1970: Unified Action
1970s Lexington Street
Source: Personal Photo from Pinterest
In 1970, the residents of west, east, and south Baltimore joined together in what we are calling the city’s Second Race Uprising to resist racist renewal projects that would have joined I-95 with smaller freeways through and around the city. Because of these efforts, Baltimore residents were able to save many communities slated for destruction. Baltimore’s Second Race Uprising was unique, however, because white residents in the city’s south and west neighborhoods collaborated with Black west-side community members to stop freeway construction. Though some redevelopment occurred, community members were able to resist large scale destruction in what Thompson Fullilove calls the developers’ “two-fer”:
Two mechanisms that ultimately worked synergistically to help clear the land: one was urban renewal and the other was the federal highway program. Imagine, then, the triangle of the ghetto diminished by the half circle of downtown completing itself by urban renewal, while highway construction took a juicy slice, generally aimed straight down the middle. (p. 64)
Thompson Fullilove (2016) also found that “The problem the planners tackled was not how to undo poverty, but how to hide the poor” (p. 197). In response to these racist policies, community organizers and civil rights leaders came up with a more accurate description of plans for America’s cities: “Urban Renewal is Negro Removal” (p. 61).