Talk:Scotlandville, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

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Scotlandville is a community in northern Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was originally a small, independent rural community that developed along the Mississippi river in northern East Baton Rouge Parish. Originally being called Scotland due to the high bluff facing the Mississippi River called Scott’s bluff, much of Scotlandville was former a plantation that was settled by former slaves of the plantation and other families from the surrounding areas. In its early years there was not much growth in the community only having one African American family and a few more Italian families. It drastically grew in population so much that it became the largest African American town in Louisiana. At its peak population numbers reached 30,000.

Gradually Scotlandville became industrialized, beginning with a Standard Oil refinery in 1909, and was a destination of African Americans to urban areas in the Great Inward Migration beginning around World War I. This type of migration saw large amounts of African Americans moving from rural communities to urbanized communities within local proximity instead of the traditional Great Migration. Its growth was stimulated also by construction of railroads along the Mississippi River. With the relocated Southern University, Scotlandville again took another turn as being the hub for African American public higher education in Louisiana.

History

In an area long occupied by indigenous peoples, Scotlandville was gradually settled after the United States acquired this territory. It was a rural area farmed after the Civil War by an assortment of European Americans and freedmen.The only documented African-American family living in the village before the establishment of Southern University in 1914 was that of William "Dreher" Kelly and his wife Priscilla. Evidence has been uncovered which supports the hypothesis that many former slaves did not walk away after been freed but remained on the plantation of their former master. Some persons, however, did move into the area from other places. The area was mostly farmland into the early 20th century, with other black farmers and sharecroppers. Scotlandville grew to little town that is geographically located on the west by the Mississippi River, on the east by the Plank Road, on the south by Highway 190 and on the north by Thomas Road. It became largest Black town in the state of Louisiana and is about 97% populated with African-American people. The citizens of Scotlandville, for the most part, do not know how it got its beginning or who settled there first. However, one long time citizen said, “that Scotlandville was first called Showen, Louisiana and was later changed to Scotlandville because of the bluff alongside the Mississippi.

In 1911, Scotlandville was nothing but a farm area and a hunting ground. It was popular for deer hunting. The area was mostly farmland into the early 20th century, with other black farmers and sharecroppers. The first grocery store in Scotlandville was owned by an Italian, Willie Drago. It was located on Scenic Highway and Swan Street. Scotlandville at this time did not have a very active social class. The community’s small amount of residents mainly kept to their homes as gathering spaces for storytelling and news of the day. It was not until the Odd Fellow organization that the society began a more outward social culture.

In 1912 the state of Louisiana bought 531 acres in Scotlandville for the construction of the relocated Southern University and A&M College, a historically black college and land grant college. The state legislature wanted it moved from New Orleans to an area with more land. The state later acquired another 372 acres to support the agricultural portion of its curriculum. Southern University was built on Scott's Bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. Even though the University was going to be located on the Kernan Plantation purchased by the state, the area continued to be referred to as Scotland due to the Scotts Bluff being the river entryway into the land. A natural harbor of the river was the location of a landing post for shiploads of slaves who were carried to or from New Orleans, prior to the Civil War. Isaac Franklin, a noted slave trader, reported the landing of slaves at this locale. The earliest settlement on the banks of the River, near this landing post, was spearheaded by a cotton planter named Scott Before there was an official name for the town some parts were called Scot’s Bluff. This name was given because 80% to 90% of the traveled movement of people and freight was by boat and the name of the boat landing or post was Scot’s Bluff.19. Sometime following the Reconstruction Era the land area was given an official name. After many proposals and suggestions, it was, officially, designated as Scotlandville, Louisiana.

Scotlandville grew into a business hub and self-sustaining community. It provided doctors, dentists, bus lines, gas stations, grocery stores and more. It even had its own post office and train. What makes this community unique is that it has kept much of its culture of rural to urban life.

When Standard Oil Company opened a processing plant here in 1909, it attracted many new workers, including rural black migrants from other areas of the state, and immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. It operated for decades, providing good jobs for graduates of Southern University.

After World War II, black veterans such as Acie Belton of Scotlandville organized voter registration drives in order to overcome the disenfranchisement of most African Americans. In 1946 there were only 137 black voters registered in East Baton Rouge Parish. In the next few years, he and others increased the number of black registered voters in the parish to more than 2,000, mostly from Scotlandville. Knowing that engagement in politics was critical, they and other leaders continued with civil rights activities into the 1960s and later. They established the Second Ward Voters League during this early registration movement, and it still is active in evaluating and endorsing candidates. Scotlandville has a rich culture and is a close-knit community with residents that are striving for a better quality of living.

Incorporation controversy

Scotlandville has had a very controversial past with incorporation. It had an unsuccessful effort back in the 1940s to incorporate as a town which the city council rejected. For much of its history Scotlandville has viewed itself as its own entity being neighbors but not a part of the city of Baton Rouge proper. It again made an effort in the 1970 which the whole parish voted against. Subsequently a small group within Scotlandville lobbied to become a part of city of Baton Rouge. Much of the residents were against it but the small groups citing needs for resources and access ended up winning out. Thus unincorporated town of Scotlandville became part of the city of Baton Rouge in the 1980s. . Scotlandville has its own unique culture and traditions that make it very distinctive in the area. It is much more than a neighborhood, being that it encompasses different neighborhoods, social economic backgrounds and educational backgrounds.

Government and infrastructure

Today Scotlandville is a community within Baton Rouge and overseen by its government, The East Baton Rouge Parish government.

Country: United States

State: Louisiana

City: Baton Rouge

Planning District: District 2 (partial) District 10 (partial)

Community District North Baton Rouge

Settled: 1865 named 1878

Named for: Scots Bluff (Istrouma Bluff)

Area

• Total: 3.146sq mi

Population (2016)

• Total 17,751

• Density: 3284/sq. mi

Economics

• Median income: $38,790

Time zone: UTC−6 (Central) • Summer (DST) UTC−5. (EDT)

Area code: 225

Politically, Scotlandville is in Louisiana‘s 2nd Congressional District. It is in the Louisiana state senate districts 14 and 15, Louisiana legislative district’s 29th and 63rd districts.

The East Baton Rouge Parish Library operates the Scotlandville Branch Library. The library first opened on July 1, 1974, in a leased property, in a 2,550-square-foot (237 m²) building of a strip-style shopping center controlled by Horatio Thompson. The library temporarily closed on August 20, 2001. It moved into a 17,985-square-foot (1,670.9 m²) stand-alone building and reopened in October 2001.

Jetson Center for Youth (JCY), a former youth prison operated by the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) in a nearby unincorporated area close to Baker, is near Scotlandville and was at one time known by the same name. In January 2014 the residents were relocated to other Office of Juvenile Justice facilities, and JCY was closed. As of 2017 Jetson housed Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women (LCIW) prisoners displaced by flooding as well as the LCIW administration.

While still independent, Scotlandville became a large black community with business owners, schools, land owners and a culture of self-sufficiency. Many residents often spoke about Scotlandville never wanted for anything because it had everything. In the 20th century, with much push back from the community it was incorporated into Baton Rouge.

The boundaries for Scotlandville are the Mississippi River to the west, Thomas Road to the north, Plank road to the east, and airline highway to the south. Scotlandville is a very important staple in understanding the African-American rural to urban culture as well as being breeding grounds for education, farming, business and music such as the blues.

Geography

Due to its unique location Scotlandville sits on the Istrouma Bluff. This makes it one of the highest points within the East Baton Rouge Parish making it least likely to flood. It has the Mississippi River as the major water way. Other waterways are Lake Kernan, Bayou Monte Sano, and Devils Swamp.

Demographics

As of the census estimate of 2013, there were 11,217 people As of the 2016 there were 13,155 people.

Like many black communities in the south, the community has grown from a former plantation with a small rural village to small urbanized town. In 1914, only a small number of African-American families lived in the village in when Southern University and A&M College was relocated to this community. Originally based in New Orleans, the university was designated in 1890 as the state's land grant college for African Americans, when education was segregated in the state. The only non-black families were Italian families who were at that time viewed as lower class than the greater Anglo community. Gradually Scotlandville became industrialized, beginning with a Standard Oil refinery in 1909, and was a destination of African Americans to urban areas in the Inward Great Migration beginning around World War I. Its growth was stimulated also by construction of railroads along the Mississippi River. In 1960, the population of Scotlandville was 18,433, of which 3,676, or 20%, was White and 14,575, or 80%, was Black (U.S. Census, 1960). According to the U.S. Census (1970), the total population of the state of Louisiana was 3,643,180, of which 2,241,298, or 70%, was White, 1,086,839, or 30%, was Black, and 858 persons belonged to other races. The population of Scotlandville in 1970 was 22,557, of which only 1,850, or 8.2%, was White; the rest of the population-numbering 20,677, or 91.8%-was Black (U.S. Census 1970). This means that within one decade, the racial imbalance in Scotlandville intensified by more than 11%-that is to say, there was a 50% decrease in the white population. The black population in Scotlandville peaked in 1970s, with a 30,832 the population which included the University. As of 2010, Scotlandville ‘s black population comprised roughly 17,000 showing black population that is declining due to many African Americans moving out and the University enrollment shrinking.

Education

The East Baton Rouge Parish School System manages the public schools from K-12. Scotlandville Magnet High School is located in Scotlandville. Southern University Laboratory School, K-12 is also located in Scotlandville. Press L. Robinson, a Southern University administrator and professor of chemistry, was the first African American elected to the parish school board in modern times. He served for 22 years, including one term as vice-president and three terms as president.

Southern University and A&M College has been located in Scotlandville since 1914. From a small school of 500 students through 1938, in the post-World War II era, it expanded to 10,000 students by the late 1960s and through the 1990s. From the beginning, the presence of the college stimulated related businesses and encouraged more blacks to settle in the area, including faculty and staff. This became the largest black-majority community in the state before World War II.

The community college for area residents is Baton Rouge Community College, founded in 1995.

Economy

Historically, the financial weaknesses of the citizens of Scotlandville have been poor. The failure for this financial downfall may be placed into two categories. One is the result of large families and the other is that the residents have not placed their values on the right necessities of life. Not being educated enough to budget themselves along with large families, and also working for small salaries gave the citizens of Scotlandville a tremendous set-back economically. During the 1960’s the populace of Scotlandville organized the “Scotlandville Federal Credit Union.” The purpose of the credit union was to assist the Scotlandville residents financially and also to educated them about the high rate of interest at finance companies. An additional point about the stability of residents of the Scotlandville community was home ownership. Although the median annual income of the people of Scotlandville was $6,538, about two thirds that of Baton Rouge, the percentage of home ownership in the two communities was nearly equal: According to Steptoe and Poister (1973), 38% of those interviewed owned their homes, and 31% were buying their houses (p. 5). The home owning level had been significantly influenced by the fact that about 20% of the applicable household-head participants in the labor force were professional workers, mostly University and public school teachers.

Sites located in or near Scotlandville that are important to African American history

Southern University system (Including Southern University Law center, Southern University Agriculture center, Southern University Museum of African Art,)

Scott’s Bluff

Southern Heights subdivision

JS Clark Memorial Golf Park

Culture

The following is a documented historical account of Scotlandville taken from the writings of Willie B Webber

“Growing up a Scotlandville provided me with many notable and cherished memories such as”:

1. Henry Simms. The first self - appointed truant Officer and Juvenile Correctional Officer. His legs were amputated at the knees and he rode a White Horse through the Scotlandville area. All children respected his presence. They went to school and stayed there. He checked at school daily to see if any children were absent or had been misbehaving. In the summer all children took a nap in the middle of the day because Henry Simms said do it. When he was cited by one child, his name rang out and was passed on all over the area to warn all children to go inside and “take your nap”

2. Scotlandville Rosenwald School Board Members Fred Davis, Amanda Kelly, Annie B. Knox and Amelia Lewis. The main purposes were to hire good teachers plan activities to raise money to buy school supplies, help with the provisioning of free lunch and support many other school related and recreational activities for children.

3. The mad dog and hobo warning-whenever these were in area at the first citing someone would holler out and someone far away would hear und holler out until the word was all over Scotlandville , to watch out and be aware of possible danger.

4. Train rides from the old train station to New Orleans.

5. The Tolling of the church bell to let everyone know a member had died.

6. Many people wore Costumes all day Mardi Gras Day, roaming the area, partying and sometimes frightening children.

7. Street Fairs in the 8400 block of Scotland Ave or on Rosenwald Rd. In the summer there were ferris wheels, flying Horses, swings, cotton candy, peanuts, popcorn, ice cream, snowballs, pickles and games of all kinds.

8. Movies of Cook’s Theater

9. Candle Marches and suppers given to raise money for the church.

10. Revival week Mt. Caramel followed by a big baptizing in the lake at S U

11. Children looked up to preachers, teachers and community leaders as role models for someone to pattern their dress, speech, morality and discipline after.

12. Mrs. Alvin Eugene Eames, the self-appointed recreational leader for children through Church activities. Mrs. Eames was a member of the Methodist church but she gathered Children from any denomination to participate in field trips, retreats, dramas, style shows and Tom Thumb weddings. We took trips to Bay St. Louis, Abita Springs, Lincoln beach and other recreational areas

13. Community recreational activities for youth at Anna T Jordan Recreation Center (team sports, individual sports, the waistline parties, dramas, etc.)

14. Church (Mount Carmel BC) Easter Sunrise service and Easter egg hunts.

15. Vacation Bible School and Culminating Trips and fun days

16. Participating in the end of school activities involving students from all parish Schools (black)

17. John Earl " Pool " Simms worked at Riegers Drug store. He allowed us to read the funny books with the promise to bring them back in “like New” condition. When we tried return then he would loud talk us by yelling “Don’t try to give these back to me, you have then all the reading off of them”. As embarrassing as it was were repeated the same ritual when the new books came in.

18 Scotlandville Baseball Team “The White Sox”.

19. Acie Belton -Political and Civil Rights activist

20. The Louisiana Education Association (LEA) Building on Scenic Hwy, under the guidance of J K Haynes”

You can still see black horse riders to this day trotting the streets, and pulling up at local corner stores parking their animals as if it was a car. Many traditions still take place but not in the public sphere. The resident will be quick to tell you that Scotlandville is not a neighborhood but a community or town filled with different neighborhoods. The culture has always been about self-sufficiency, education, and growth.

References

• Emanuel, Rachel L.; Ruby Jean Simms; and Charles Vincent. Scotlandville. Arcadia Publishing, June 1, 2015. ISBN 1439651582, 9781439651582.

Category:Geography of Baton Rouge, Louisiana