“They Paved Paradise...” Downtown Durham: Then & Now
“They Paved Paradise...” Downtown Durham : Then & Now
1967 + 2008 · Duke Street + Current Approximate Location East West Expressway Construction + University Ford
I didn’t grow up in Durham… I grew up in
of the great tobacco they had “sampled”
a small town roughly fifty miles east. Early
in North Carolina. Soon, numerous orders
on, my only exposure to the city consisted
were mailed in requesting more of the
of a class field trip to one of its museums,
Durham tobacco. Out of this demand, the
hearing about its minor-league baseball
company that would soon become Ameri-
team (and the movie based on them), and
can Tobacco was born. The tobacco busi-
seeing crime reports from the area on the
ness boomed throughout the late-nine-
news, seemingly every night. Durham, in
teenth and early twentieth century and
the early nineties, was often portrayed as
Durham quickly became a hotbed for a
a generally unsafe place. Years later, how-
myriad of other businesses. Durham was
ever, crime reports were outnumbered
home to “Black Wall Street” — a black-
by talk of Durham’s art and music scene,
owned financial district just around the
nightlife and overall optimism for the di-
corner from Main Street, in the heart of
rection of the city. Just a couple of years
Durham’s white business district. As early
ago US News deemed it one of the top ten
as 1910, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B.
“Best Places to Live”. So… what happened?
Dubois both visited Durham and hailed it
To understand where Durham is today, you have to go back to the start; and the start for Durham is tobacco… and it happened almost accidentally. While encamped at Durham Station in the late nineteenth century, civil war soldiers helped themselves to a local farmer’s tobacco. When they returned home, the veterans wanted more
as a national model for the black middle class. From the 1890s until the 1960s, Parrish Street was the home of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance, the nation’s oldest and largest black-owned insurance company. In the late sixties, awareness of the dangers of smoking started to rise. The surgeon-general’s warning labels began appearing on cigarette cartons and
soon smoking and cigarette production
actly mirror the past, though. “Black Wall
would decline. This was not a good time
Street” only exists on the historical markers
for Durham; the economy was down and
that line Parrish Street, its former home. In
plans for a new expressway threatened to
the past five years the black population in
tear through half-century year old houses.
Durham has dropped five percent.
Soon a substantial percentage of Durham’s population found themselves homeless, jobless, or both. Crime-rates were on the rise. By 1987, the American Tobacco Company shut down operations. Durham was quickly losing its identity. The American Tobacco factory was left vacant for over fifteen years.
talked to several representatives within the businesses at the American Tobacco campus and asked if they felt gentrification was an issue in Durham and, if so, did they feel that the redevelopment of the campus contributed to it in any way. The general consensus I received was summed up well
In 2005, Capitol Broadcasting Company
by the American Tobacco campus’ senior
completed an ambitious redevelopment
property manager, Gerry Boyle:
that would soon make the campus home to some of the most prominent businesses in the region, including the nationally recognized public broadcasting station, WUNC Radio, global personal care product company, Burt’s Bees, and the design firm, McKinney. The campus would also feature an Art Institute, an on-site YMCA, public green space, biking trails, and five restaurants. The city of Durham followed suit as redevelopment and revitalization has turned Durham in a new direction…
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So, is gentrification occurring in Durham? I
“No, I don’t see it as an issue. We’re very much concerned with the community. That’s one of the things I’ve appreciated and embraced with Capital Broadcasting — who is our owner… owns the property along with the Durham Bulls and Fox 50 and a lot of other companies — is that they’re very much concerned with working within the community… all levels and all aspects of community living as well as giving back to the community. The events
But is it a positive one? The American To-
and activities we do on the campus are
bacco campus is the heart of downtown
free to the public. We are trying to do
Durham – when it does well, Durham does
things to enhance people’s lives not to
well. The recent good fortune doesn’t ex-
lessen or take away from their quality.
That’s one of the reasons this project
I always find it insulting when the media,
was taken on, I mean, you figure this
rhetorically, asks why has Durham fallen
thing sat around vacant for 15 years
from a black economic paradise “to a
and, now, a lot of good things have
refuge for the underprivileged and chronic
gone on around here, I think we’ve cre-
underachievers?”Faux naiveté aside, it doesn’t
ated a really nice, synergistic area for
take a rocket scientist to figure it out.
new development and ideas.”
Manifest Destiny; urban renewal; land grab;
But what about those whose investment in
a darn freeway through Grandma’s back-
the area goes beyond the financial level?
yard. Take your pick. It all adds up to the
The following article, written by Paul Scott,
gentrification of the black community.
a minister, writer, lecturer, activist, and Durham native, gives an opposing outlook on the topic. When Black Wall Street Turns White Paul Scott
The economic and cultural rape of people African descent did not start in the 21st century but goes back thousands of years when the Greeks stole black culture from the Ancient Egyptians according to historians like George GM James and William
“Don’t it always seem to go that you
Leo Hansberry. Also during the 15th cen-
don’t know what you’ve got till it’s
tury, beginning with Portugal, European
gone”
countries began to rob Africa of her re-
— Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi”
sources. According to Basil Davidson in his
There was a time when Durham NC was
book, “The Transatlantic Slave Trade” the
known as the “Black Wall Street of the
initial overtures of partnership and mutual
South.” However, today, when I walk down
respect eventually resulted in the slaugh-
the streets of the former Mecca of black
ter of untold millions of African people and
economic achievement, I see only the resi-
the colonization of a continent.
due of what was once great. The black owned businesses which were once an inspiration for generations of African Americans have been replaced by white-owned shops selling iced lattes.
In America, during the 18th and 19th centuries, the enslaved Africans contributed centuries of free labor to the economic development of a country that would not allow them [to] share in its wealth.
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The early 20th century brought about the
propagate the idea that a community is
establishment of black business centers
crime infected. Then property
in various United States cities, including
values drop, drastically, and
Durham. During that period, segregation
business vultures fly into town
made black owned businesses a necessity,
to buy properties dirt-cheap.
as African Americans were not allowed to
Poor housing developments
patronize white establishments. This came
are replaced with condomini-
to an end with the movement towards inte-
ums and the displaced resi-
gration during the Civil Rights Era. At this
dents have to make it the best
point, black business began to lose their
way they can; often having
influence as African Americans began to
to resort to criminal behavior
protest [and] patronize white businesses,
that only serves to perpetuate the cycle of
leaving behind the establishments owned
poverty, crime and urban renewal.
by their friends and neighbors. While it is still widely believed that integration was a moral decision, it was mostly economic, as white business owners saw the profit in milking the resources from the black community. Yes, urban renewal has destroyed more black communities than Hurricane Katrina. Ask long time elderly residents of Durham about the fate of Black Wall Street and they will tell you with tears in their
Since the companies that buy up the properties usually are the same ones that contribute major advertising dollars to the local paper, the issue of gentrification is usually replaced with PR stories about the land grabbers planting rose gardens in what used to be basketball courts. The fate of displaced residents and businesses is never discussed.
eyes the devastating effect that the pav-
Although many Conservatives often com-
ing of the freeway and other urban renewal
plain that the African American community
projects had on their community.
is not doing enough to “get black folks off
In more recent years, we began to see a new gentrification strategy being played out, not only in Durham, but in ‘hoods across the country. Although the locations may change, the methods of operation remain the same. First, the local newspapers
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“Stop the Expressway” T-Shirt printed by the Durham People’s Alliance to fund opposition.
welfare” by pooling their resources and establishing self-help institutions, history records that efforts of black empowerment have been, often, undermined, whether it be Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Organization or the bombing
of the other Black Wall Street—Tulsa, Okla-
black cultural institutions are so depen-
homa… Black self-determination has, also,
dent on white philanthropy that they are
been opposed by Liberals who pushed a
totally detached from the less affluent kids
false ideology of what writer Harold Cruse
in the ‘hood who need them the most.
called “noneconomic Liberalism” on African Americans. Instead of encouraging the creation of black wealth and independent political power, they shifted the focus to the integration of lunch counters and public toilets. To put it in more Shakespearean terms, “Foolish is
Somebody has to renew the call for black social, economic and political empowerment. This is the only way that we can close the educational achievement gap, stop gang violence and cure the rest of the societal ills plaguing Durham and the rest of black America.
the ruler who would trade his
If not, 20 years from now when our grand-
kingdom to sit on a porcelain
children ask us what happened to Dur-
throne with his enemy.”
ham’s black community, we will only be
So what we have in Durham is
able to quote the Joni Mitchell lyric,
a, formerly, vibrant black com-
“They paved paradise and put up a
munity that is on the verge of
parking lot.”
totally losing it’s blackness. Today, Parrish Street, in the heart
As I mentioned before, I didn’t grow up
of the former black business
in Durham. My past couple of months of
district, is lined with tomb-
research on the area doesn’t allow me
stones in the form of markers
claim whether or not Durham is moving
memorializing black Durham’s
in the right direction. What I feel can be
glorious past. However, black
most telling, however, is photographs. The
empowerment is not some-
following pages contain a collection of
thing that can be placed in a
photographs of Durham then (the “Black
glass case and displayed like a museum
Wall Street” era) and now. Each photo is
piece. Black development must be func-
notated with its location’s distance from
tional and continuously producing eco-
the Lucky Strike water tower, a constant
nomic
icon overlooking Durham’s ever-changing
“Black Wall Street” One Cent Monument located on Parrish Street in Durham.
opportunities
for
under-served
communities. Even the remaining so-called
landscape...
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1963 · 308 West Chapel Hill Street Durham Train Depot
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1579 ft.
308 West Chapel Hill Street · 2011 Durham Train Depot
A
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1963 · 118 Parrish Street The Heart of “Black Wall Street”
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1536ft.
118 Parrish Street · 2011 Vacant Office
B
9
1963 · West Main Street / North Mangum Street Intersection Walgreen Drugs
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1427ft.
West Main Street / North Mangum Street Intersection · 2011 Greenspace
C
11
1963 · 334 –340 West Main Street Central Business District
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1383 ft.
334 –340 West Main Street · 2011 Central Business District
D
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1962 · 407 Jackson Street Residence
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1340 ft.
407 Jackson Street · 2011 Parking Lot for NC Mutual Life
E
15
1961 · 501 South Mangum Street Residence
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1150 ft.
501 South Mangum Street · 2011 Parking Lot
F
17
1965 · 605 Duke Street Residences Being Torn Down in Anticipation of Durham Freeway
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1129 ft.
605 Duke Street · 2011 Duke Street Exit — NC Highway 147
G
19
1961 · 307 Pettigrew Street Pritchard’s Glass
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950 ft.
307 Pettigrew Street · 2011 North Parking Deck — American Tobacco Campus
H
21
1962 · 606 Willard Street Residence
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863ft.
606 Willard Street ¡ 2011 Parking Lot for Abandoned Hotel
I
23
1962 · 614 Carr Street Residence
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487 ft.
614 Carr Street · 2011 University Ford
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1961 · 326 Matthews Street Residence
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278 ft.
Blackwell Street (Approximate Location) · 2011 Entire Street Demolished in Mid 70’s
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“They Paved Paradise” was designed, written and typeset by Dustin Rhodes. It is typeset in variations of Hoefler & Frere-Jones’ Gotham. “When Black Wall Street Turns White” written by Paul Scott. www.nowarningshotsfired.com All historical photographs are reprinted with permission from and are © the Durham County Library. Lucky Strike Towers photo on pages 2 & 3 © Ildar Sagdejev. Stop the Expressway photo on page 4 © John Schelp. All other photos taken by Dustin Rhodes. This edition was printed and bound at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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