Blackbottom neighborhood, Detroit, Michigan

Item

(1951) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan. Sanborn Map Company, Vol. 4, 1922 - De. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn03985_072/ (outline added)

Title

Blackbottom neighborhood, Detroit, Michigan

Description

In 1946 the city of Detroit began condemnation of the historic black neighborhood – Blackbottom, to make way for the Lafayette Park residential district and a freeway. Starting as a center of Eastern European Jewish settlement, by the 1930s the area was mostly black and mostly poor. Restrictive housing covenants prohibited black Americans from living in most other parts of the city. Notably, in 1925 a white mob attacked prominent black attorney Ossian Sweet when he moved into his new home in a white neighborhood on the east side of Detroit. Retaliating with gunfire a neighbor was shot. Ossian Sweet, his relatives and friends were tried for murder, first ending in a mistrial then acquitted and he was able to move back into his home. Most black Americans living in Detroit were not so fortunate. By the 1930s the area was hit hard during the Great Depression and during WWII decay rapidly increased as people poured into the city seeking work in the auto-factories and racial discrimination restricted black persons to the increasingly overcrowded Blackbottom area. Despite this, by the early 1950s they were able to transform Blackbottom into the center of African American life with black-owned business, social institutions and, in nearby Paradise Valley, nightclubs and entertainment. By 1954 the Blackbottom neighborhood was gone, and Paradise Valley followed a few years later. In 2021 a call for reparations was made locally by the Detroit City Council, given that many residents were given 30 days notice to vacate and minimal, if any, assistance was provided.

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