At a Black History Month panel discussion in Charlotte on Tuesday, speakers weighed in on how urban renewal and desegregation have affected local Black communities and brought back painful memories as the city debates building new toll lanes near uptown.
The panel included Black residents who lived through Charlotte’s school desegregation programs in the 1970s and the destruction of Black neighborhoods, such as Brooklyn, to make way for new highways in the 1960s.
“Charlotte's story is dynamically Black,” said Winston Robinson, one of the event's facilitators. "Spaces that might seem affluent were once home to Black communities, places that you are in uptown, there might be nightclubs, buildings, these were once spaces where Black communities thrived and existed.”
Gerald Patton, 61, had family members displaced when the Brooklyn neighborhood was torn down. He says plans to build new toll lanes on Interstate 77 near two historically Black Charlotte neighborhoods bring back memories.
“The toll road that they’re proposing, that’s going to displace — or could possibly — some of those same communities the second time,” Patton said.
Last week, some residents disrupted a city council member's town hall in protest of the plans. Queens student Jalen Jones attended the forum and said he wants more young people to learn their history.
“If younger generations came over, they’re the people that really need to hear this,” Jones said. "They’re the people that have no idea, maybe of what these people went through.”
Tuesday's discussion was part of the Sarah Stevenson Tuesday Forum. Stevenson was a former teacher who helped CMS create a plan to desegregate schools.
