In 1967, the city began to demolish the Taylor Street Bridge to make way for the North Central Freeway. It was part of a Congressional plan for new highways through the city. Protests erupted and would challenge powerful forces for control of the city’s future.
Category: BLACK AND WHITE IN BROOKLAND
Little Isabel Wall was kicked out of the Brookland School in 1909. Whether she was white or black was a question that roiled the neighborhood.
Racially-restrictive housing covenants were a tool used to keep people of color out of certain neighborhoods. Brookland was one of them.
Racially-restrictive housing covenants were a vicious tool to keep neighborhoods white. A block of Kearny Street provides an example.
There were many tools the establishment used to keep people of color out of particular neighborhoods. Racially-restrictive housing covenants was one of the most powerful.
Poet and Howard University professor Sterling Brown writes an illuminating response to Jeremiah O’Leary’s nostalgic column on growing up in Brookland.