Urban Renewal and the Civil Rights Movement
In this newsfilm clip from 1968, Atlanta architect Cecil Alexander discusses the issue of racial integration in public housing. Courtesy of Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, WSB-TV newsfilm collection.
This newsfilm clip from 1967 shows Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr. and Reverend Borders breaking ground on the Wheat Street Gardens housing project. Courtesy of Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, WSB-TV newsfilm collection.
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In January 1966 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, Ralph Abernathy, and Juanita Abernathy led a protest march to call attention of substandard housing. In this photograph Dr. King visits a Vine City resident in her home.
Courtesy of the Atlanta History Center, Bill Wilson Photographs, 1938-1979, undated.
In the 1960s the United States was grappling with the civil rights movement, which sought to end racial discrimination and segregation. With the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, public housing in the U.S. became integrated for the first time. Civil rights activists played a significant role in promoting equitable development. In Atlanta, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s visit to Vine City highlighted the poor housing conditions in the neighborhood and encouraged Mayor Allen to reconsider the city’s approach to urban renewal projects. The integration of public housing represented substantial progress; however, many majority-Black neighborhoods continued to suffer from the threat of demolition. In direct response to the destruction of neighborhoods like Buttermilk Bottom and Washington-Rawson and the failure of the city to provide housing to displaced residents, Reverend William Holmes Borders established Wheat Street Gardens, the nation’s first federally subsidized, church-operated rental housing project. Wheat Street Gardens saw its first residents in 1964 and provided new housing in an area that had been harmed by expressway construction.