Interstates were deliberately plotted to serve as racial boundary lines

Evidence

While interstates were regularly used to destroy Black neighborhoods, they were also used to keep Black and white neighborhoods apart. Today, major roads and highways serve as stark dividing lines between Black and white sections in cities like Buffalo, Hartford, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. In Atlanta, the intent to segregate was crystal clear. Interstate 20, the east-west corridor that connects with I-75 and I-85 in Atlanta’s center, was deliberately plotted along a winding route in the late 1950s to serve, in the words of Mayor Bill Hartsfield, as “the boundary between the white and Negro communities” on the west side of town. Black neighborhoods, he hoped, would be hemmed in on one side of the new expressway, while white neighborhoods on the other side of it would be protected. Racial residential patterns have long since changed, of course, but the awkward path of I-20 remains in place. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1200

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reframing thesis: infrastructure built under explicit segregationist intent is the literal, permanent shape of the city — a concrete instance of how design choices perpetuate the original system.
• SEED: Angle: ‘The mayor literally drew the line’ — a piece on the documented quotes and maps showing city planners declaring segregationist intent, versus the eternal retrospective denial that any racial intent existed.