The Interstate System is 46,876 miles long and it cost almost $130 billion to build. However, the construction of the cross-country network of highways also cost countless Black people their homes, livelihoods, and communities.
I-95 and Overtown, Florida: The second-oldest neighborhood in Miami, “The Harlem of the South,” was built by Black laborers. It was home to Black businesses and middle-class families. By 1964 when I-95 was completed, 15,000 Black people had been forced from their homes. Dozens of businesses were forced to shut down.
I-85 & Montgomery, Alabama: Montgomery was one of the birthplaces of the civil rights movement. It’s been theorized that the construction of I-85 in the mid-1960s was designed to punish civil rights leaders and suppress the Black vote. About 356 homes in the predominantly Black towns of Centennial Hill, Bel Air, and The Bottoms, were razed.
I-81 and Syracuse, New York: Syracuse remains one of the most segregated cities in the county, largely because of I-81, which was completed by 1968. The 15th Ward is where 90% of the city’s Black population lived, and even though residents vehemently protested the construction, 1,300 families were displaced.
Too many Black lives have been affected by interstate construction that wears the mask of systemic racism. But we have the power to build new communities — because no interstate is stronger than the Black connection.