I could go on and on about the problems and hurdles that Russell faces, but I'm not. I've always been the type of guy to focus on solutions. I believe in order to find a solution you first must know what the problem is, but more importantly, the root cause of the problem. That's why this first installment deals so much with Louisville's history. You have to know how you got to where you are if you plan to move forward. In the following installments I'm going to talk about plans that we have come up with to try and revitalize Russell. I'm also going to talk a lot about how to get the ear of your elected officials. To get them to pay attention to you and act on your proposals. Maybe you might be able to learn something that could benefit your neighborhood or city. We could also learn a thing or 2 from you as well. Let's start with a brief history lesson.
I'm not going to go in-depth into the history of Russell and the history of African-Americans in Louisville, but I will give you a brief overview. I believe this is essential because some of the things that have happened in Louisville's past is directly affecting what's going on today. But you can say this about almost every city and it's relationship to it's majority African-American neighborhoods.
First lets look at the history of Louisville and the history of race relations in Louisville. In the early years Louisville was a key player in Slavery in the United States. After the United States outlawed the importation Africans, Louisville became the central distribution point of slaves being sold to the south. The term "sold down the river" was first coined in Louisville. Slaves, like horses, were bred on Ky farms, and brought to Louisville to be "sold down the river" to plantations in the south. At the same time Louisville was also home to free Blacks. Free Blacks who had the right to vote. In fact, were encourage to vote. This is quite odd. In every other city in Kentucky the opposite was true. In fact, many of the cities free blacks lived in houses in predominately White neighborhoods. Now, these houses fronted the alleys and were very small, but they were still in wealthy White neighborhoods. Louisville really wasn't segregated until the Black population crossed the 10% barrier. Until then Blacks could go to movie theaters and sit in the front row, sit anywhere on street cars, and the like. This again, is the exact opposite of what happened everywhere else in Kentucky.
Louisville has always been a city where the main populace never really wants to ruffle any feathers. A go along to get along type of city. It always has been and it still is. Don't get me wrong. Blacks may have had it a tad bit easier in Louisville than in many cities in the south and north, but there still was a lot of racism in the city. Louisville still had it's share of violent protest and riots.
Another major influence on race relations in Louisville and on the psyche of the city as a whole is it's location. Louisville was once known as the gateway to the south. All Ohio river traffic had to stop here. Most railways ran right through Louisville. However, if you look at the map, Louisville is in a kind of no mans land. We aren't the South. We have some southern ways, but we're not southern. We're not exactly in the Midwest. We have some midwestern architecture (just like we have a great mix of Southern architecture), and we have some midwestern attitudes, but we still aren't quite midwestern. We have a little East Coast attitude, and some of that western frontier spirit. However, we are neither east nor west. Louisville has an identity crisis. We can be very progressive and we can be very conservative all at the same time. That's why Blacks always had the right to vote, and were encourage to vote. But, there was still rampant racism. That's why we propose these grand building projects, but then we fight them tooth and nail.
With the history of Louisville as a backdrop lets look at a brief history of Russell. Russell was originally one of Louisville's first "suburbs." The neighborhood that would become known as Russell was founded around the 1870's. It was a place where the city's wealthiest citizens would call home. They moved to stately victorian mansions on such grand streets as Jefferson, Walnut (president day Muhammad Ali Blvd.), and Chestnut. The streets in-between these, Madison, Ceder, and Magazine is where the working class lived. Behind the Mansions there were small shotgun houses that fronted the alleys. In most of these houses is where some of Louisville's Black population lived. As the Black population of Louisville started to rise they slowly moved into Russell. As more and more Blacks moved in the white population started to move out. White flight. By the early 1900's Russell was pretty much an all black neighborhood.
Russell was the center of African-American life in Louisville. It was the Harlem of KY. Russell was a mix of some of the wealthiest African-Americans , the working class, and some of it's poorest citizens. The settlement pattern pretty much followed that of the previous inhabitants. The wealthiest African-Americans lived on Jefferson, Walnut and Chestnut. the rest on the streets that fall in-between those.
Russell also boasted a rich business district known as Old Walnut Street. Old Walnut Street was home to several theaters, restaurants, night clubs, roller rinks, homes and schools. It was the heart of Russell. It was also Russell's connection to the heart of the city. If you look at a map of the City Russell is pretty much shaped like a square. The original neighborhood was bounded by 6th street on the eastern edge, Jefferson street on the northern edge, Broadway on the Southern edge, and 32nd street on it's western edge.
Russell's declined followed that of many inner-city neighborhoods. First, the end of de-facto segregation meant that Russell's wealthiest residents could move out of the neighborhood. Which they did. Urban Renewal did the rest. Under Urban Renewal's watch Russell lost it's connection to the heart of the city. Everything from 6th to 9th street was torn down. Everything on Old Walnut street except two buildings were razed. In fact, they razed almost every structure in Russell to 13th Street. Russell was effectively cut off from the rest of the city. 9th street now became Russell's western edge. Then when 1-64 was being built the 9th street exit became of 4 lane boulevard with a tree lined center median. 9th street went from your typical city street to what was described above. All in all Russell lost over 5000 businesses, and homes. It was replaced by approximately 500 low income housing units. Most of what was razed was east of 9th street was turned into surface parking. All of this took about 30 years, and Russell has never fully recovered.
Now what? How do we go about revitalizing Russell? In the next installment I'm going to talk about how we can revitalize Russell. Why some of the city's best half-hearted efforts have failed, and why should we even care.
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