Nashville, Tennessee (AP) —Harold Love, Jr. voices about the intensity of traffic from the interstate when a family home stood near a place destroyed by rubble half a century ago. Was raised. Ai talked about the battle his father fought in the 1960s, before he was born, to reroute the highway, which he believed would choke and isolate the black community in Nashville.
His father was right.
Decades later, Love Junior wants to correct an old mistake. State legislators are part of a group that is driving the construction of a new community space that will reunify the city directly above Interstate Highway 40 and turn the lower highway into a tunnel.
Mayor John Cooper is supporting a $ 120 million, 3.4 acre (1.4 hectares) cap project. Recognizing the past where community concerns about highways have been ignored, the city is aware of the city’s rapid growth, which challenges the staying capacity of long-term residents, and listens to ideas on what it should look like. Spend months on. Possible options include a way to preserve the historical background of the business that lined Parks, community centres, amphitheaters, and Jefferson Street, the heart of the once prosperous Black Nashville.
Love, now a Democratic state councilor and pastor of a nearby church, laments the psychological damage caused by the destruction when highway ham and heat wrap around the dead-end street where his family’s home once stood. It was.
“If you were born here and see only the noise from such structures and interstate highways, which are wrought iron fences and wire mesh fences, then you are assuming,” I am valued. There is no such thing. ” This is here, “he said. “But if you change that model, talk about how it was once valued in this neighborhood, put this (cap) here and try to recreate its value, the thinking of the children growing up here Can be changed. “
In the midst of a civil rights struggle in the South, Interstate Highway 40 carved out a black district with homes and businesses, separating many from Jefferson Street’s business and music districts and the city centre beyond. Separated one of the three historically black colleges nearby.
An estimated 1,400 North Nashvilleans have been evacuated and 100 blocks have been demolished.
To date, residents of North Nashville remain disconnected, and facilities such as Vanderbilt University and two major hospitals are only accessible by highway underpasses and bridges. Zip codes covering North Nashville, which is nearly 70% black according to the US Census, have a poverty rate of 27%, which is more than double that of the entire city.
President Joe Biden’s infrastructure proposals have been carved out to give way to highways, such as “Black New Orleans Main Street,” Clayborn Avenue, where highways were built in the 1960s, and Miami. Attracted attention to the community. The Overtown district, formerly known as the “Southern Harlem”.
Andre Perry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the problem was mainly because the New Deal benefited more whites than blacks and eliminated blacks but needed a highway to reach the city’s employment centers. He said it started with housing discrimination.
“It happened very often, and it happened in so many areas because the place where the blacks lived was in the center of the city,” Perry said.
The Nashville Cap project suffered a recent setback when the federal government rejected a $ 72 million infrastructure grant application. However, Cooper vowed to pursue other financing options as the infrastructure debate continued.
For decades, cities have obscured highways to create usable public spaces, including the $ 110 million Clyde Warren Park in Dallas, Texas, which opened in 2012. Austin, Texas; St. Paul, Minnesota; and other cities are making proposals aimed at addressing racial inequality.
Jefferson Street in Nashville was a vibrant corridor of shops, hairdressers, churches, restaurants and nightclubs before the interstate highway. Muddy Waters, James Brown, Etta James, Ray Charles, Little Richard, BB King and Jimi Hendrix performed there. Fisk University, Tennessee State University, and Meharry Medical College’s Historically Black Colleges have brought the area to life, and students on these campuses have inspired the city’s civil rights sit-in.
According to the Tennessee State Library and Archives, in 1955, as plans for the interstate highway system materialized, a preliminary route was proposed to wipe out some white-owned and operated businesses.
In 1967, after the route was changed to the current course, Lovesenior and other residents filed a proceeding alleging racism intended to harm North Nashville, its black businesses, and higher education institutions. I did. The case was brought to the US Supreme Court, which refused to hear it.
According to the State Library, about 128 companies have been demolished or relocated, accounting for nearly 80% of Nashville’s African-American sole proprietorships.
Lovesenior and his wife moved nearby after years of living on Scobel Street, a block away from Jefferson. The demolition plan surprised them.
“Our hometown was 2109 Scovel St., so I know I’ve never personally received advance notice of the hearing,” Love Sr. Testified in 1967.
Cooper’s senior transportation adviser, Faye Dimasimo, said the idea of blocking the interstate highway came up, but was never accepted and was stalled by community distrust of the federal government.
This time, prominent community leaders, businesses and government officials sent letters of support to the federal government. Among them, Amazon plans to grow to 5,000 jobs in its new downtown office in Nashville, promising a $ 75 million low-interest loan for a new affordable home. State Department of Transportation to support design and construction. And historically some of the black colleges.
“Nashville has maintained dynamic economic growth for over a decade, and such success comes with social, environmental and infrastructure challenges,” said James, President of Meharry Medical College. Dr. Hildress writes. “The proposed cap on the I-40 is an important project in this regard and provides a major step forward in bringing prosperity sharing to those who have been marginalized historically.”
Love Jr. still has a record of how much the government paid to his family’s Scovel Street home to give way to the freeway. It was $ 5,500 in 1966 and is now worth about $ 47,000. For a family like him who was handed a similar check to give up the house, he sees the cap project as all the evidence he saw his father come.
“I think my dad knew very well that those who were left behind would be hurt and those who were deprived of their homes would definitely be hurt,” said Love Jr. “I think that’s what we’re aiming for. This interstate cap helps to repair many of them.”
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