residents — 85 percent of them Black. The ward is home to about 26,000 children under age 18. About 69 percent of the households are headed by single mothers. Unemployment is roughly 15 percent; the poverty rate stands at around 30 percent, according to Casey.

       Reduce this overwhelming urban poverty, narrow the obscene inequities in wealth and access to resources and you might just give people more reason to want to live.

       The scholars writing in the Injury Epidemiology study, note that “Public-private partnerships are likely needed to address large infrastructure and economic drivers of violence. Moreover, alleviating low income in local areas and income inequality over larger areas could help reduce homicide rates.”

       That’s a battle worth fighting.