Dividing Highways: How Highways Reinforced Segregation in America

The Interstate Highway System is often seen as the most impressive achievement in American transportation history. Once completed, people and goods could travel between cities at speeds people could only dream about before. It is pretty amazing that I can make the trip from home to Columbus in just 2 hours (a 110 mile trip), or that you can make it all the way to South Carolina in just about 9 hours. The Interstate Highway System was the backbone of suburbanization, allowing people to live farther away from their jobs and still get to work in a reasonable amount of time. 

"Connecticut - Eisenhower Interstate System" by wallyg is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Our society wastes no time worshiping this system, and the benefits it has brought to Americans are undeniable. While we worship the engineering marvel that the Interstate Highway System is, we rarely consider the absolutely horrific things that had to occur to make it a reality.

You might not think anything of it, but there was a long history of the land now occupied by highways before it became a highway. If you are in an urban area, thousands of homes had to be destroyed so people can make their trips into the city from the suburbs. Sure, this is well within the constitutional right of the government to practice eminent domain, but it was done largely at the expense of infringing upon the constitutional rights of African Americans. 

If you read my last article, you'll know that African American families were severely restricted in where they were allowed to live due to racist housing policies developed and enforced by governments around the country. Where they could live, they often paid more than their White counterparts for similar housing. This meant less money for maintenance, and along with a systemic suppression of Back incomes, many neighborhoods became run down.

As racially restrictive zoning and covenants were outlawed by the Supreme Court, instead of accepting the rulings, cities and states across America tried to find loopholes- ways in which they could continue to systematically segregate America. Not only did the government want to keep Whites and Blacks separated, they also had great interest in removing African Americans from downtown employment centers "so that white commuters... would not be exposed to Black people" (Rothstein, 2017, p. 127). 

The solution? Urban renewal. The basic idea was to destroy slums and blighted neighborhoods (widely understood to be synonymous with "Black"). As Richard Rothstein notes, this seems like an okay idea if these predominantly Black people, systematically forced into slums by their government, were relocated into better living conditions with better access to jobs, education, and the like. But this is not what happened (Rothstein, 2017, p. 127). The term "Urban renewal" is perhaps the biggest misnomer in American linguistic history. We "renewed" our cities by systematically removing Black people because they were an eyesore.

How was this accomplished? Interstate Highways hold the key. The very highways you drive on are often located precisely where they are because they were intended to destroy Black communities, with few if any plans for relocation assistance for displaced families (Rothstein, 2017, p. 127)

First, a Warning

Before I begin, I just want to make note that I will be using a quote using the n-word in this article. It is obviously not my quote. I could asterisk the letters out, but I feel that the sheer gravity of seeing that horrible word in the context of federal transportation policy is so great that not using it would be doing a historical disservice. Seeing that horrible word puts into context how things really were. We have to tell it how it was and not let the perpetrators of these acts hide behind the walls of modern censorship. They don't get a free pass.

Official Government Policy

I know, it is hard to believe our government, where "all men are created equal", took such an active role in this atrocity. Well, here you go.

Henry Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture under FDR (and later his Vice President), promoted freeways to be routed through urban centers to Roosevelt because of their potential to eliminate "unsightly and unsanitary districts”.  Because of systemic decisions that prevented Blacks from living anywhere else, it is no secret what Wallace meant (Rothstein, 2017, p. 128). 

The Urban Land Institute suggested "surveying the extent to which blighted areas might provide suitable highway routes” (Rothstein, 2017, p. 128). Again, blight was widely understood to be synonymous with African American at this time.

The leader of a strong lobbying effort for the construction of highways, Alfred Johnson, suggested that highways could "get rid of the local nigger towns" (Rothstein, 2017, p. 128).

It is overwhelmingly clear that highways for "urban removal" were clearly intended to facilitate "negro removal", as civil rights activists put it during this time (Rothstein, 2017, p. 127). The crazy thing is that these things were said before the National Defense Highway Act was passed under Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956.  The government knew what their highway subsidies would be used for. Everyone knew. But nobody stood up to stop it. It was as if it was seen as the correct thing to do. Archer sums it up perfectly when she wrote:

The benefits and burdens of our transportation system-highways, roads, bridges, sidewalks, and public transit-have been planned, developed, and sustained to pull resources from Black communities that are subsequently deployed and invested to the benefit of predominantly white communities and their residents (Archer, 2020).

Destroying vibrant communities

Not only were Black homes destroyed by Interstate Highways, they ripped apart communities.   

In Detroit, the construction of I-75 displaced 4,000 families, almost 90% of which were African American. A decade later, a federal court ruled that this decision must have been made with discriminatory intent (Rothstein, 2017, pp. 128-129).

In Pittsburgh, the construction of I-579 decimated the Hill District, a predominately Black community right next to Downtown. Construction of the highway "dwindled [the population] from approximately 54,000 in 1950 to approximately 9,500 in 2013...[and] over 400 businesses were lost'' (Archer, 2020). Black homes and businesses were destroyed, incomes were lost, and access to downtown Pittsburgh was ripped away because of the highway (Archer, 2020).

I-579 in Pittsburgh, which ripped apart a Black community."Interstate 579 - Pennsylvania" by Dougtone is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

In Miami, an area once known as the "Harlem of the South" was destroyed by I-95 when highway planners insisted ripping apart this vibrant community, despite an alternative route being available nearby, along abandoned railroad tracks, that would not have displaced so many families. All told, 10,000 families were forced to leave their homes, and the neighborhood's Black was reduced from 40,000 to 8,000 (Archer, 2020; Rothstein, 2017, p. 131).

In St. Paul, Minnesota, 14% of the city's Black housing stock was decimated by freeway destruction (Davis, 1965). This is despite St. Paul not having a high African American population. As Archer, in quoting Raymond Mohl and Alan A. Altshuler, notes "[v]ery few [B]lacks lived in Minnesota, but the road builders found them" (Archer, 2020).

The list goes on and on. As Rothstein notes, there was no provision in the Interstate Highway Act that compelled states to pay relocation assistance to displaced families (Rothstein, 2017, p. 131). Thus, families were forced out of their homes, leaving their communities behind, and left to fend for themselves, all so residents in Whites only suburbs could commute a bit faster. Imagine if the community you live in now suffered the same fate. It's hard to do.

Neighborhoods where people worked at the shop just a short walk down the street from their homes, where there were thriving, Black owned businesses and a strong sense of community, were obliterated by White man's roads. Now, there's a giant highway between you and your neighbor, and you have to walk miles to the nearest highway overpass just to visit them. 

Imagine if High Street in Columbus was destroyed by a highway- if Main Street in Hudson was destroyed by a highway. If downtown Kent or Highland Square was destroyed by a highway. If the Short North or Cleveland's Little Italy was destroyed by a highway. It would be an atrocity. Well, that's exactly what happened in Black communities across the US. Why was it not seen as an atrocity?

Holland, MI, a vibrant community perhaps not unlike those destroyed by the Interstate System. "Holland Michigan is a Vibrant Community by the Michigan Municipal League" by Michigan Municipal League (MML) is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Reinforcing segregation

Not only did highways destroy Black communities for the benefit of White suburbanites, their construction also, both literally and figuratively, reinforced existing segregation in American cities, perhaps leaving Black homes spared (Archer, 2020). In Syracuse, NY, for example, I-81 not only destroyed a predominately Black community, but serves as a divider between the "haves and the have nots", similar to the Berlin Wall, between the University area and a poorer neighborhood (Archer, 2020).  The highway physically and symbolically divides the city.

I-81 in Syracuse, NY. Sometimes referred to as the "Berlin Wall", it separates the city into the haves and have-nots.

We can all think of this sort of thing in our own communities. In Columbus, for example, people don't dare go "across the railroad tracks" (which is right next to I-71) from the wealthy, western areas. The areas to the east are some of the poorest in Ohio, suffering from high crime and absurdly high rates of infant mortality. Western areas (Clintonville, Upper Arlington, Grandview Heights) are stocked full of renowned hospitals and cultural institutions, while South Linden (on the other side of the tracks) doesn't have a single OBGYN-clinic, despite having an infant mortality rate 3 times the national average (Bliss, 2017; City of Columbus, 2016; City of Columbus, 2022; CDC, 2021). Black infants have a mortality rate 3.4 times higher than White infants in Columbus.  I-71 separates Columbus into the haves and haves not, and also separates Black from White, as seen clearly in the image below.

 

Note: Red is White, Blue is Black, Green is Asian, Orange is Hispanic, Yellow is Other, and each dot is 25 residents. "Race and ethnicity 2010: Columbus" by Eric Fischer is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Looking forward

I hope this article shows you that highways were a tool with which governments segregated America. When Pete Buttigieg recently called US highways "racist" (which stirred a lot of controversy from the right), this is what he is talking about (Mishra, 2021). And while a highway of course has no conscience or ability to think or reason, the lasting impacts they've had on the segregation of America are no different than the government upheld racially restrictive covenants or government sponsored exclusion of African Americans from suburban America. 

This sort of extraordinarily short-sighted policy decisions no doubt happened in a location near where you call home (Cincinnati and Akron, as a few examples). The short-sightedness still occurs in policy decisions to this day. In ensuing articles, I'll explore this further.

See also:

Check out the website Historical Aerials here. On their website, you can compare satellite images of your city before and after highways are built. The results are staggering and show how much of our cities were destroyed by highways. 

Sources:

Altshuler, A. A. (1965). The city planning process: A political analysis. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press.

Archer, D. N. (2021). Transportation Policy and the Underdevelopment of Black Communities. Iowa Law Review, 106(5), 2125-2152.

Bliss, L (2017, November 1). Who wins when a city gets smart? CityLab, Retrieved from https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/11/when-a-smart-city-doesnt-have-all-the-answers/542976/

City of Columbus (2016). Beyond Traffic: The Smart City Challenge Phase 2, Volume I. City of Columbus, Ohio.

City of Columbus (2022). CelebrateOne Performance Dashboard. [Dashboard]. Retrieved from https://c1performance-columbus.hub.arcgis.com/

Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2021). Infant Mortality. CDC. Retrieved February 14, 2022 from https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/infantmortality.htm#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20infant%20mortality,the%20United%20States%2C%202019).

Hirsch, A. R., & Mohl, R. A. (1993). Urban policy in twentieth-century America. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press.

Mishra, S. (2021, November 9). Buttigieg says America's highways are racist and infrastructure bill will help fix it. The Independent. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/buttigieg-racist-highways-biden-infrastructure-bill-b1954051.html 

Rothstein, R. (2017). The color of law: A forgotten history of how our government segregated America. Liveright.