Bulldozing through the Harlem of the South

“In a kind of parting shot…  as whites fled, those highways [to suburbia] were often routed specifically through African American neighborhoods….

“In Durham, for example, [N.C.] Route 147 was built to help connect the downtown manufacturing and business center with land being developed and sold almost exclusively to whites in suburbs north of the city. That highway…  displaced Durham’s main  African American business district, so well known for its cultural vitality  and economic success that it was called the Harlem of the South in the years when  Harlem was its most vibrant.”

— From “Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile and Its Effect on Our Lives” by Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez (2010)