A Harlem Divided: Media, Blackness, and the Making of Difference in Le Petit Sénégal

How are the boundaries of Blackness negotiated in the mediated public sphere when new Black populations transform long-established Black neighborhoods? This article answers this question through an analysis of news media representations of Le Petit Sénégal (Little Senegal), a hub of West African life within the historically Black neighborhood of Central Harlem. Comparing portrayals of Le Petit Sénégal in several hundred news articles published between 1930 and 2025 in both mainstream newspapers and Black-owned media, I analyze how different media institutions describe the neighborhood and its residents and, in doing so, draw symbolic boundaries within the Black population. I find that mainstream outlets often frame the area as culturally vibrant yet foreign, emphasizing aesthetic difference and tension within a gentrifying Harlem. In contrast, Black-owned media foreground themes of diaspora and Black unity, positioning Le Petit Sénégal within a longer history of struggle and belonging in Black New York. By comparing these narratives, I show how media institutions with different audiences and missions construct competing meanings of a Black immigrant area, shaping how Black immigrants and Black Americans relate to one another and redefining Blackness in the city.