Talk:African-American neighborhood

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Feedback

It looks like a good start. I'm working on a todo box for this article. CJ (talk) 15:34, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

great!futurebird (talk) 15:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Photos

I've got a bunch of shots of New Orleans, Atlanta, and Tallahassee on my flickr account. Everything is by-sa so take what you need. I've uploaded a couple already.CJ (talk) 16:21, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Those photos look great! We do need at least one from the south, the article will always be too NYC centric if you let me write most of it :P I don't know which one to choose? I like the sort-of "main street" looking one, since it shows how the built environment can vary from place to place. futurebird (talk) 16:28, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

That's Frenchtown in Tallahassee. It's a historic district that dates back to at least reconstruction. The other is old Lincoln Academy, the first Black school in the city. CJ (talk) 19:17, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

More history

Good start!

Surely southern cities, while there weren't many of them, had African American neighborhoods before NY did. Charleston had to have been majority black, probably Savannah, too. Richmond, VA had numerous free blacks and slaves "living out" for hire, as did New Orleans, which probably had the largest population in the South of free blacks before the Civil War. Petersburg, VA, an early industrial city, also was a center for free blacks before the Civil War.

I think there needs to be more emphasis on what positive things also happened in those urban northern neighborhoods - think about the changes - huge numbers of chiefly rural migrants had opportunities for more education for their children that, even if limited, greatly surpassed what they got in the South; they created whole communities with all classes and businesses; African Americans created their own businesses; others got education and started teaching; people did get industrial jobs that allowed many to move into the middle class, buy their own homes and get ahead. The cities also were a vastly different environment; many people regretted losing the close ties of small rural communities.

All good things didn't happen at once, nor did all bad things. Not only segregation and racism were factors in producing the poverty-ridden ghettos. The loss of industry was enormous; tens of thousands of jobs disappeared, with nothing to replace them for a generation or more.

As William Julius Wilson showed in Chicago, desegregation allowed middle and upper middle class families to move to the suburbs, but hollowed out the structure of black neighborhoods. The people who held it together and provided examples for advancement left. That and the disappearance of decent skilled jobs left only the most dysfunctional families in the city when drugs became even more of a problem. Wilson has written extensively about the decline of industrial jobs and its impact on black families, a pattern seen throughout the northern cities, from Chicago to Detroit to Philadelphia to NY to Hartford, CT. While Washington, DC didn't have as much of an industrial base, middle class and upper class blacks left the city there, too. Churches in DC have also become centers for reinvestment and trying to improve inner city neighborhoods, with members who come in from the suburbs.

The jobs disappeared, and not all the people could follow the jobs to the South, in some cases, or train for others. Part of the problem became not enough people - Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia have huge areas that became depopulated, with acres of abandoned housing that became centers of crime.--Parkwells (talk) 17:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, clearly we need better sources for the "earliest neighborhood" ...there were black neighborhoods in NYC from the time the city first made contact with non-native peoples (prior to incorporation in 1624) -- so maybe we should say that there have been African American neighborhoods from the earliest days of settlement... then mention some of the oldest. I was going with the idea that it would need to be the oldest "free black" neighborhood but there is no real good reason to do that.

I'll look in some books I've got about Richmond, Petersburg, New Orleans. While they developed along different lines, even for slaves they were places of more freedom than plantations, as well as places where craftsmen flourished. Also cities were the places of more interracial relationships by mutual choice, early property ownership by African Americans, etc.--Parkwells (talk) 19:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I thought that the "good things" would be things like the museums and centers of culture, what else did you have in mind? I agree that the article is a bit too focused on segregation, there's more to life that that... but that is what most of the sources I've found so far have focused on. I mean just try looking I had a hard time putting what we have now together. I might actually need to ... go to a library or something. (oh no!)

I was thinking about education and jobs and culture - there were people in the cities who grew up to be artists, writers and musicians, who may never have done that if they had stayed on the farms; others who grew up to be teachers, doctors, businessmen and women, etc. That's general cultural capital, not just that expressed in a museum, although the museums are great tangible markers. --Parkwells (talk) 19:22, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I also think it's worth talking a bit about the difference between the urban and the rural black experience. We don't want to give the impression that all black folks live in the city. (Since that isn't the case) I have this idea for an article on "African American small towns" since there are a few of them. I think it's better to treat those histories separately, there area lot of common trends in large industrial cities and this article can be a good way to summarize all of them. futurebird (talk) 17:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

With regard to positive things, how about schools that were established in segregated areas. Off the top of my head I've got Lincoln Academy in Tallahassee and then there's Natchez College in Natchez, Mississippi. And for contemporary schools, Atlanta has for example Benjamin E. Mays High and Westlake High that are 90%+ Black in Black neighborhoods and are top rated schools.

I think most of your southern black neighborhoods are reconstruction era except for urban areas which pretty much are Atlanta, New Orleans, and Charelston.

With respect to some of the more negative things, I think it would be important to have a secton that discusses some of the racial violence towards black communities. Rosewood is a perfect example. CJ (talk) 19:48, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it would be easier to have three separate articles: about black neighborhoods in Northern cities, those in the South, and black towns. I'm not sure. The ones in the South (Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Birmingham, etc. also represented the movement of both white and black rural peoples into cities and urbanization, but arguably the experiences in the North were more different, as African Americans also were working/living near European immigrants and batches of northerners. There were more different peoples in northern cities.--Parkwells (talk) 19:22, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about that. I think a lot of African American communities face the same issues regardless of whether they are rural or urban, northern or southern. In my experience, Black towns in rural areas are often partnered with White towns in close proximity. In urban areas they are a part of larger metropolitan areas. Perhaps a split isn't what's necessary, but instead a renaming? CJ (talk) 19:58, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Even if we don't have separate articles, I think there needs to be more recognition on this page of the formation of all-black towns, such as those in Oklahoma (see here for a map). Aristophanes68 (talk) 03:44, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Use Decade Dividers?

This is a really complex topic, because you are dealing with huge population movements against the rise and fall of industrial and urban America, such rapid growth and then decades of decline. Nicholas Lemann wrote that at the height of the Great Migration, 5,000 people a week were arriving in Chicago from the South - getting off the trains and looking for housing and work. The infrastructure, buildings and roads and schools, and economy can't be changed as rapidly as people can move, for whatever reasons.

So much relates to the jobs, that you might have to divide it into decades. The post-WWII years were good for many people; probably the good outweighed the bad, even with the problems, because the availability of jobs helped many.

Urban renewal and highway projects were, in their beginnings, attempts to improve things - in the overly rational approach, they didn't realize how much damage they would do by breaking up neighborhoods, or how long places took to come together as effective neighborhoods.

I think the article on Great Migration notes that whole villages migrated together from the South. Black or any ethnic neighborhoods weren't only a result of segregation, but also of people initially wanting to live near their neighbors or people from the same culture, who would have the same food, the same tastes, the same accents and language, who they would go to church with, etc. Yes, segregation prevented them from easily spreading out when the neighborhoods became overcrowded.

People going into areas as migrants consistently settled near their own people and have continued to do so. Little Italy in NY has been mostly overtaken by Chinatown; parts of South Philly that were Italian are now big Vietnamese and Cambodian neighborhoods.--Parkwells (talk) 18:08, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Definition

Maybe it's better just to talk about 20th c. African American neighborhoods, and bring them into the 21st c. Often African Americans went into neighborhoods previously occupied by Irish, Italian or Jewish immigrants - people moved in waves through NY and some cities. The urban northern neighborhoods had their own distinct issues.--Parkwells (talk) 20:48, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the article is stronger with the historical information. Otherwise the one race cabal will be in here tomorrow talking about overcategorization and notability and such. As far as the prior history of the neighborhoods, the same thing happened in the south where blacks moved into formerly white neighborhoods. I just don't see the distinct issues. CJ (talk) 21:05, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Title

Is this the right title for this article?

• African American neighborhood
• German American neighborhood
• Italian American neighborhood
• Irish American neighborhood
• Dutch American neighborhood
• Polish American neighborhood
• Jewish American neighborhood
• Chinese American neighborhood
• Asian American neighborhood
• Mexican American neighborhood
• English American neighborhood
• Spanish American neighborhood
• Greek American neighborhood
• Russian American neighborhood
• French American neighborhood
• Indian American neighborhood
• Hindu American neighborhood
• Native American neighborhood
• Hispanic American neighborhood
• Korean American neighborhood
• Protestant American neighborhood
• Catholic American neighborhood
• Islamic American neighborhood

All these other's have shorter names or don't exist yet. And the ones I found are basically just lists of ethnic enclaves like List of Italian-American neighborhoods. Is the title correct? Maybe the organization of the ethnic enclaves needs some work. Guess these articles should link into the Ethnic enclave articles sub articles. Using the American in the titles can help keep these ethnic enclaves American while the ethnic enclaves of other parts of the world can get their own names and articles. There are Chinatowns outside America but those in America can be in the Chinese American neighborhood article. Alatari (talk) 09:39, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This article is handled differently than most all other ethnic enclave articles. Most of the information could be moved to the article on African Americans leaving this a list of neighborhoods like the others. Although the name distinguishes it from little Africa's in other countries unlike the Chinatown article. See my talk in the discussion section. Alatari (talk) 05:09, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

This article is not handled any differently than the other articles. "African Americans" are a distinct ethnic group, and the history and culture of AA neighborhoods have little to do with Little Africas in other countries. This isn't an article about African neighborhoods in America. Chinatowns, Little Italys, etc have commonalities wherever they're found; it would be silly to separate the places from one country from all the rest. If any of the other ethnic neighborhood articles are just lists, it means that those articles need to be improved. This one is actually quite well written, especially considering that it's a new article. 208.201.238.208 (talk) 23:37, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

The list itself probably needs to be moved to List of African American neighborhoods and a request for more Little X articles need to be made. African American neighborhood is a distinct culture evolved only in America different from Little Africa or Little Haiti. I understand what you mean now. There's hundreds or thousands of ethnic neighborhoods in America and around the world. This is a major project. Alatari (talk) 14:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

There's something wrong with your list. Africa is a huge continent and all of the other ethnic enclaves you have described are for countries or religions. The comparable neighborhoods would be Asian American Neighboord, White American Neighborhood etc. Asian American Neighboord, is needlessly general, most of the time it's a China town or Little Korea or something like that. I don't know if little Africa is the correct title for enclaves of recent immigrants to various countries world wide. Shouldn't it be broken down by country or religion or something? I think we might need to consider making an article on White American Neighborhoods, (?) but we'd better work on the White American Culture article first --which is nothing but a problematic stub at present. History in part dictates the organization of these ideas, we can't expect perfect symmetry or we'll end up with absurdity. futurebird (talk) 16:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

African American communities vs. immigrant ethnic communities

I think African American communities are not exactly comparable to the ethnic communities listed in the previous section:

• many ethnic neighborhoods are transitional - immigrants come to those neighborhoods and then leave as they get upwardly mobile. The neighborhood remains ethnic only so long as there is a steady stream of immigrants needing a culturally familiar launching pad for their American experience. Many black neighborhoods have been quite a bit more than launching pads. Pre-civil rights there was no place to move out to. So they were the final destination. I suspect this had an important impact on the social structure and life of the community.
• African American communities, especially in the places listed on this page (Washington DC, Chicago, etc) aren't and never have existed to "transition" people into American culture. They are American from the get-go.
• Moving up and out has had a different effect on African American neighborhoods than it does on immigrant ethnic neighborhoods. I recall a talk a few years back from one of the major black leaders who came to my synagogue in Washington DC. He commented that one of the problems the black community in Washington DC was facing was that the community was becoming economically segregated. The forced mixing of social levels in black communities of old meant that the poor were close at hand and could be helped by the rich. Increasingly African American communities were becoming economically segregated with poor African Americans living in the inner city well out of the sight and consciousness of more well off members of the black community. In the 1980's there were some active efforts to address this problem: my freshman year of college I spent the summer volunteering at One Ministries/Third Street Church of God in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington DC. One ministries started as an outreach that married together urban churches with suburban churches to try to replace the social network lost when well off African Americans began leaving traditional black neighborhoods.

Just some thoughts, Egfrank 18:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

There are many differences in time and character between older ethnic neighborhoods and newer ones, whether African American or newer immigrants. We see now that ethnic groups lived in a neighborhood and then moved out, but often when the groups started, no one knew what the outcome would be. Ethnic groups that are the majority in a particular neighborhood changed in New York and in other cities over time - in some cases, African Americans of the first or second Great Migration replaced immigrant ethnic groups. In other more recent ones, such as changes in Los Angeles, newer immigrant groups (Latinos) are replacing African Americans in what had been a strongly black neighborhood.--Parkwells (talk) 21:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, African Americans were Americans when they went north on the Great Migration, but they and other Southerners tended to group each in their own neighborhoods, because of cultural differences as well as race and ethnicity. Many of the immigrants as well as black and white migrants from the South who went to northern cities were from rural cultures, unlike the people who had been living in the city for a while. They were in the same country, yes, but moving to drastically different environments in the cities. Whole communities went north together and learned urban skills together. --Parkwells (talk) 21:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

A side point - not all African American communities are the same - there is a big difference between the social dynamics of DC Shaw neighborhood (formed by freemen and former slaves and their descendents) and the various African immigrant communities in NYC. Also if we are talking about recent immigrants: East Africans (I was born in Uganda) aren't the same as West Africans - same continent, but not the same culture. Egfrank 18:54, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we can make it pretty clear that this article is about African-American descendants of slaves or free Negros. We can either make an article about African immigrant communites or make a note in this one. CJ 21:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

So would we refer to modern African immigrant enclaves as Little Africas instead? Alatari (talk) 17:37, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Either sounds good to me - the main thing is to make it clear. Might also want to touch briefly on some tensions that have arisen from it. I just took a look on the article on the Shaw neighborhood in DC and one issue it mentioned was some tensions that have developed because an Ethopian immigrant community has sprung up on the edges of the Shaw community and city wanted to give it a separate identity. Shaw residents aren't too happy about it. I wonder if the same problem exists in NYC?

I think there are some areas where there are tensions, yes, on both sides. Also in Washington, DC, many African immigrants were redeveloping the U Street corridor and becoming owners of stores there, whereas some of the African American residents in the neighborhood were among those who were more poor and isolated. --Parkwells (talk) 21:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

But I'm glad the focus is on the descendant communities - it is a story that needs to be told and it is a very important part of American history as well. Egfrank (talk) 22:06, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Missing neighborhoods

Although I do feel uncomfortable singling out our neighborhood for any reason because of the old redlining practices, our close neighborhoods of North St. Louis (the West Walnut Manor area, and also Jennings, Pine Lawn, the ghost town of Kinlock, and East St. Louis plus others) aren't listed. What sources are you using to choose these neighborhoods that are listed? Actually many of the listed towns have no sources showing their predominantly AA status and should be tagged . Year 2000 census data needs to be quoted in each case. Alatari (talk) 17:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

The list is totally subjective and in need of editing. I tried to choose "historically significant" neighborhoods and I favored those with slightly longer wikipedia articles. I don't want to end up listing every single neighborhood. There are far too many, but ideal the list would serve as a jumping point for people interested in reading more... I'm fully open to change.

On the other hand, "current majority" population isn't really the point. Historical significance is. futurebird (talk) 18:21, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

The Walnut Park area of St. Louis was like the Hell's Kitchen in New York and is now predominantly AA and is subdivided amongst several townships. It's being called a ghost town by some because it has lost it's cultural identity. I need help rebuilding a page dedicated to it's history. The others I listed were the most influential or most populous of the many in St. Louis County/City. Alatari (talk) 22:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

citation requested

The first paragraph states AA Neighborhoods effected American culture in general. Not sure who requested the citation but I suppose the influences on dance and music would work. Elvis was recruited to singlike the music coming out of Black neighborhoods. Would an Elvis example be a supporting source? Alatari (talk) 14:50, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

List of African American neighborhoods

Because of the length and content in the primary article, I think an article entitled List of African American neighborhoods should be developed. A table with significant dates and notes could be created. • Freechild'sup? 17:35, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. This has become the list that ate the article.—Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 02:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Removed during some cleaning

I was editing the "built environment" section and removed the following from a sentence:

"Although after the Great Migration from the rural South... [retained text] ...there are a growing number of suburban neighborhoods with black majority populations or with a significant population."

I did this because it had nothing to do with the section header. I saved it and pasted it here just in case it should added elsewhere. Huw Powell (talk) 03:26, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

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