How Being Black in America Is Bad for Your Health

On an overcast, humid morning, Antonice C. Woodfork grabs an umbrella and sets out from her home in a far-from-gentrified neighborhood in the District of Columbia and starts marching to the nearest grocery store, seven-tenths of a mile away.

Woodfork, 42, who is African-American, could take a bus with one transfer, but the buses don’t run as frequently in this part of town, in deep Northeast Washington, as they do downtown. That means it may take her as long as an hour to get there, so she starts moving. It’s not the safest neighborhood – her street is a couple of blocks from where, a week earlier, four masked gunmen jumped out of a car and opened fire.