Interstate highways and the civil rights movement: The case of I-85 and the Oak Park neighborhood in Montgomery, Alabama

《Interstate highways and the civil rights movement: The case of I-85 and the Oak Park neighborhood in Montgomery, Alabama》

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来源: JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS,Vol.41,Issue7,P.930-959

语言: 英文

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作者单位: Auburn University

摘要: On June 29, 1956, while the bus boycott was taking place in Montgomery, Alabama, President Eisenhower signed legislation to create the Interstate Highway System. Alabama Highway Director Sam Engelhardt, a White supremacist, located Interstate 85 through the only middle-class neighborhood that was available for African Americans in Montgomery, home to civil rights leaders Ralph Abernathy and George Curry, and next to Alabama State University, a historically Black university that was the center of civil rights activity in Montgomery. The article argues that the decision to locate I-85 sought to displace the leaders of the civil rights movement and middle-class African American registered voters.AcknowledgmentsThe author thanks three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this article. The author also thanks Auburn University Community Planning Program graduate research assistants Harry Graham and Tayler Hames, who helped with collecting documents and maps. Stuart Meck, FAICP, reviewed an earlier draft of this article before his death in April 2018 and, as usual, with his encyclopedic knowledge of planning history, greatly improved the article and had many helpful conversations with the author about research on highways, civil rights, and the South in general.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Additional informationFundingThe author would like to thank the Auburn University Provosts office for providing professional improvement leave in the fall of 2017 to collect data for this research.Notes on contributorsRebecca RetzlaffRebecca Retzlaff, PhD, AICP, is an Associate Professor in the Community Planning Program at Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama. Her research interests are planning history and planning law.