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).
Not including voter suppression is a big miss here.
ReplyDeleteBlack History Month founder showed how schools should teach about race
ReplyDeletehttps://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/
ReplyDeleteThe Philadelphia Inquirer: From John Chaney to Ala Stanford, Smith Playground’s Black History Month exhibit honors Philly’s ‘Leaders and Legends’.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.inquirer.com/news/smith-playground-black-history-month-exhibit-20220205.html
More cities seek to redress widespread 20th-century destruction of Black neighborhoods
ReplyDeletehttps://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.
ReplyDeletehttps://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.
ReplyDeletehttps://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
ReplyDeletehttps://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.
ReplyDeletehttps://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.
ReplyDeletehttps://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"
ReplyDeletehttps://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.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cnn.com/2022/02/25/homes/us-black-homeownership-rate/index.html
AL.com: What the Black homeownership gap looks like across Alabama.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.al.com/news/2022/03/what-the-black-homeownership-gap-looks-like-across-alabama.html
Retracing the Green Book in my city
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/green-book-history-dc/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/02/01/metro/black-history-month-byron-rushing/
ReplyDeleteByron 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/
ReplyDeleteD.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.