Urban renewal demolished Black Bottom, Detroit’s African American cultural epicenter

Evidence

The first community-engaged learning experience was to the Black Bottom/ Lafayette Park neighborhood of Detroit, which was once an epicenter for African American culture, community, and business before it was demolished by urban renewal projects (Black Bottom Street View, 2019). — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 345

The first community-engaged learning experience was to the Black Bottom/ Lafayette Park neighborhood of Detroit, which was once an epicenter for African American culture, community, and business before it was demolished by urban renewal projects (Black Bottom Street View, 2019). Following inclass preparation, TCs visited the Lafayette Park neighborhood of Detroit through a historical walking tour in order to uncover the history of Black Bottom. A multimedia project of Black Bottom primary sources through the Detroit Public Library was connected to the walking tour. — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 345

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on mid-century urban renewal erasing Black neighborhoods, echoing themes from Sugrue’s The Origins of the Urban Crisis which is cited here.
• FICTION: A demolished neighborhood that was once an epicenter of Black culture, buried under urban renewal, is a ready-made setting for a story about erased memory and reclamation.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 345