Black/African-American History Month and Urban Planning
Over the years, I've written entries during African American/Black History Month, about the nexus of black history and urban and transportation planning.
-- "Black History Month and the New Jim Crow," 2020
-- "Two ideas about presentation of African American History in the context of Black History Month," 2020
-- "African American History Month and Urban Planning," 2019
The history of federally imposed housing segregation. Last year I read The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.
It's a damning overview of how segregation and discrimination has been "baked in" to US housing policy.
Reading it, no one can deny the reality of structural racism.
Transit equity. There is the rise in the number of communities taking an equity lens to government policies and programs, including urban and transportation planning ("Baltimore transit equity study spotlights racial disparities around neighborhoods," Washington Post, "Boston’s fare-free bus pilot program sets the stage for transit equity, advocates say," WGBH/NPR).
Although for some time, transit agencies receiving federal monies were already supposed to be doing this, and they weren't. That's changed.
Free and discounted transit pricing isa related response.
Confederate monuments. The push to remove Confederate monuments continues ("Monuments as public art, historiography, and change," 2020).
This has been ongoing, and was discussed in the 2019 entry, but it's more pronounced, including the removal of monuments even of the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia ("Confederate pedestals out," Richmond Free Press).
And the renaming of streets that have been named after prominent Confederate figures ("3 Charlotte streets officially drop names tied to slavery, Confederacy," WSOC-TV),
Energy and the environment. Energy equity is another relevant to Black history and urban planning too.
The comments thread includes links to a number of relevant aspects of the issue.
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Philadelphia has just created an equity advisory commission ("Philly names Environmental Justice Advisory Commission to address ‘racially biased and discriminatory policies’," Philadelphia Inquirer).
Labels: civil rights, criminal justice system, equity planning, provision of public services, racism and racial issues, segregation, transportation equity, transportation planning, urban history, urban planning
posted by Richard Layman @ 3:30 AM&Permanent Link
24 Comments:
Not including voter suppression is a big miss here.
Black History Month founder showed how schools should teach about race
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/02/01/carter-woodson-miseducation-negro-schools/
https://www.tpt.org/minnesota-experience/video/jim-crow-of-the-north-stijws/
The Philadelphia Inquirer: From John Chaney to Ala Stanford, Smith Playground’s Black History Month exhibit honors Philly’s ‘Leaders and Legends’.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/smith-playground-black-history-month-exhibit-20220205.html
More cities seek to redress widespread 20th-century destruction of Black neighborhoods
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/02/10/more-cities-seek-redress-widespread-20th-century-destruction-black-neighborhoods/
USA TODAY: 'An intergeneration issue': Why a rising gap between Black and white homeownership will only keep growing.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/real-estate/2022/02/16/black-home-ownership-gap-growing-forecast/6724155001/
San Francisco Chronicle: Is California’s Prop. 13 racist? Homeowners in white neighborhoods of one city may get triple the tax benefit.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/eastbay/article/Is-California-s-Prop-13-racist-Homeowners-in-16922018.php
African Americans say the teaching of Black history is under threat
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/02/23/schools-black-history-month-crt/
WWMT-TV: Kalamazoo non-profit launches new program to increase Black homeownership rates.
https://wwmt.com/news/local/kalamazoo-non-profit-launches-new-program-to-increase-black-homeownership-rates-open-doors-community-pathway-home-project-racial-equity-housing-industry
1847 school segregation case in Boston, went to SCOTUS.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/02/25/metro/how-roberts-v-city-boston-set-precedent-uphold-racial-segregation-schools/?et_rid=852154004&s_campaign=todaysheadlines:newsletter
"Bruce Carver Boynton, who helped spark Freedom Rides, dies at 83"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/bruce-boynton-dead/2020/11/26/749e7cae-2ebf-11eb-860d-f7999599cbc2_story.html
obituary from 2020
Bruce Carver Boynton just wanted a cheeseburger and cup of tea. It was past 10 p.m., one week before Christmas in 1958, and his Trailways bus had stopped in Richmond for a short break. At the bus station, he saw what he later described as “a clinically clean White restaurant and an absolutely filthy Black cafe.”
Mr. Boynton was insulted. A precocious 21-year-old, he had graduated from high school at age 14 and was now a third-year student at Howard University School of Law, the country’s oldest historically Black law school. Traveling from Washington to see his family in Selma, Ala., he sat down in the Whites-only section of the segregated terminal.
“Even though I didn’t expect to be served, I expected something like, ‘It’s not me. It’s the law,’ ” he later told historian Frye Gaillard for the 2004 book “Cradle of Freedom.” “But the White waitress called the manager who put his finger in my face” and told him “Move,” using a racial slur. “That crystallized what I was going to do,” he added. “I did not move.”
Mr. Boynton remained defiant even after he was sent to jail, convicted of misdemeanor trespassing and fined $10. He appealed the decision, leading to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that outlawed racial discrimination on buses, trains and other forms of interstate transportation, as well as at the terminals and restaurants that served passengers.
His actions paved the way for the Freedom Rides of 1961, said civil rights historian Raymond O. Arsenault, setting in motion a bloody and violent chain of events that galvanized media coverage of the civil rights movement, forced the Kennedy administration to take action and spurred interstate bus lines to finally desegregate after years of dragging their feet.
CNN: The Black homeownership rate is now lower than it was a decade ago.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/25/homes/us-black-homeownership-rate/index.html
AL.com: What the Black homeownership gap looks like across Alabama.
https://www.al.com/news/2022/03/what-the-black-homeownership-gap-looks-like-across-alabama.html
Retracing the Green Book in my city
https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/green-book-history-dc/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/02/01/metro/black-history-month-byron-rushing/
Byron Rushing's impact in Boston
Rushing also saw himself as a champion of remembering and
preserving history. As he worked on the ground registering voters and fighting discrimination,
Rushing corralled support to purchase the historic African Meeting Housein Boston, which
today hosts the Museum of African American History. He served as the museum’s president
for more than a decade. Today, he’s the president of the Roxbury Historical Society and is often called on by policymakers, journalists, and activists to fill in current events with historical perspective.
... A year since the unveiling of the Freedom Plaza and the Embrace sculpture, Rushing sees
the potential for them to further tell of the city’s history, even if he believes their placement was misguided; he says the memorial should’ve been built in Roxbury, where much of the lifechanging work of the Boston honorees took place.
... Yet while Rushing disagrees with the memorial’s placement, he acknowledges its ability to
remind the public of Boston’s often overlooked but impactful heroes. It has the ability to bring generations of people together, to share pieces of the honorees’ lives that otherwise
would’ve remained unknown.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/31/dc-black-landmarks/
D.C.’s most significant Black landmarks, according to its Black leaders
Blackness is woven into the fabric of Washington, D.C. Whether enshrined as a street renamed in honor of “mayor for life” Marion Barry, expressed in local lingo or covered in mumbo sauce, the cultural influence of generations of Black Washingtonians is the lifeblood of the city.
Amid the monuments and along every Metro route are bastions of Black history — like the front pews at St. Augustine Catholic Church at the corner of 15th and V streets, which were part of a “colored Catholics” section and placed in the back of what was once St. Paul’s Church. Or the former site of the National Roller Skating Rink at 17th Street and Kalorama Road in Adams Morgan, a popular hangout for Black youth in the 1970s.
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https://www.post-gazette.com/ae/music/2024/01/21/pittsburgh-national-opera-house-preserve-restoration/stories/202401190082
Restoration of Pittsburgh's National Opera House makes strides, but funding hurdles remain
It was going to take $3 million to stabilize and restore Pittsburgh’s National Opera House, formerly the headquarters of the National Negro Opera Company, a 19th-century mansion in Homewood that has attracted attention from local and national preservationist organizations in recent years.
It was supposed to cost $3 million to flip the house from a crumbling ruin to a vibrant community center with musical performances and lessons, a tea room and a museum celebrating its history of hosting famous artists such as pianist Ahmad Jamal and sports figures including Roberto Clemente.
... “Now, I’m hearing it’s going to cost $10 million,” she said. “We’re going to need another $7 million. Every foundation hit the hard brakes on funding when they heard this.”
It’s not uncommon for restoration projects to swell in scope once work begins, but why has the cost increased so much?
In 2022, contractors broke ground at the house, which at the time was so rundown that it wasn’t safe to enter. Last October, “stabilization” was completed.
... The National Trust remains committed to the project.
“We at the Trust stand with Jonnet and the City of Pittsburgh in their effort to rescue this important piece of history,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and a senior vice president at the National Trust.
Mr. Leggs was present for the groundbreaking on the house.
“This is a project to establish a new and viable historic site, and that requires substantial investment,” he said.
Mr. Leggs said $10 million might cover the restoration cost, but more will be needed to seed an organization to manage the house. The National Trust is in contact with local funders and nonprofits, and he is optimistic that the project will be successful.
He noted that the National Trust has also been involved with other Pittsburgh sites including the New Granada Theatre and the August Wilson House, both in the Hill District, and Brown Chapel AME Church on the North Side.
“Those performance spaces are jewels of Black culture in Pittsburgh,” he said.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/10/metro/black-boston-mandela-city-dorchester-roxbury-mattapan-jamaica-plain
Roxbury, Mattapan, and parts of Jamaica Plain could have become a separate Black majority city. Here’s what happened.
The Mandela referendum was defeated overwhelmingly that year and lost again at the polls two years later. Yet the underlying idea behind the movement — to place decision-making power and resources in the Black community’s own hands — survives nearly 40 years later. As voters in those same neighborhoods have worked over the years to choose candidates they feel are most suited to transform Black Boston, the issues of disinvestment, inequality, and underrepresentation that Mandela hoped to address have still been top of mind.
The fact that Black Bostonians are still making the same demands they did four decades ago, the referendum’s advocates say, is enough proof that the story of Mandela should not be forgotten, especially amid an election year in which residents will be asked to elect — or re-elect — a mayor.
“We’re going to need a reinvigoration of thought and action around our community’s well-being,” said Curtis Davis, a cofounder of the Greater Roxbury Incorporation Project, which pushed for the Mandela referendum during both election cycles. “As much as it is to be a good Samaritan and what we can do for people, it’s far more important that people be able to do for themselves.”
Mandela emerged amid a backdrop of rampant disinvestment in Boston’s Black communities, Davis said: The elevated Orange Line route along Washington Street was to be discontinued in 1987; “arson-for-profit,” he said, was widespread; and absentee landlords had left many properties in disrepair.
In multiple interviews, Jones told reporters he grew tired of seeing the city use public dollars to address the symptoms of Black Boston’s plight instead of tackling its root causes.
“It is ludicrous to just point to numbers of police, and trash trucks, and teachers and schools” as signs that things are improving in Black communities, Jones wrote in a Globe op-ed supporting Mandela in 1986. “The bottom line is solving problems, and our problems are not being solved.”
... Just years before he and Davis pitched Mandela, Black residents in a small California neighborhood had successfully incorporated East Palo Alto as its own municipality in the Bay Area, albeit with a slim, 15-vote margin.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/01/12/opinion/letters-to-the-editor-black-activists-sought-city-within-boston
From ’65 to ’86 to today, call for a separate Black Boston resonates
We very much enjoyed the article “Black activists once sought to make new city within Boston: The plan failed, but for some, the message still resonates” (Metro, Jan. 5). However, it gives the impression that this idea came only from the cofounders of the Greater Roxbury Incorporated Project, Curtis Davis and Andrew Jones. The article mentions that former representative Byron Rushing supported the ballot question during his time in office. But actually it was Rushing who first raised the idea of reincorporation in an article published in 1965 in the Bay State Banner.
It cannot be denied that the planners of GRIP anticipated Boston’s real estate boom — especially in Roxbury — and other neighborhoods that make up “Greater Roxbury.” Had Mandela (as the new city was to be named) become a reality, the tax base probably would have benefited from the attendant gentrification that has occurred there.
The issues that still plague Roxbury residents today — education, housing, health care, community policing, access to city contracts, and development — are the same as in 1986. So the organizing must always continue.
Zebulon Miletsky
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Tomás González
Hyde Park
Miletsky is the author of “Before Busing: A History of Boston’s Long Black Freedom Struggle” and coauthor, with González, of “ ‘Separatist City’: The Mandela, Massachusetts (Roxbury) Movement and the Politics of Incorporation, Self-Determination, and Community Control, 1986–1988” (The Trotter Review).
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/trotter_review/vol23/iss1/8/
https://www.governing.com/politics/the-legacy-of-a-politician-who-never-wavered
12/19/24
Vincent Fort served in the Georgia Senate for nearly three decades as a forceful, effective voice for “the least of these.” As he copes with cancer, it's important to acknowledge a vanishing breed of leader.
As a Democratic state senator representing a district encompassing part of Atlanta, Fort was clear about his calling: to be a voice for “the least of these,” a phrase from the Bible referring to the unhoused, the poor and the victims of injustice. He concentrated his legislative agenda on issues important to those who often get left out of decision-making in state capitols and halls of local governments. His constituents were those who couldn’t afford to contribute to political campaigns, take off from work to lobby for or against legislation, or protest abusive banking practices, an issue in which Fort had a particular interest and legislative success, most notably with the passage in 2002 of the Georgia Fair Lending Act.
The Forts of our nation also bring a deep and abiding passion for service. In his case, whether fighting for fair housing, against predatory lending or on behalf of people facing foreclosure, he brought the same compassion, energy and enthusiasm to bear, qualities that resulted in his protest-related arrests on more than one occasion.
Race based differentiation in services
Detroit's Black residents seek more police presence yet often see slower 911 response
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2021/07/26/black-detroit-residents-want-more-police-slower-911-response/8058968002/
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2020-6-november-december/feature/using-less-energy-most-renewable-energy-there-homewood-pittsburgh
Using Less Energy Is the Most Renewable Energy There Is
How one neigbhorhood in Pittsburgh could help the city meet its climate goals
FIVE OR SIX YEARS AGO, ZINNA SCOTT noticed that one of the streetlights between her house and the bus stop was out. She was not pleased. Over a quarter of the 6,500 people in Pittsburgh's Homewood neighborhood make less than $10,000 a year. That means that the average resident needs to take the bus, and they need to feel comfortable doing so. There are plenty of other things to worry about when you're trying to survive on less than $10,000 a year.
First, Scott called the city controller. The controller told her that if she wanted to get the light fixed, she needed to call Duquesne Light Company, the local utility.
Scott called Duquesne Light, which told her to file a complaint. Scott filed a complaint. No response. Eventually, she gave up calling. The lamp remains dark.
In other neighborhoods, the situation is different. In East Liberty, a five-minute drive from Homewood, the streets leading to the old Nabisco factory are lined with brand-new LED lights. When asked if there were plans to replace the streetlights in Homewood, Grant Ervin, the city's chief resilience officer, responded that the light on Scott's block would be replaced in 2022—if it survived the budget process.
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2021-1-january-february/feature/kristen-e-jeffers-building-resilience
How Black Market Flea and Everyday People brought the buzz of Black life to the Beehive
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2023-02-28/beehive-black-la-black-market-flea-everyday-people-behold
Beehive, the energizing indoor/outdoor venue on Central Avenue buzzing with Black life. But the vitality lingers long after Black Market Flea’s vendors have packed up for the day.
The Tree Yoga Cooperative in the west wing offers yoga, meditation and other holistic wellness classes multiple times a day, centering Black and Latinx communities. Gallery 90220, founded by Compton native David Colbert Jr., hosts work from local artists on its walls. And South L.A. Brewery aims to open its doors later this year, delivering a Black-owned brewery and taproom to the community.
It’s a formidable lineup, and that doesn’t even include the technology and entrepreneurship center for kids in the community, or the festivals and one-off events that rent out the venue.
A brick building adjacent to the courtyard houses SoLa Impact’s Technology and Entrepreneurship Center.
There’s a lot going on at the Beehive, but for Chief Impact Officer Sherri Francois, this is the crown jewel. It’s a true 21st century YMCA, filled with virtual reality headsets, entrepreneurship programs and courses that teach kids about the business behind entertainment.
“We’ve only been open and operational just over a year, and fully operational since August,” Francois said. “We know there’s a demand, because we have a waitlist for programming. We could have a tech center on every other block and it still wouldn’t be enough.”
The center’s programming is not exclusive to SoLa residents; about 85% of the kids don’t live in the company’s housing. Plans are in motion for a second tech center in the Crenshaw/LAX corridor, in collaboration with City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who represents the area.
Partnerships have been essential to the center’s survival, Francois emphasized for groups outside of Los Angeles looking to emulate the center. Both she and Muoto are excited about the current and planned center but want to see the model expand across the country.
“If we can do it in South L.A., they can do it in Watts,” Muoto said. “If they can do it in Watts, they can do it in Philadelphia, or in Tulsa. We want to be an open book here. If you want to come beg, borrow and steal our best ideas and then do it in Tulsa, come on down.”
https://www.northomahavisitorscenter.com/
https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2025-04-03/black-social-spaces-flourished-in-l-a-after-george-floyd-will-they-survive
Black L.A. social spaces flourished after George Floyd. 5 years later, will they survive?
Some Black businesses in L.A. that benefited from a wave of racial reckoning in 2020 are struggling today.
Black Image Center in Mid-City is the latest of several Black small businesses to close its space in Greater Los Angeles.
Black businesses are often viewed as being more than just businesses. They are considered to be extensions of the community.
Black Image Center, an organization dedicated to providing photography resources to Black Angelenos, was born from a group of six photographers and creatives who connected over Instagram in 2020.
After securing nonprofit status, Black Image Center opened in a physical location in Mid-City in May 2022. In addition to a free 35-millimeter film refrigerator, visitors can use both a normal and large-format printer free of charge. The open-format space boasts a cozy book nook with scores of Black photography books. The space regularly hosts sold-out photography workshops, in addition to having hosted more than 50 artists-in-residence, according to co-founder Maya Mansour.
So members of the Black creative community were shocked and disappointed when Black Image Center recently announced on Instagram its imminent physical closure.
But the closure of Black Image Center’s physical space echoes that of other small businesses in Greater Los Angeles that have served as Black community hubs beyond their primary offerings, with many owners saying the initial support garnered during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement has since waned.
The Salt Eaters Bookshop, an Inglewood feminist bookstore, transitioned to a virtual model at the end of 2024. Bloom & Plume, a coffee and flower shop, closed its Echo Park doors last August. The artist Noname’s Radical Hood Library in Jefferson Park, while hanging on, has been transparent on social media about financial instability and started a Patreon account in an attempt to offset costs.
The Times spoke with some of these business owners, who said their desire to provide for their community was often in direct contradiction to business operations.
Although Black Image Center hasn’t struggled to get people into its space, a lack of capital resources has put a strain on its small leadership team.
“It’s really hard and it doesn’t work most of the time,” said Mansour of her experience with Black Image Center. “You just kind of stretch yourself in ways that you didn’t know that you could.”
Mansour cited several factors that contributed to the founders’ decision to not renew their lease come May.
For starters, where the founders had a clear creative vision — the “magic” that is evident when you walk in the room — they lacked business acumen. To this day, Mansour said Black Image Center doesn’t have a clear business plan — something that she hopes will have time to develop without the pressure of maintaining a physical space.
“Having the brick-and-mortar really does kind of put your back against a wall in a way that you have to kind of get it together,” said Mansour, who over time stepped into the role of executive director despite the group’s original nonhierarchical vision.
Also, at least three of the six original founders have stepped away from Black Image Center, said Mansour, and the center relies extensively on a small group of volunteers to maintain its robust programming schedule.
“None of us really went into this expecting it to blow up in the way that it did,” Mansour said. “I kind of promised myself: At the end of this lease, it’s probably going to be time to reevaluate. Like, what can I do for this thing?”.”
Part of the strain is that small Black businesses are infrequently just small businesses; owners also labor under what Jazzi McGilbert, founder of the bookstore and concept space Reparations Club in Jefferson Park, calls “an unrealistic set of expectations.”
“There’s so many things that we end up carrying. Even just the psychological components of people having a hard time, and they come into our spaces to seek that relief,” said McGilbert, who has cried with her customers.
“Sometimes, I think these spaces are asked to hold a lot of things that really our government should be providing,” she said. “There should be more spaces that are equipped to hold people, you know, bringing back the town square. Libraries and other spaces shouldn’t feel sad and underfunded. They should feel like exciting, generative spaces that people want to spend their time in, and that requires funding."
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