The Valentine Richmond History Center is to be commended for its new exhibit that opened April 4, “Battle for the City: The Politics of Race 1950s-1970s.” This modest show (the size of one big room), has the usual materials – a Ku Klux Klan robe, pictures of sit ins by young African-Americans and displays of school segregation.
What’s truly interesting in the show is that it takes pains to explain how the most densely populated and, in some cases, the most culturally rich African-American neighborhoods were ripped apart by new toll roads planned by the white establishment because that was the trend in land use planning (or “human settlement patterns” if you are so inclined).
As many as 7,000 African-Americans – 10 percent of the city’s total black population –were forced from their homes from 1955 to 1957 to make way for the Richmond Petersburg Turnpike, now Interstate 95. The Downtown Expressway forced another 900 mostly black residents from their homes later.
To be sure, building big new expressways in city centers was the favorite mode for land use planning at the time. But it served to re-segregate Richmond, foster unwieldy suburban sprawl and exacerbate racial tensions that are still being felt today. See column “Creating a New Segregation.”
Peter Galuszka
