8 Ways Black Neighborhoods are Destroyed and What We Can Do About It
By: Kelly Porter
Tags: History, Equality, Justice, Equity, Environmental Issues

The recent and shamefully overdue acknowledgment of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre, has led me to ponder how other Black towns have been (or are being) destroyed by America’s White power structure. Sadly, I’ve discovered that dismantling our communities and devaluing the people who live there is ongoing. The weapons of destruction vary. However, the underlying reason remains the same — the idea that Black Lives are not worthy of The American Dream.

Here are 8 examples of how this injustice plays out. It’s far from an exhaustive list but one that sheds light on our country’s record of violence against its own citizens and the harmful policies that affect the BIPOC community every day.

1. Neighborhoods are obliterated

So, let’s start with the wealthy neighborhood of Greenwood, aka Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma. On May 31, 1921, as a show of force, Greenwood residents (many were Black war veterans) showed up at the county jail to protect a young Black man from being handed over to a White lynch mob after he’d been falsely accused of sexually assaulting a young White woman. What happened later that day and over the next two days was pure horror.

The town’s White residents surrounded Greenwood and set its buildings ablaze. In many cases, they looted homes and businesses before torching them. They killed over 300 men, women, and children — many were fleeing or trying to defend their property. Close to a dozen planes dropped firebombs onto the town. No one was held accountable for the obliteration of this community and none of the victims have received restitution.

Unfortunately, Greenwood is not the only place where something like this happened in America. There was the massacre of Wilmington, NC in 1898; The Red Summer of 1919; the massacre of Rosewood, FL in 1923.

2. Highways cut neighborhoods in half

In the mid-twentieth century, Overtown, a Black community in Miami, FL, was a thriving cultural mecca — the side of town where big stars would stay after performing in Miami Beach. However, by 1965, half of its residents had been displaced, evicted with little notice or assistance to make room for a major highway interchange, that included a portion of I-95. The neighborhood’s business district was demolished by the construction. When the highway was completed, Overtown, now cut off from the other main sections of Miami, began to decline.

The same scenario played out in North Philadelphia, PA when an extended portion of Route US-1 was built. Taking the path of least resistance (i.e. routing the highway through a powerless, low-income community), the City Planning Commission constructed an expressway that sliced through the center of an area called Nicetown.

By 1961, 300 homes were torn down and over 30 percent of the neighborhood’s population (5,000 residents) were either displaced or left. Today’s Nicetown is close to 90 percent Black and it's one of the poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia. The area near the expressway overpass remains blighted.

3. The water is poisoned

Flint, MI has been the unfortunate modern-day poster child for poisoned water, an issue that began in 2014 when the city council switched the water source to the Flint River. The untested and untreated water caused severe corrosion to the city’s pipes, resulting in lead poisoning, other serious health issues, and several deaths among residents in the majority-Black town.

The town’s water has since been switched back to its original source, Lake Huron but problems remain and the lingering effects are devastating. There have been increases in stillbirths and miscarriages. The number of children in special education has increased by 50 percent, due to the impact that lead has on mental health. Many homes still need new pipes and replacement appliances, as much of the federal money given to the state of Michigan did not go directly to Flint.

In another case, in February 2021 after sub-freezing temperatures gripped the south for several days, residents of Shreveport, LA, a town that’s almost 60 percent Black, were left with burst pipes and contaminated drinking water. The issue stemmed from a 100-year-old water system that hasn’t been updated. A municipal bond initiative that would finance the updates has failed in recent years, in part, due to the lack of unanimous support among the majority Republican city council.

4. The air is poisoned (with chemicals)

Seven neighborhoods in New Castle County, Delaware — largely low-income, Black communities— have been reporting unusually high rates of cancer and respiratory illness for decades. During the mid-twentieth century, segregation hemmed these residents into areas that were in close proximity to hazardous waste sites and facilities that use large quantities of toxic chemicals. Nonprofit advocacy groups and local activists are leading the fight for environmental justice in these communities. However, serious health issues persist as the battle continues.

5. The air is poisoned (with sh*t)

In Eastern North Carolina, in places such as Duplin County, hog farms run by companies like Smithfield Foods maintain upwards of 4,000 cesspools — the industry calls them lagoons (yea, ok) — filled with hog blood, feces, and urine. When the cesspools are at capacity, high-powered spray guns distribute the excess waste onto nearby fields. Often, this liquid waste travels through the air and lands on the properties, vehicles, clothing, hair (you name it) of nearby residents, who are mostly Black, Latinx, and Native American.

“Living in the vicinity of a hog industrial operation has been linked to chronic illnesses such as asthma, anemia, kidney disease, certain cancers and high blood pressure.” — The Guardian

6. Homes are undervalued

America has a horrible racist history of redlining, which has systematically lowered the value of homes in Black neighborhoods as compared to homes in White areas. This practice has led to wealth disparities and the widespread decline of communities of color. In 2021, Black residences continue to be undervalued, house by house, as evidenced by recent reports of White appraisers who undervalued the homes of Black residents.

In two cases, the residents — a couple in Marin County, CA and a homeowner in Indianapolis, IN — had suspicions that their race factored into their low appraisals, so they scheduled new ones. Only this time, they arranged for their White friends to stand in as the homeowners. In both instances, the appraised value went up. The Marin County couple had a $500,000 increase and the homeowner in Indianapolis saw her home’s value more than double.

7. Public school budgets are underfunded

Where a child attends school can play a huge role in how much they will earn as adults. Since school funding is often tied to residential property taxes, schools in low-income neighborhoods have fewer resources and lower retention rates for experienced teachers than in affluent school districts. As a result, students of low-income communities often remain stuck in a cycle of poverty.

Take for example Montgomery County, MD. It’s the largest, most diverse county in the state, yet its school system is woefully segregated and inequitable. Wealth flourishes along much of the outer perimeters and in the northern parts of the county, areas that are predominately White. Neighborhoods in the eastern and central portions are largely low-income and populated with Latinx and Black families.

In 2019, a report showed that White, as well as Asian students, have consistently outperformed their Latinx and Black peers in meeting all performance benchmarks and in graduation rates. Despite evidence that poverty affects school readiness and academic success, the county shaved off $47 million from the $171 million budget allocated for special programs designed to help low-income students.

8. Gentrification causes lifelong residents to leave

There are positives to having new restaurants, grocery stores, and other amenities in neighborhoods that were previously neglected. But there’s an ugly side — neighborhood neglect is often the result of wilful disinvestment by city governments, a precursor to new development projects, aka gentrification.

However, too often, longtime residents who are usually Black, are pushed out of their homes and cannot afford to return. Small mom-and-pop businesses become victims of rent increases, and rarely are these business owners included in reinvestment deals that would allow them to stay. Neighborhood traditions and history are lost.

Currently, New Orleans is one of the most gentrified cities in America. After Hurricane Katrina, many Black residents weren’t able to return to their neighborhoods. Either they didn’t have the means to rebuild or they were renters who moved on. Those who did return were forced to leave by property tax bills that have skyrocketed. In many cases, the city sold lots to White developers and buyers — many of them outsiders — who have built new homes and businesses that are changing the landscape and recreating communities that are cost-prohibitive to those who previously lived there.

In my gentrified hometown of Washington, DC, not even Black churches can escape from trouble. In 2018, a 149-year old historic church founded by free and formerly enslaved Black residents was forced to close its doors when longtime members left, the demographics changed, and parking restrictions around the church took hold.