Newtown: A Cultivation of Poverty and Segregation through Physical and Economic Divide
Jessica Elliott
ARCH 4214
Built Environments and the Politics of Place Dolores Hayden
November 17, 2014
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Overtown, formerly known as Black Bottom, was the first community for the
African American population during Sarasota’s settlement in the late 19th and early
20th centuries. With the growth of Sarasota’s downtown through the beginning of
the 20th century, the conditions of the community of Overtown and its proximity to Sarasota’s growing downtown in 1911 led white residents to demand that the
community be cleared and the African American residents to be relocated further north to the developing community of Newtown. Developed by Charles N.
Thompson, the community of Newtown was designed in 1914 to relocate the
African American population of Sarasota, marking an obvious segregation of the
black community outside of Sarasota’s growing city center. With the continued expansion of Sarasota and with the new federal and state highway programs in
development from 1926, the planning of U.S. Route 41 and U.S. Route 301 through
the community of Newtown effectively enforced this division of the community from the rest of the city. Through a history of segregation and racial strife, the Newtown
community developed to exist as a completely self-sustaining entity and struggled to integrate into the city of Sarasota during the 1960s. The implications of integration
influenced Newtown’s social, economic and community structure, and the effects of the physical and economic division throughout the history of Sarasota’s
development have continued to impact the community today. Within the extreme spectrum of income of Sarasota, Newtown exists with a majority of its residents
living below the poverty line with inadequate education and has struggled with crime and gang violence, while the surrounding city of Sarasota thrives as an
increasingly wealthy arts and tourism destination. In response to the escalating
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crime and poverty in Newtown, the city of Sarasota initiated the 2001 Newtown
Comprehensive Redevelopment Plan, which aims to reestablish and revitalize the
neighborhoods to promote economic development and to improve the quality of life within the community but continues to harbor the physical division of Newtown
from the remainder of the city. Throughout the history of Sarasota, the community of Newtown has been designed for division and isolation from the city and has cultivated extreme socioeconomic disparities that remain in effect today.
During Sarasota’s early development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
the creation of Black Bottom community, later renamed Overtown, and the
development of the turpentine camp at Bee Ridge allowed for the formation of the first communities for the African Americans residents of Sarasota. As the
community of Newtown began development in 1915 by developer C.N. Thompson,
the black population began to shift further north, but these communities remained
until the 1950s until the closure of the turpentine camps and the demolition of much of the Overtown community through city slum clearance efforts.
The Bee Ridge Turpentine Camp opened in 1937, bringing many laborers
from Ashburn, Georgia to Sarasota with turpentine camp owners Berryman Thomas Longino Sr. and Luke Grubbs. Located near Clark Road and the Seaboard Air Line Railway track (Figure 1), the Bee Ridge turpentine camp housed its African
American laborers in a small community, consisting of two to four room frame camp
houses, a camp commissary, a church, school house, and social center, with weekend transportation to Sarasota. Figures 2 and 3 show typical turpentine camp shacks,
housing the African American turpentiner and his family. After the Civil War, former
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slaves chose to work at turpentine camps for additional income; “over time, this led to the development of African-American communities within the turpentine
camps.” 1 Following the camps closure in 1952, workers moved to Newtown in search of new employment and sense of community.
Despite the push for African Americans to relocate to the newly created
community of Newtown, the 1913 Sanborn maps in shown figures 4 and 5 as well as
details of businesses and occupations of the residents in 1916 depicted Overtown continuing to serve as the central African American community:
“In 1939, the Federal Writer’s Project of the Work Projects Administration provided the following description of Overtown; “the local Negro settlement, east of the railroad, has its shops, churches, recreation centers, and rows of shacks. The majority of inhabitants, 30 percent of the city’s total population, are engaged in agricultural pursuits, and a few find employment as hostlers and roustabouts with the circus, returning to Sarasota in the fall to pick up odd jobs in canning factories, packing houses, and as gardeners” 2
Through the 1930s and 1940s, the depression brought hardship to Overtown,
beginning the larger exodus of the African American population to Newtown. The poor conditions of the community structures in the 1950s, including lack of
plumbing, leaning walls and unsafe electric wiring, encouraged the slum clearance of the city of Sarasota. 3 The city planners began marking the buildings for code
violations and condemnation, leading to the eventual demolition of most of the
buildings and completely erasing the community of Overtown. (Figures 6 and 7).
Much later in 1985, a historical marker was dedicated to the historic district of
Overtown, although almost no physical landmarks remain to attest to its existence
Hughes, Dan, “The History of Florida Turpentine Camps,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, March 15, 2004, accessed September 30, 2014, http://www.heraldtribune.com. 2 “Overtown Historic District,” Sarasota History Alive, accessed October 3, 2014, http://www.sarasotahistoryalive.com. 3 Karl H. Grismer, The Story of Sarasota: The History of the City and County of Sarasota, Florida (Sarasota: M. E. Russell, 1946), 179. 1
within Sarasota at all.
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The names “Black Bottom” and “Overtown” for these early African American
communities allow for parallel comparison between other communities around the United States with the same names and similar methods of segregation of the black population within an urban condition. The Black Bottom and Overtown
communities in Sarasota, as seen in figure 8, were located north of the emerging
downtown area in Sarasota and became the first community for the early African
American settlers. Organized around a church and a few shops, the community of
Black Bottom was located in a low-lying area that was prone to flooding, which can be seen in early photographs of the school in the community. (Figures 9a and 9b). Similar to other impoverished black communities around the United States, the
name Black Bottom might have stemmed from its flooding and location as a lowlying area but also referred to the poverty that faced those who lived there. As described by Steven Thomas Moga in his thesis, “Bottoms, Hollows, and Flats:
Making and Remaking the Lower Section of the American city,” he denotes that:
“these broad patterns of urban lowland development and the practice of labeling urban districts as bottom, hollows, and flats, reflect the complexity of social-physical-natural interactions of place and the historical significance of topography in shaping patterns of social segregation and urban poverty.” 4
It is common throughout the United States to discover communities, usually south of the city center and frequently in topologically sunken locations, which were once the segregated and economically depressed areas that housed early African
American communities. In many cases and throughout history, these areas have experienced social, political and economic hardships that have detrimentally
Steven Thomas Moga, “Bottoms, Hollows, and Flats: Making and Remaking the Lower Section of the American city,” thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010, 15.
4
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affected the growth and prosperity of the black population within the urban setting. The name Overtown, for example, parallels the historic black community of
Overtown in Miami, which faced similar issues of segregation, poverty and struggles with infrastructure that threatened the community’s existence and sparked redevelopment.
“One of the most planning related developments during the period between
the world wars was the establishment of zoning as a tool for social segregation,” 5
and early Sarasota’s new community of Newtown aimed to do just that. (Figure 10). Through his book, The Story of Story of Sarasota, Karl H. Grismer describes the beginning of development in Newtown as it was experienced through a rare airplane ride:
“Flying inland, the passengers were given the opportunity to observe another type of habitation. Out on 33rd street they could see tiny homes being erected by negroes in the colored community of Newtown, then being opened by Charles N. Thompson, not to make money but to provide the negroes with better places in which to live.” 6
The opening of the Newtown subdivision in 1914 resulted from the demands of white Sarasota citizens to relocate the undesirable neighborhoods of the black
community further away from landmarks like the Rosemary Cemetery that were frequently visited by the white population. Facilitating this displacement of the
black population, Charles Thompson purchased and organized the development of the 240 lots within the Newtown community such that African Americans could
afford to purchase land through a payment system. This process enabled the African American population who relocated to build their own houses and businesses
June Manning Thomas and Marsha Ritzdorf, Urban Planning and the African American Community In the Shadows (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1967), 5. 6 Grismer, The Story of Sarasota: The History of the City and County of Sarasota, Florida, 179. 5
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within a new neighborhood, outside of the downtown Sarasota area, that would be “exclusive for colored people.” 7 The creation of Newtown allowed the African
American population to begin to exist as a self-sufficient communal entity, relying on small business run by residents in the community to meet their needs and
rendering it unnecessary for residents to leave the community except for work:
“Isolated, blacks opened their own cab companies, grocery stores, service stations, restaurants, barber and beauty shops, funeral homes and cemeteries. Mostly, blacks mixed with whites only when providing them with services like housework and lawn care.” 8
The full segregation of the African American population within the city of Sarasota
had been successful, and would create even greater hardships once the community was faced with integration in the 1960s. Despite living in a segregated and
impoverished area, the black population of Sarasota created a community in
Newtown, as seen in figures 11 through 13, which thrived within its own boundaries and fostered a sense of belonging that is described throughout Annie McElroy’s book, But Your World and My World.
Throughout the 1940s to the present, zoning regulations, city planning, and
infrastructure has continued to uphold the segregation of the Newtown community and has cultivated extreme economic division between the low-income residents of Newtown and the remainder of Sarasota’s residents who maintain much higher education levels, occupations, and income. Despite the integration of the golf
courses, library, schools and beaches, as well as the creation of recreation centers and swimming pools for the African American citizens of Sarasota, the continued
7 Mark Smith, “Thompson’s Contributions to Sarasota,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, November 3, 2003, accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.heraldtribune.com, 2. 8 Jeff LaHurd, “1920s Was Time of Racial Strife in Sarasota,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, July 28, 2014, accessed September 20, 2014, http://newtown100.heraldtribune.com.
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progression of segregation of the black population through economic and political means inhibits the ability of the Newtown residents to escape the impoverished conditions that have been in effect since the settlement of the city of Sarasota. The creation of interstate highway systems adjacent to the Newtown
community effectively boxed in the area, creating a buffer zone of noise and traffic between the black community and the remainder of the city. (Figure 14). The US
Highway 301, beginning construction in 1949 marks the boundary of Newtown to the east, joining with US Highway Route 41 to the west that was constructed in
1926. As described by the City of Sarasota’s History of the Newtown Community:
“Transportation improvements to U.S. 301 and U.S. 41 to the east and west of the area have enabled those roadways to evolve into major auto-oriented corridors, making travel around the neighborhood easier. However, businesses that were located along the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Way corridor have moved to where the traffic is, as has happened all over the U.S. in the past 50 years. Over time, a substantial concentration of industrial and social service uses have been located between the neighborhood and downtown to the south. Half of the northern boundary of the community is bound by industrial uses. These adjacent land uses surround Newtown, further isolating it from the larger community.” 9
Allowing for “easier travel,” these roadways and industrial sectors were
designed and implemented over time through city planning to reinforce the division of the wealthy city and the impoverished black community. Similarly, the Overtown
community of Miami faced issues of infrastructure planning that had lasting impacts on the community and its ability to develop. When planning for the new Interstate95 highway, instead of the implementation of a route that would repurpose an
abandoned railway, the city chose to develop the new highway directly through the black community in order “to provide ‘ample room for the future expansion of the
central business district in a westerly direction,’ a goal of the local business elite “History of the Newtown Community,” accessed October 3, 2014, http://www.sarasotagov.com/Newtown/history.html.
9
since the 1930s.” 10 Miami’s Overtown, like Newtown in Sarasota, could not
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effectively fight the roads that would come in through their communities. As
described by Raymond A. Mohl in his essays for the Poverty and Race Research
Action Council, “state highway officials and local elites often seized opportunities to carry out racial agendas. In every region of the nation, the expressways that
penetrated the central cities and the inner beltways common in interstate planning
found their easiest route through black communities.” 11 These highways took away the ability of these areas to grow and damaged the local economies while
simultaneously upholding the disadvantaging racial segregation accomplished through city planning.
The businesses along Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard have continued to
face disinvestment while the community has witnessed ever increasing physical and economic boundaries that have reinforced poverty in Newtown. After the
businesses and economy within Newtown struggled following the creation of the highways and development that reinforced segregation of the community, the
additional damaging effects of integration not only brought a new reality to the city of Sarasota, but also the diminishment of the community of Newtown as a self-
serving entity and the struggles of its residents to readjust to a changing Sarasota. A
description of the hardships that are still affecting the Newtown community today
can be seen in the stories told by Newtown residents in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune
article, “Looking Back, and Ahead:”
Raymond A. Mohl, “Urban Expressways and the Central Cities in Postwar America” and “Stop the Road: Freeway Revolts in American Cities,” Poverty and Race Research Action Council, 2002, 30. 11 Ibid, 38. 10
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“With the Civil Rights victories of the 1960s, integration opened up a world to Newtown residents that had been off-limits before. A lot of those Mom and Pop shops could not compete with bigger businesses beyond the neighborhood. Integration was a change that needed to happen and was long overdue, community leaders here say. But it came at a cost.” 12
The list of businesses within Newtown from the early 1970s depicts a lively and
healthy community, and yet none of those businesses remain open today and the
community is lacking available jobs and the circulating capital that keeps businesses in operation and Newtown residents working. (Figure 15). Although there no longer exist any laws allowing segregation, there remains to be a number of silent factors that contribute to a continued physical and economic division between races in Sarasota. Newtown today represents a challenge of insufficient education, high
unemployment, and drastically lower wages for its residents than in the surrounding areas. According to Moga:
“In the making of the lower section of the American city, municipal officials, influenced by real estate developers, and business interests, privileged industrial development over other uses, viewed railroad corridors and their surrounding lands as economic throughways, and created spaces that allowed for workers to be close to jobs but kept away from the upper and middle classes. As the developed, lowlands slums functioned as quasi-planned containment areas, physically made through a combination of selective investment and targeted neglect.” 13
With the growth of the city’s tourism and economy, the city and its residents have prospered throughout the decades, while Newtown remains at a standstill.
Today, Sarasota is representative of one of the United States’ worst cities for
income inequality. Research has shown that despite holding the highest average
income, Sarasota also has the highest percentage of population earning less than
$10,000 a year. After being recognized for how wealthy the city of 53,000 people 12 Ian Cummings, “Looking Back, and Ahead,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, April 17, 2014, accessed October 3, 2014, http://newtown100.heraldtribune.com. 13 Moga, “Urban Expressways and the Central Cities in Postwar America” and “Stop the Road: Freeway Revolts in American Cities,” 223.
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has become, the juxtaposition of figures that describe the drastic conditions
experienced by Sarasota’s less affluent residents also begins to shed light on the
extreme disparities apparent within the city demographics. In 2011, Sarasota was simultaneously the wealthiest county in Florida while maintaining a staggering
amount of 1,200 homeless elementary school age children. 14 Where local grocery stores like John “Cann” Major’s market once served the early community of
Newtown with fresh fruits, meats and vegetables and offered credit for community residents, today Newtown is confronted with the challenge of accessing grocery
stores located outside of the immediate area in addition to the significantly lower
availability of transportation within the community. (Figure 16). With a focus on the retirement, tourism and construction industries, low paying wages encourage this gap and have allowed it to grow, and the effects are experienced the strongest
within the boundaries of the Newtown community. Figures 17 through 19 show the Newtown community in comparison to the surrounding neighborhoods,
highlighting the social and economic factors that have been cultivated through its
division and isolation, which continue to impede the growth and prosperity of the community today.
The effects of these conditions within the Newtown community can be seen
not only in the data reflecting poverty, but also within the data that depicts the
extreme level of crime within the area. “Decades of disinvestment and capital flight, along with a concentration of government subsidized housing and social services, have caused blighted conditions in areas next to a thriving area of single family
Doug Sword, “Poverty Rates Soar in Sarasota County,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, November 29, 2011, accessed September 30, 2014, http://www.heraldtribune.com.
14
homes.” 15 Without appropriate maintenance, these housing projects within
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Sarasota’s black community have drastically deteriorated, a reality that resonates with that of the 1950s Chicago Cabrini-Green neighborhood. Where “the
stranglehold of segregation and decades of antiblack racism had stymied black
American economic and political advancement within the United States’ postwar Fordist economy,” 16 the residents of Cabrini-Green experienced extreme crime
surrounding the impoverished community whose needs had been disregarded by
the rest of the city. Similar to the residents of the Chicago, Newtown faces a severe
level of crime within its community in comparison to the surrounding areas of Sarasota. Struggles with gang violence and drugs have created an image of
Sarasota’s Newtown community that discourages its residents and effectively seals off Newtown as a dangerous ghetto within the wealthy city of Sarasota. Newtown’s struggles with crime are evident in instances such as the community struggle with the Fast life mural painted on the face of a Newtown business and shown in figure
20. The gang-related mural, painted by French graffiti artist MTO following an arts
festival in Sarasota in 2011, instills fear and evokes the reality of heavy crime in the
area. As documented in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, “many are concerned about the negative connotation of the "fast life" message for children in the community” 17 and
the negative image of Newtown, requiring a curfew and surveillance cameras within its section of the city.
“History of the Newtown Community.” Mabel O. Wilson, “The Multicultural City,” in Miles Orvell and Klaus Benesch, eds. Rethinking the American City: An International Dialogue (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 58. 17 Erica Newport, “Community Divided Over ‘Fast Life’ Mural,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, February 2, 2012, accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.heraldtribune.com. 15 16
Through the desire to tackle the issues of poverty and crime within
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Newtown, the city of Sarasota has created a redevelopment plan for the area
identified as Newtown, (Figures 21 and 22) which aims to regenerate the local economy and to raise the standard of living for the residents. The question is whether or not the new implementations in city planning will be effective in
breaking the barriers between Newtown and the city of Sarasota of if it will continue to segregate the community and isolate its problems away from the city center.
Already witnessed through the slum clearance of Sarasota’s Overtown community,
“urban renewal systematically destroyed many African American communities and businesses and, for most of its history, failed to safeguard the rights and well-being of those forcibly relocated from those homes and businesses… These policies shaped and defined the Black ghetto.” 18 Within the proposed community
redevelopment area, the Community Redevelopment Agency defines Newtown as a slum area, with highlighted factors of crime, code violations and governmentally owned property with adverse environmental conditions as justification for the
designation. 19 The city of Sarasota cites Florida State Legislature from 1969 to begin
to identify its goals for redevelopment legislation: to address the physical, social and economic problems; to improve the physical environment; to convey the powers of eminent domain, public funds, and all other general police powers; to encourage
private reinvestment; and to eliminate substandard housing condition and provide
Thomas and Ritzdorf, Urban Planning and the African American Community In the Shadows, 8. City of Sarasota. “Newtown Community Development Area Plan.” Accessed September 20, 2014. http://www.sarasotagov.com, 7.
18 19
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adequate amounts of housing in good condition. 20 Through the 2000 US Census and Police Chief’s Report, the Redevelopment plan concludes that Newtown crime
comprises 28% of the reported, 22.6% of the cities building code violations, and the incorporation of two brownfields within an area that encompasses only 13.8% of the total population. 21 While the plan promises public involvement and the
combination of social and economic solutions with the physical solutions within the African American community, it remains unclear whether or not the city and the
government understands or is willing to fully commit to improving the conditions within segregated communities such as Newtown. As described by Thomas and Ritzdorf:
“the mid 1990s brought promising federal program initiatives, such as Empowerment Zones/Enterprise Communities. But by that time African American families, even those in suburbia, remained highly segregated. They earned less money than others per capita and per family, and experienced much narrower options of residence than did other Americans.� 22
Through the outline of goals and objectives for the Newtown Redevelopment Plan, the proposed City of Sarasota Future Land Use Map of 2030 shown in figure 24 seems to make changes, but does not attempt to truly break barriers that were
initially formed over a century ago segregating the community of Newtown from Sarasota. The strategies behind the revitalization of Newtown claim to strive for
public collaboration and the consideration of the culture and history of Newtown, although the outreach to the community seems less than adequate through the attendance of Newtown community members at planning meetings for the
Ibid, 6. Ibid, 10. 22 Thomas and Ritzdorf, Urban Planning and the African American Community In the Shadows, 9. 20 21
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Newtown CRA Advisory Board. 23 As a plan for Newtown through 2020, the visions
of the plan are perhaps too outdated. A plan for the future requires innovative
thinking and new concepts for city planning that seek to answer the core problems facing an urban community and, according to Thomas and Ritzdorf, “previous
attempts to use federal policy to address many of these concerns have stumbled, and racial isolation has persisted.” 24
Inclusionary legislation and the effective implementation of long-term
residential integration are beginning to challenge the effects of the segregation of African American communities within American cities. “Several state and local
governments have recognized that by ensuring that all racial and economic groups have adequate housing, the entire community will benefit.” 25 With the successful development and sustenance of these low- and moderate-income residences, in
addition to inclusionary legislation, new zoning and city planning techniques at the
local and state levels can act as effective methods through which the continuation of residential and racial segregation can be dissolved in order to create more diverse and prosperous communities. In response to local planning authorities rejecting
affordable housing projects in Connecticut, the Connecticut Supreme Court decision overturned this refusal, allowing for the successful development of affordable
housing, regardless of local zoning laws; “this judgment paved the way for later
decisions that have held that a court can approve an affordable housing application
even though it does not comply with local zoning, and that traffic and environmental Newtown CRA Advisory Board, Recordings of Planning Meetings, accessed October 3, 2014, http://sarasota.granicus.com. 24 Thomas and Ritzdorf, Urban Planning and the African American Community In the Shadows, 9. 23
25
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problems do not justify denial of an affordable housing application.” 26 Dismantling the ability of governments or prominent members in local communities to
intentionally discriminate against the African American population through
exclusionary zoning would encourage the elimination of the physical and economic
divisions in communities like Newtown. Working towards the reversal of the effects caused by exclusionary zoning through the celebration of the “values necessary for the just city” including democracy, equity, diversity, growth, and sustainability,
Susan S. Fainstein describes in her essay “Cities and Diversity” how the “most crucial is a political consciousness that supports progressive moves at national and local levels toward respectfulness of others and greater equality.” 27
As the community celebrates its centennial in 2014, Newtown and its
residents look to rediscover their past, analyze their present, and question how to create a successful and prosperous future following the tumultuous history of
physical and economic division of Newtown from the city of Sarasota. Residents
hope to revitalize the image of Newtown from a liability within the city of Sarasota
to an asset that takes part in and contributes to the growth and development for the future of the city as a whole. Inclusionary remedies for zoning within Sarasota and
other cities facing similar issues of poverty and isolation of African American
communities could assist in the restoration of equality and the ability for residents within these communities to achieve a higher standard of living. Allowing for new Marc Seitles, “The Perpetuation of Residential Racial Segregation in America: Historical Discrimination, Modern Forms of Exclusion, and Inclusionary Remedies,” Journal of Land Use and Environmental Law (1998) 14(1), 89. 27 Susan S. Fainstein, “Cities and Diversity: Should We Want It? Can We Plan For It?” Urban Affairs Review (2005): 3-19. 26
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methods of city planning to truly challenge the outdated standards that have
historically prohibited the full capacity for growth and opportunity within urban
African American communities, communities such as Newtown can begin to exist not only as a community in of itself, but also as an integral part that assists in the composition of the city that surrounds it. Seeking to break these historical and physical boundaries that have since inhibited prosperity and growth in the
Newtown community will lead to more successful efforts in confronting the issue of poverty and the economic disparities that currently exist between Newtown and
greater Sarasota. The continuing history of Newtown and the city of Sarasota will
remain to be a strong influential factor for the future, yet a much-needed separation
from that history is required to successfully confront the relentless issues of a century-long physical and economic division and to determinatively progress
towards an equal and diverse city that will thrive, serving as a model for other African American and minority communities within segregated cities across America.
Figures
Figure 1: 1936 Seaboard Air Line Railway. Florida Cooperative Extension, 2014.
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Figure 2: “Turpentiners and Housing, ca. 1900s,” Carroll B. Butler, Treasures of the Longleaf Pines: Naval Stores (Shalimar: Tarkel Publishing, 1997), 139-4.
Figure 3: “Typical Housing for Turpentiner and His Family, Choctawhatchee National Forest, 1930s,” Butler, Treasures of the Longleaf Pines: Naval Stores, 139-5.
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Figure 4: “1913 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Key of Sarasota, Florida,” Library of Congress Geography and Map Division.
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Figure 5: “1913 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Sarasota, Florida, Tract 1,” Library of Congress Geography and Map Division.
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Figure 6: “Overtown’s First Baptist Community Church,” Annie M. McElroy, But Your World and My World: the Struggle for Survival: a Partial History of Blacks in Sarasota County, 1884-1986 (Sarasota: Black South Press, 1986), 82.
Figure 7: “Overtown’s Lewis Colson Hotel,” McElroy, But Your World and My World: the Struggle for Survival: a Partial History of Blacks in Sarasota County, 1884-1986, 126.
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Figure 8: “Map Tracking the Movement of the African American Community in Sarasota Over Time.”
Figure 9a (left): “Elementary classes were taught in various barracks on the same campus as the high school. This is how the campus usually looked after a heavy rain,” McElroy, But Your World and My World: the Struggle for Survival: a Partial History of Blacks in Sarasota County, 1884-1986, 55. Figure 9b (right): “Principal Rogers and students look at an area where sand just hauled in and spread was washed away after rain,” McElroy, But Your World and My World: the Struggle for Survival: a Partial History of Blacks in Sarasota County, 18841986, 55.
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Figure 10: “Present map of Newtown Highlighted within the context of Greater Sarasota.”
Figure 11: The music teacher visits the Laurel “colored” School, circa 1922” Jeff LaHurd, Gulf Coast Chronicles Remembering Sarasota’s Past, (Charleston: The History Press, 2005), 92.
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Figure 12: “Segregated class at Booker Elementary School,” LaHurd, Gulf Coast Chronicles Remembering Sarasota’s Past, 92.
Figure 13: “The Newtown Recreation Center, built in 1966,” Jeff LaHurd, The Rise of Sarasota: Ken Thompson and the Rebirth of Paradise, (Charleston: The History Press, 2012).
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Figure 14: “Map of Transportation and Highways in Sarasota, Florida,” Sarasota Department of Transportation.
Figure 15: “In Old Newtown, Map of Community Businesses,” Ian Cummings, “Looking Back, and Ahead,” Sarasota HeraldTribune, April 17, 2014.
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Figure 16: “Food Sources in Newtown, Sarasota: Food Access Points and Transportation Availability,” Juliana Dearr, “Unjust Deserts: A Thesis on Food Insecurity, Structural Inequality, and Community Agency in Newtown, FL,” Thesis, New College of Florida, 2014.
Figure 17: “Educational Attainment: Less than High School (%) in Newtown, Sarasota,” City-Data, Newtown Neighborhood in Sarasota, Florida, 34234, Detailed Profile.
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Figure 18: “Residents with Income Below the Poverty Level (%) in Newtown, Sarasota,” City-Data, Newtown Neighborhood in Sarasota, Florida, 34234, Detailed Profile.
Figure 19: “Children Below Poverty Level (%) in Newtown, Sarasota,” City-Data, Newtown Neighborhood in Sarasota, Florida, 34234, Detailed Profile.
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Figure 20: “French Artist MTO’s Mural Depicting the Fast Life Gang Symbol on a Newtown Community Building,” Erica Newport, “Community Divided Over ‘Fast Life’ Mural,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, February 2, 2012.
Figure 21: “Map of Newtown Community Redevelopment Area,” City of Sarasota Department of Planning and Redevelopment, 2005.
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Figure 22: “Sarasota Map of Proposed Community Redevelopment Area for Newtown,� City of Sarasota Department of Planning and Redevelopment, 2005.
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Figure 23: “Proposed Future Land Use Map, 2030,� City of Sarasota Department of Planning and Redevelopment.
Bibliography
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Butler, Carroll B. Treasures of the Longleaf Pines: Naval Stores. Shalimar: Tarkel Publishing, 1997. Caldeira, Teresa P. R. “Fortified Enclaves: The New Urban Segregation,” Public Culture Winter (1998): 303-328. Accessed November 3, 2014. doi: 10.1215/08992363-8-2-3.
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