Small Differences

I am researching an historical neighborhood that was once an enclave for merchants and other Jewish immigrants to a burgeoning Dallas. The Jews experienced residential restrictions at the time the neighborhood was built, from 1910-1935. They built their essentially segregated neighborhoods to be close to downtown, their Elm Street shops, and their temple and school.

Dallas already had a sizable black population at that time. Most lived in the Freedman's area just north of downtown and -- directly across the Houston & Texas Central tracks -- in near east Dallas. As the Central tracks gave way to Central Expressway, much of Freedman's town (including the cemetery) was uprooted. This area is now the toney Uptown area of Dallas. As soldiers, including black servicemen, returned from WWII, and people migrated from rural to urban areas, the already significant shortage of housing available to black residents in Dallas was exacerbated by this influx of returning veterans and increasing urbanization of the area.

Both de facto and formal residential segregation measures continued to prevent migration of blacks to the established, upper-middle class and upper-class white areas of North and East Dallas. South Dallas is where most of the in-migrating blacks moved, including the typically Jewish areas. Additionally, upperwardly-mobile blacks began to migrate from the tougher black area north of downtown to the middle-class Jewish neighborhoods just south and east of downtown.

In 1949, the first black family moved onto Atlanta Street. As others moved in, the white families moved out. By 1952, South Dallas was about 90% black. The former upscale Jewish enclave of the Park Row - South Boulevard area experienced the same residential upheaval. My study will look at the stories of some of the people who lived in the Craftsman, Prairie-style, Historical Revival bungalows and mansions along the two streets of this neighborhood during those exciting years of upward mobility and home ownership within the context of an ongoing struggle for civil rights. This is the story of ethnic segregation, integration, and racial resegration.

While searching for something quite unrelated, I came across this sweet video. Perhaps we can all take a lesson from these odd-fellows in the animal kingdom. Enjoy.