Racial Tension leads to Community Displacement
The first white settlers in Southwest Philadelphia were Swedes, who arrived before 1640. Except in small number, Blacks did not begin to settle there until the late 1960′s (Infield, 11/24/85). Census data from 1930 to 1950 showed that there was basically no change in the racial composition of the neighborhood. It was approximately 95 percent white, and five percent Black. As more and more whites during the first and second World Wars, began to move into the suburbs, more Blacks began to enter the neighborhood. During the 1960′s, the area west and north of Woodland Avenue changed very quickly as the Black population went from 15 percent in 1960, to 55 percent in 1970 and 84 percent in 1980 (Infield, 11/24/85).
As a result of the “racial mixing”, Southwest Philadelphia has been burdened with :acial tension and violent eruptions for decades. During the 1950′s and 60′s there was almost a yearly occurrence of serious problems during the summer months, which included shootings, beatings, and stabbings. In the early 1970′s, Myers Recreation Center at _58th and Kingsessing and other playgrounds became battlegrounds for Black youths and the Dirty Armies, a white gang (Infiled, 11 /24/85).
On April 9, 1971 a white youth admitted to killing a 14-year-old Black honor student with a broomstick. On May 10″‘ of that same year, four white youth members of the Dirty Armies stabbed a young Black man at the age of 20 to death. In March 1972, a 15-year-old white boy was attacked and stabbed to death at 59th and Trinity Streets. Four Black youths were arrested for that slaying (lnfled, 11/24/85),
The violence subsided for some time, until June of 1979 when three Black teenagers were shot at by the sniper fire of a .22 caliber-rifle from the roof of a cardboard factory at 60th Street and Springfield Avenue. One of the victims later died of multiple gunshot wounds. Four hours following that shooting, a white teenager was attacked and beaten by Black teenagers as he boarded a trolley. Then a 57-year-old white man was beaten as he waited in his car at a traffic light. Tensions grew so thick in Southwest that Bartram High School and Tilden Middle School were closed a week before the end of the term (Infiled, 11/24/85).
A few nights later, 300 Black youths staged a bottle-throwing, traffic-stopping protest. That same night, a mile away, two white youths were pulled off of their bicycles and clubbed by six Black youths carrying baseball bats. Following that, white youths with pipes smashed the car windows of a Black man waiting at a traffic light. Again, civic leaders wielded their influence and helped to calm the community, violence resurfaced in April 1980 when a 14 year-old white boy was stabbed repeatedly and killed at the J. Francis Finegan Playground at 69th and Grovers Avenue. He, along with two of his friends, had been chased into the playground by 25 to 30 Black youths carrying baseball bats and golf clubs. A few days later, a black man was stabbed by four white youths as he waited for a trolley about 10 blocks away (Infiled, 11/24/85).
On November 20, 1985, about 400 white residents demonstrated in front of a house on the 2500 block of South 61×1 Street, where a Black couple had recently moved
in on November 3 d. The crowd shouted, “We want them out! We want them out!” Prior to that night, the couple experienced incidents such as BBs being shot at their windows, bottles being thrown at the house, the front window was shattered with a rock, and their oldest son was beaten and chased down by white youths (Gibbons, Heidorn, and Kennedy, 11/21/85, Loeb, 1/4/86). They moved into the house not knowing that they would be the only Blacks on the block.
According to the City Planning Commission, the area where the incident occurred was first developed in the 1920s. The last U.S. census tract showed that the street was almost exclusively white with about 7,000 whites and 20 blacks_ The residents were mostly of Irish and Italian descent. According to city planners, various areas in Southwest Philadelphia have changed from solidly white to solidly black over the past two decades (Infiled and Wagenveld, 11/22/85).
The next night, a crowd of 200 people gathered outside the home of an interracial couple near 64th and Buist Avenues. The mayor of Philadelphia at the time, William Gode put in place a state of emergency which banned outdoor gatherings of more than tour people in an area bounded by South 60th and 68th (originally 70th) Streets, Elmwood and Lindberg Boulevard. People would only be allowed to gather in larger groups if they ~~ ere involved in daily routines such as waiting for a bus or engaging in recreational or reiMzious activities_ Mayor Goode grew up in Southwest Philadelphia on Greenway Avenue near 69th Street, and went to school there. He said that he considered the neighborhood to be a “ticking time bomb” (Linn, 11/24/85).
With the protests, the residents wanted to make a point that “we have a tight-knit neighborhood that is being surrounded by a black sea. Here comes a stream. And what follows a stream? A river, and then an ocean” (Infiled and Wagenveld, 11/22/85). Even despite protect ve measures, residents stated, “I’m going to tell you something: You can’t protect this house forever” (Gibbons, Heidorn, and Kennedy, 11/21/85).
Less than a month after the Black couple put the down payment on their home in Southwest Philadelphia, they decided to move out of the area. On December 12, 1985, after they had moved, their house was set on fire and extensive damage was incurred. They still had some belongings in the home, which were destroyed. A member of the North Philadelphia branch of the NAACP said, I guess they were right to get out of this neighborhood, because they felt all along that the Police Department could not protect them” (Wagenveld, Gibbons, and Coakley, 12/31/85). Four young white Southwest Philadelphia men were arrested for setting the home on fire.
Another woman was quoted saying, “We’re fighting for freedom for our brothers and sisters in South Africa, and we don’t even have it in {Southwest} Philadelphia, and it hurts” (Wagenveld, Colimore, and Lopez, 11/24/85).
In September 1991, a new type of racial tension began to emerge as tensions between the white and Asian community surfaced. In August, an 18-year-old white former high school basketball star was stabbed to death in the park in what police say was a clash between whites and Asians. A 24-year-old Chinese-Vietnamese restaurant worker was charged with the murder. Many Asians in the community feared retaliation in a neighborhood that frequently refers to them as “gooks” and speak to them in threatening tones.
`Beginning in 1975, large numbers of Southeast Asians began settling in Philadelphia. Many were placed there by resettlement agencies because the housing was stable and affordable. When relatives and other Southeast Asians followed, they settled in the same neighborhoods for support and a sense of the familiar in unfamiliar surroundings” (Marriott, 9/3/91). By the mid-1980′s, There were more Southeast Asians in Southwest Philadelphia than in any other part of the city.
USP Displacement by George Donnelly and Felicia Saunders
Displacement of communities can be accomplished through many forms. The University of Pennsylvania displaced a community by using its power within city government to get areas zoned as “blighted” and receive permission to evict families, bulldoze their homes, and develop the land for their own means.
In Southwest Philadelphia, the process has not been as blatant, but it has had a similar effect in terms of displacing the population. The University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, formerly the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, has been increased enrollment drastically over the last twenty years. While the school has not used the eminent domain power tactics employed by Penn in the 1960’s, its expansion has caused displacement by drastically changing the real estate market in the surrounding neighborhoods.
The real estate prices in the area surrounding USP have increased dramatically in the last ten years, pricing out many of the residents that use to inhabit the neighborhood. The Interactive Google Map feature allows visitors to see the increased home prices in the area directly surrounding USP. While this sort of displacement does not have the same horrific narrative as Penn’s destruction in the Black Bottom, it has had the same effect. The increased home prices have encouraged older residents to cash in by selling to real estate firms, and have forced younger residents of the neighborhood to find housing elsewhere. I would term what has happened around USP as a “market-based displacement,” as the real estate market, heavily influenced by USP’s expansion, has been the main cause of the displacement in the Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood.
Blight Certification as a means to displace residents:
Eminent Domain is established once an area is certified as blighted which allows Developers to purchase property at below market prices and displace residents. Link to May 2005 Blight Certification for the area bounded by S. 57th Street, Hoffman Avenue, Cobbs Creek Parkway & Baltimore Avenue: http://www.philaplanning.org/plans/areaplans/baltimore57br.pdf
