August 1, 2023 • 51 mins
President Biden's Infrastructure bill aims to address racism in America's highway design. In this episode, host Roy Wood Jr. sits down with Daily Show writer Randall Otis and ACLU President Deborah Archer to discuss how the initial construction of U.S. highways displaced and destroyed thriving Black communities, the legacy of racist transportation policies, and how to repair and rebuild highways without inflicting additional harm on Black communities.
Originally air date: April 5, 2022
Watch the original segment: https://youtu.be/kvDjgFpROVM
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey, welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast
that goes a little deeper into segments and topics that
originally aired on the show. This is what this podcast
is like. This podcast is like you know when you
get an unexpected first class upgrade. You know, you thought
you was gonna be in coach with a middle set
with a kid with the cheeto dust and he's trying
to touch your hair and you're fighting somebody for an armrest,
(00:28):
and then that flight attendant emerges like a goddess and
there's clouds around here, and she floats down to your
row and she looks at you and she goes, are
you mister Wood And I go yes, and she goes,
welcome the first class. And now you're sipping champagne. You
got extra leg room. There's a DJ cutting it, scratching
your live flat seats. That's what this podcast is. We
(00:50):
are the first class upgrade that you didn't know you
needed and that you didn't see coming. I'm Roy Wick Jr.
And today we're talking about the building of America's highways,
the lasting impact these highways had on black communities, and
the opportunity to rebuild new highway infrastructures and heal these
(01:11):
historic wounds.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Roll the clip highways.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
They're the vital archeries that crisscross America, helping the country's
truckers transport goods, its workers commute to and from the office,
and its ojs flee the LAPD. What you may not
know is that when America first started building its highway
system back in the nineteen fifties, people were often forced
to leave their homes to make room for all these
(01:37):
fancy new roads. And guess which people were moved the most. Yes.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
The Federal Aid Highway Act of nineteen fifty six was
one of the largest public works projects in American history.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
It added forty one thousand miles to our interstate system.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
It became a pattern in cities across the country. Poor
and minority residents were displaced to make way for highways,
and white residents use those highways to commute into the
city for jobs and commute back home at night.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
Planners had an uncanny ability to pick out the black neighborhoods, and.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
The fact that they destroyed black neighborhoods wasn't the only
racist thing about how highways were designed. You see, around
the time the highways were being built. Segregation laws were
being struck down in America. But lucky for the racists,
they didn't need the laws to enforce segregation, because now
the highways did it for them.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Joining me today is Daily Show writer Randall. Otis Randall.
Great to have you back on again.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Good to see you again, my friend.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I'm sorry to always bring you on when we're talking racism, Randall,
but it is what it is. You're a black man
from Florida. You are a specialist.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
You know, you gotta do what you're good at.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
We're also joined by author of the Vanderbilt Law Review
article entitled White Men's Roads through Black Men's Homes. She's
an NYU law professor and president of the ACLU. Sessa
Deborah Archer, Professor Archer. Welcome aboard beyond the scenes, Maydame.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Well, thank you, and thank you for them the wonderful
book arrangement in the background as well. Those books are wonderful.
And I can tell you read them books because they're
all a little uneven. She keep going back and checking.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
Them, every last one of them.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
See this is how you know she read them books, Randall.
They're not color coordinating.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
That is true.
Speaker 6 (03:26):
It's the standard law professor background.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, I don't trust anybody with color coordinated books. You
just went to Barns and how you know them books?
You probably printed up some sleeves at FedEx office. Anyway,
let's talk racism, Randall. I'll start with you this segment
on the show. Can you walk us through how this
idea came about and how it was conceived.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yeah. So it was around the time where the Build
Back Better bill was being discussed, and I remember seeing
a segment on Tucker Carlson Show where he was talking
about it and kind of belittling who Pete Boudagez saying
that there's racism in the roads of America.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Roads can't be racist. You can't build racism into a road.
Roads are made of sand and gravel and asphalt. Ask
any roadbuilder. Roads cannot be racist anymore than toasters or
sectional couches can be racist. They are inanimate objects. They're
not alive.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
A pretty easy way to come up with ideas is like,
find whatever Tucker Carlson saying and be like, that's probably wrong.
And so then I did a little bit more research
into it, looked up some architects. Robert Moses was one
of them I looked into and that's kind of what
jumpstarted the idea of seeing how racism or prejudice can
(04:40):
work its way into the infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
So, then, Professor Archie, because what's really interesting when we
do these deep dives on the show, it's always the
first thing is how far back do we want to
go to show the impetus for this particular form of
discrimination and racis And Professor Archer, I guess the first
thing we need to do is break down how the
(05:04):
interstate system was created and designed in the fifties and sixties,
and how did that starting point create a lot of
the class inequalities that we see today.
Speaker 6 (05:14):
And you were talking about how far back do we go?
And I think we can go even further back, just
to set a context, Black people have always had a
fraud relationship with transportation, and transportation has always been both
a reflection and a driver of inequality. You can think
back to Plus versus Ferguson and Jim Crow separate, but
(05:36):
think back to the Green Book driving while black, and
our interstate highway system is part of that tradition. It
really did shape where black people lived what was taken
from them, how they were valued, the places they had
access to, the wealth they could accumulate in the opportunities
that they had access to. So, as you mentioned, the
(05:58):
officials who built the interstate highway system in the nineteen
fifties and nineteen sixties were often motivated explicitly by racism,
and they placed little value on black communities, and federal
and state highway builders purposefully targeted black communities to make
way for these really massive highway projects, and so in
(06:19):
states around the country, highways disproportionately displaced or destroyed black households.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
But even if that wasn't the most efficient way for
the freeway to go this way, like it might have
been more efficient for the freeway to cut through the
rich side of town to form the interchange with the
other freeway, they would still just no run it on
around the corner bout of darkies.
Speaker 6 (06:40):
One hundred percent. They were targeting black communities, avoiding white communities.
Black communities were the path of least resistance, the least
political power. They placed little value on black homes. White
communities resistant, but we also know that white communities requested it.
Some of the highways were placed at the explicit request
of white community to form a barrier between black and
(07:03):
white communities for white communities that fared black migration.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
There was a statistic that you know, I think Randall
and our team that the United States Department of Transportation
estimated that almost a half a million households and more
than a million people would displaced nationwide as a result
of this highway building. Now, when these people were displaced,
were they given adequate compensation to at least go find
(07:27):
a new crib somewhere?
Speaker 6 (07:28):
No, they weren't, absolutely not. Many people were not given
any compensation, And in black communities, they just valued those
homes less, valued the communities less. So people were not
given sufficient compensation, compensation the real value of their home.
They were not given up compensation to go find a
new house right in a similar community, a similar house,
(07:51):
And so that contributed to kind of the economic and
segregative impact of the highways.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
It's interesting because you know, when I think of this
in terms of, you know, white communities have all this
power to stop rows being built in their area. I
never thought of it in terms of like requesting it,
like making a proactive to make it go through certain
or other communities.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
It's kind of.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Like like a very new specific evil X man power.
You're not like magnet okin control metal and shoot it everywhere.
It's like I got concrete, I'm gonna just blow it
through your neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
My job is to make you feel sad and depress
dealing with the droned out noise of the freeway in
your neighborhood, hour.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
After hour after infrastructure man coming this summer.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Now Randall, Professor Archer has given us a very depressing
backstory on all of this. How to hell did y'all
try to figure out a way to make this funny?
Because you know, we can go backstory on this is
how it was created. But then what we also do
in these deep dives on the show is that you
have to show what were the long lasting impacts on
black communities. How did you all go through the process
(08:57):
of sparsing out so many insidious like because I'll be honest,
this is well hidden racism. This was one like we
didn't learn about this one in black history growing up
in Alabama. They didn't teach us the freeway racism. So
as you're learning these new things and seeing just how
deeply embedded discrimination has been built into how our nation
(09:18):
was put together. How are y'all sparsing out the facts
versus the sadness versus the punchlines. How are you all
trying to set up the proper ratio for a story
like this.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
I feel like the sadness and kind of the novelty
of it, and also just the general energy that people
feel towards infrastructure actually makes it easier to do. You know,
like if I got to really drive when I'm in
New York, but I used to drive all the time
when I was in Florida, and driving just pisses you
(09:50):
off constantly. It is one of the most annoying things.
I cannot stand it. You constantly have road rage, and
I feel like, wherever you have all that energy, that
energy can be redirected towards humor. And so yeah, I
feel like you got to throw the broccoli in there,
like let people know, like the history and the background
of what's going on. But since it's such a common experience,
(10:11):
you know, driving through these roads, having annoying highways that
are like blaring loud if you live anywhere close to
them or even just walking by, I feel like that
relatability and that energy makes the issue, even though it's new,
much more easy for people to grasp once you break
down the basic building blocks of what the issue.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Is, Professor Archie, did the government know how insidious this
was and the long term implifications that would happen if
we're talking about health from the state of pollution constantly
passing through, if we're talking about generational wealth and property
value going down. If white folks didn't want it, how
(10:52):
did they sell Black people on it? Because, hey, let's
be honest, black folks in the sixties, we was out
there in them streets. So how did they sell black
people on Hey, we're going to down a bunch of
houses and not give you no money for it. But
it's it's gonna be convenient though.
Speaker 6 (11:07):
Yeah, they didn't really need to sell black people on it.
They didn't feel they needed to. There was full awareness
of the impact that this was going to have. You
mentioned Robert Moses earlier. Robert Moses at this time, after
the Interstate Highway Act was passed in nineteen fifty six,
he said that the new highway program was going to
affect our entire economy and also our economic and social structure,
(11:28):
and leave a permanent imprint on our communities and our people,
and it was going to be the framework. And he
knew that, and he was right. And so the interstate
highway system connected white communities but destroyed black communities and
really changed the physical, social, and economic characteristics of our communities.
Black communities fought back. That's where the phrase white men's
(11:52):
roads through Black men's homes came from. That was the
slogan that people in Washington, d c. Had used to
resist the highway. They were successful, people in New Orleans
were successful. But most communities, despite incredible efforts, despite litigation,
were not successful in fighting back.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
And we're talking thriving communities that already had some sense
of economic empowerment and infrastructure already in place. Yes we are.
Speaker 6 (12:19):
You know. They did this under often under the title
of slum removal or blight removal, but it really was
vibrant communities that were being targeted for displacement.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And then in a way that almost sets up white
flight because it's like a white people, we get a
quick ass way for you get out of here and
get over there to them suburbs real fast, and showing
your commute to the job at the factory you want
to you'll keep with this plan. Hell yeah, green lighted.
Speaker 6 (12:45):
That's absolutely right. The highway connected white people who were
moving to the suburbs with opportunities in the city. The
black people were prevented by discrimination from moving to the
suburbs as well, and we're trapped in the city as
e nomic opportunity was leaving.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
This has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
We moved to Birmingham in the early eighties, you know,
as crack was coming in and white flight was happening.
There were nothing funnier and sadder than that one white
resident in the hood who couldn't afford to flight. I
don't know where you grew up in Florida, Randa, but
let me tell you something. That one white person that's
still left in the hood. Oh man, that was some
(13:25):
comedy because you can, like, I know, you broke, you
couldn't even afford to get to pack up your bags
and across town.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
You know, you're talking about Birmingham, And that's one of
the examples of really where they were incredibly explicit about
the goal of using the highway to lock in segregation.
And so in Birmingham, city and state officials used I
fifty nine and I sixty five to help maintain residential segregation.
In the nineteen twenties, Birmingham, like most other cities in
(13:55):
the South, had adopted a racial zoning ordinance that divided
city into racial districts and required the legal separation of
black and white neighborhoods, and there was just one black
neighborhood for single family housing. The Supreme Court had already
struck down racial zoning in nineteen seventeen, but Birmingham didn't care,
(14:15):
and it wasn't until nineteen fifty that a different federal
court struck it down. And so Birmingham officials, led by
notorious segregationist Bull Connor, who was Birmingham's Public Safety commissioner,
used the construction of Interstate fifty nine at Intertate sixty
five to advance their segregationist agenda. And so those highways
(14:37):
are ultimately built along a route that almost precisely mirrors
the racial zoning boundaries that were included in that old
racial zoning ordinance.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Man, I'm hoping the lawmakers don't remember how effective this is.
I feel like if I was Trump, I'd be like, look,
I'm not building a wall. I'm just going to make
a big ass highway across the southern border. It's going
to be really loud, it's going to be a lot
of pollution, and it's not It's a highway.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
So you say New Orleans fought back, Are there any
because it seems like when we talk about this and
the racism attached to the design of a lot of
these freeways, that it seemed to be extremely heinous in
the South. For there any other cities in the South
specifically where they lost this battle.
Speaker 6 (15:17):
I think basically every state in the South has an
example where they lost this battle. Randall you were talking
about being from Florida, and I think about the destruction
of a black community to make way for I ninety
five in the Overtown section of Miami as an example
of where they use the highway to remove a black community.
(15:40):
And so I ninety five tore through the center of Overtime,
which was this really economically vibrant, self sufficient black community
that was considered to be the center of economic and
cultural life for black people living in Miami. And the
destruction of Overtown by the highway was the realization of
a decades long campaign by white business leaders who wanted
(16:03):
to remove black residents and to claim that land to
expand Miami's Central business district, and they had tried many
other tactics to limit it success, and the highway gave
them the tool that they needed. So by the late
nineteen sixties, despite efforts by overtime to fight back, overtime
was dominated by the highway. There was no corner of
(16:24):
it that was saved. They demolished homes and churches, apartment buildings,
they removed many, many businesses. About forty thousand people black
people lived in Overtown before the highway expansion and only
about eight thousand remained in this hollowed out community afterwards,
and really tried to make a go of it living
(16:45):
underneath the highway with the pollution, with the noise, cut
off physically from opportunity. But you can see if you
visit Overtown today that they still have the scars of
that destruction.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
I'm curious about that, the sense of like, because you
said these business these white business owners have been trying
for years to attack or take over this area. Like,
what is it about the highway that was that made
it easier as an easier avenue of attack as opposed
to their other other methods, like was it easier to
(17:20):
sell was it either to package as something that is.
Speaker 6 (17:22):
Not both of those? It was easier to sell the
removal and destruction of this community because it was going,
you know, it's part of this big nationwide effort to
connect us and to improve it provided money to facilitate
the building of the highways. And then once you were
going to build the highway, the state and the local
(17:45):
government had the tool of eminent domain to just take
your house from you. You didn't have to consent, you
didn't have to volunteer to move, you didn't have to agree.
They took your house and they gave you what they
thought you deserved and forced you to move.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I love the imminent domain sounds more professional than debo
or strong armed, like you just snatched it, snatched it theft,
you know. And then you think about what happened in Montgomery, Alabama,
where I believe you correct me if from wrong, professor,
where like they could have either built the freeway on
an open piece of land where wasn't nobody, so they
(18:20):
could have ran it straight through some black folks' homes,
and they chose deliberately to go through the black people's homes.
Speaker 6 (18:27):
That's right, they did, and so it shows to me
that they really weren't ashamed. It didn't really try to
even hide the intent behind this.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
This is maybe a very dumb point, but I don't
know if you've seen that movie up where Pixar movie
with the guys.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
The balloon House.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Yes, the balloon balloon started.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
The house is floating, yeah, I remember.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
That, and the whole movie starts because of an eminent
domain like there's like, look, we want your house because
we want to build stuff right here, and the whole
Then the guy just like, no, I'm taking balloons up
to escape this, all right, So people should have sympathy
for the situation. It'd be sad for this old crossty
old man getting his house taken. Just imagine that times.
I don't even know thousands. I wish that like the movie,
(19:11):
but none of the black people had balloons that could
carry their homes away.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I'm sure back in those days, black people weren't even
allowed to buy balloons. I'm sure there were some anti
happiness clause render What did you learn doing this piece? Well,
in two parts, what did you learn and how do
you think black people's lives would have looked differently if
these interstates had not been put where where they were put.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
I guess learning is just how difficult it is to
kind of like respond to a project like this after
it's already been put in place, like I because you know,
a bridge is something that's very difficult to remove. It's
not just like legislation where you can have someone sign
(19:53):
it away and now the law school is shifted. It's
like this is people build their whole lives around where
they we're hot, where ports of travel are. I mean,
if you've lived in New York, there's a whole l
trank orfuffle years ago, and like tons of people move
just because you know this line might be shut down
for a little bit. So it's kind of just seeing
(20:13):
like how effective this is putting in infrastructure when used
in a malicious manner to reverse, and then how it
can affect black people. I mean, I feel like it
would affect black people in the same way that like
a lot of discrimination does, which is it has this
immediate effect that this significantly harms a group of people.
(20:35):
But then what's potentially even more detrimental than that is
the downstream effect is like all right, you lose a
ton of capital, you lose a ton of land, and
so over the years, that's a ton of wealth and
money that can't grow from itself. So you lose a
ton of potential wealth for a massive group of people.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
And Professor, how do you think black people's lives you know,
would have been I know for sure we would have
been healthier. That would have stopped a lot of the
cancer rates. But yeah, what do you think if we
could have reversed this, how would this have benefited black people?
Speaker 6 (21:13):
So I think that fundamentally, we know that where you
live matters, and so we created communities where we have
to put a block along racial lines. We have created
communities where we have limited access to jobs and opportunity.
We are forcing communities of color to bear a disproportionate
(21:36):
share of environmental harms. Building the highways in the community
kind of labeled black communities to sacrifice zones that then
allowed government to put in as it is waste. We
put in major roads, we put in put train tracks
through everything became housed in black communities. We also blocked
(21:56):
off access, isolated those communities. We stigmatize those communities. So
the layers and layers and layers of inequality and the
layers of harm to those communities. They could have looked
like other communities, like every other community. We like to
have this division of good community versus bad community, but
(22:18):
faith we created those communities. Our policies and our actions
created those communities. We talk about the wealth gap between
white people and black people. A lot of our wealth
in this country comes through home ownership, comes through the
own ownership of land, and we took that from black people.
We took their homes, and we took their land across
the country, and we're still living with those consequences today.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Now, do you have any personal relationships with anyone that's
been affected by this issue, Professor?
Speaker 6 (22:47):
In the course of my research, I have spoken to
a lot of people who have their families, their lives,
their childhood has been impacted by the highway. They often
talk about sitting there and witnessing the pain that their
parents were going through, that they had spent decades saving
up and making payments to own this home and it
(23:09):
was going to be taken away from them. I've talked
to some people who talk about the pain of watching
their neighborhood be torn apart, brick by brick and building
by building. Someone who told me that their neighborhood that
used to be beautiful and a joy where they would
play in the park and they would play jump rope
(23:30):
in the street became overrun by rats because the rats
were displaced too, and they were in their homes and
they were forced to move out. It's hard for folks
who lost their homes. I spoke to some people in
Indianapolis and they talk about their home is under the highway,
and they mean that decades ago the highway that ran
(23:50):
through Indianapolis took their home from them and it is
now under the highway and they still feel pain by that.
I spoke to a woman in Syracuse whose family still
will not drive over I eighty one because of the
pain that they have experienced of having their home taken
to build IEITI one.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Well after the break, I want to dig in a
little bit more on the public transportation, transportation as a
whole and the inequities that exist within it. I need
to tell you all the story about riding the bus
in Birmingham and how the public bus system. We'll talk
about it in a second. This is beyond the scenes.
(24:28):
We'll be right back home. Let's talk a little bit
more about just transportation as a whole. Let's just not
go Okay, we understand the freeways, but that's one facet
of the Department of Transportation. What are some of the
other ways that transportation policy and infrastructures have impacted Black communities?
Speaker 6 (24:48):
Professor Yeah, transportation has always been both a reflection and
a driver of inequality. Communities of color often forced to
kind of host all the burdens of our transportation system
and get to enjoy a few of the benefits. The
inequality that we see in the highway, it's in our
roads and our street grids. There's an important civil rights
(25:09):
case called Memphis versus Green. In nineteen seventy four, at
the request of white residents, the city of Memphis closed
off a street that connected an all white neighborhood to
a predominantly black one. And in this important case, Memphis
versus Green, the United States Supreme Court rejected a challenge
by members of the black community who challenged this, stating
(25:29):
that the road closure was just an inconvenient The court
called it a routine burden of citizenship, but Justice Thurgood Marshall, dissenting,
noted that it was really a powerful symbolic message and
that it was a way for white people to keep
black people off their streets. And so that's just one
way that we see it, but it's in communities around
(25:51):
the country. They use street grid layouts, dead ended roads
to make it difficult to get from black communities to
white communities. One way streets to influence racial demographics through
exclusion and isolation. Atlanta is an incredible example of using
the streets in that way and the community around the country,
street safety is often dictated by race and class. Black
(26:15):
people bear the brunt of roadway injuries, in part because
predominantly black neighborhoods are less likely to have crosswalks, warning signs,
and other pedestrian safety measures.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Like just a regular sidewalk, just a regular and a light.
Can I get a street light so people could see me?
Speaker 6 (26:35):
Exactly? Many black communities don't have that sidewalk, they don't
have street lights. Yet we have high speed roadways that
are akin to many highways coursing through.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Them there And this is all and you're talking present
day stuff because we're not talking back of the bus,
colored bathrooms in the train station, segregated water fountain, like
we're at least pass that, but it seems like it
just has been remixed into something new.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
It's been layered, right, So it's the highways on top
of then the roads on top of the sidewalks on
top of lack of other infrastructure for pedestrian infrastructure. It
is really layered, and it is current. Lots of studies
going on today about the impact that it's having in communities.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
I mean, this may be acdonal, but I like ride
my bike in the city a lot, and two things
stick out to me. At One, because I'll use those
city bikes, and when I go to black areas, I'm like, damn,
there is one of these for maybe like five miles.
And two, I don't see any bike lanes. I'm like,
I'll be going on a white area. I'm like, all right,
I'm on this nice safe bike lane that eventually I'm like,
(27:46):
I am dodging traffic like I'm in fast and furious
ay right now, Yeah, give me some bike lanes.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Yeah, there's definitely hurdles as well with just the bus
system now in the present day. So so growing up,
I remember I had a car in high school, but
it was a very shoddy car and you know every
month it was down for two months type of car.
(28:13):
And so something as simple as going to the mall,
which on Birmingham the mall is a sojourn from the
west side all the way like it's two buses and
a connection, and the bus on the weekend, the last
bus from the White Mall from the Galleria was at
six thirty. The mall don't close till nine. So even
(28:33):
trying to get a job when I had a car,
I had to think about the bus route and the
time it would take and can I get the last
But but for whatever reason, on the Black side of
town you could get a bus's late as seven or eight,
which was for Birmingham terms, that was a very very
late bus. But like just the way the buses were scheduled,
they were scheduled in such a way that if you're
(28:55):
gonna come our hand shop, you're gonna come during the day,
you're gonna come crack a dawna you're gonna take your
butt home. But you can forget a about working out
there because you can't even get to like and even
when you live in like say in Hoover, it's a
forty five minute walk to the bus. The bus ain't
going all through the white neighborhood, is going to the
edge of the white neighborhood, and you meet me back
here if you want to go back to the black
(29:16):
side of town. So, how do you when we talk
about the legislation of this, how do you prove that
because this is the type of this is that shifty,
gelatinous type of racism. This isn't as concrete. This is
one that people could go Will you know, funding we
can take the bus out that way? How do we
(29:38):
create better legislation to undo all of this? Professor? Can
that even be done?
Speaker 6 (29:44):
I would like to speak to that situation that you describe,
because that's exactly the situation we see around the country
where we have, particularly around buses which are disproportionately used
by people of color, Buses that only get you to
the edge of the white community but won't take you
far into the white community. Buses that stop running at
(30:04):
a certain hour. White communities around the country have resisted
having bus stops in their communities because they don't they'll say,
we don't want crime. Well, we all know what they mean.
When they say we don't want crime. They stop buses early,
and as we see more jobs move from inner cities
and cities into the suburban rings, it makes it difficult
(30:26):
for people to access economic opportunity, to be able to
get to work. I spoke with someone who lives in
Michigan and takes a bus to their job at the mall,
but the bus only gets them far enough where after
that they have to get off and walk two miles
to get to their job at the mall. There's a
story of a woman in upstate New York. The bus
(30:49):
could not go into the parking lot of the mall.
It couldn't get you all the way to the mall.
The bus could only drop you off on the black
side of the highway, and then she had to try
to traverse the highway to get to work, and she
was hit by a car and she died. And so
we have to push back against the way that white
communities are denying access based on public transportation when we
(31:11):
know what that is about. The challenge with our laws
is that they don't get at that kind of amorphous
discrimination that you talked about. They don't get at impact.
We have a legal system that is firmly grounded in
challenging instances where there are this proof, hard proof. Someone
calls you the N word, someone says we don't want
black people, and that just doesn't work with the kind
(31:34):
of racism that we are challenging and experiencing today. It
doesn't help us get at these deeply entrenched inequality that's
in our system, that can be invisible to people if
you take a quick look and is.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Wild to go from you're sitting the back of the
bus to all right, we're just gonna get rid.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Of the buss pretty much, pretty much, Oh tell you
like that. That has always been one of the biggest
issues that I've had, you know, and I love you know,
I love Birmingham, it's home. But mass transportation has always
been a hurdle. It is and it remains a hurdle
(32:14):
to this day, Randall, when you all are assembling these stories,
who decides when it's time to put the pencil down,
Because this is a deep rabbit hole, Because like, honestly,
you can get into transportation, but then we'll get to
United and second on this professor, you can get into
how transportation intersects with housing inequity and education inequity and
(32:35):
all of those policies all working in concert to create
the racism gumbo that I like to call or you
know it to fee whatever you prefer. Randall, when do
you all make the decision to finally put the pencils
down and go, okay, this is all we can cover
on this topic.
Speaker 4 (32:53):
I mean, it is difficult because there is a bunch
of stuff in the gumbo, as you say, but you
know saying with gumbo, you can only eat so much
before you're about to just pass out and get the items,
so you kind of it's kind of like a feeling,
and it's also mixed with Luckily, time itself is a
little bit of a limited because the segment has to
come out eventually, and since we wanted to tie it
(33:16):
to the infrastructure bill, it's like, all right, well this
segment has to get out before that bill either passes
or fails. So it's a mix of just intuition, but
also the context around whatever the segment.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Is professor to that point of so many different things
working in concert. You know, when we talk about you know,
these different factors from housing to education policy in addition
to transportation impacting black communities access to opportunity, Like how
do you decide which part of the problem to attack first,
(33:54):
because you know, we're talking federal housing mandates, local housing policies.
You've got public education systems, employment discrimination, you've got crooked
banks not loaning your money to get the house to
help rebuild the hood, and you have the highway system.
Are these issues that can be tackled one by one
or do they all have to be taken down at
(34:16):
the same time.
Speaker 6 (34:17):
Definitely, not one by one, all at the same time.
We have to have a conservative effort to tear apart
all these systems, all these systems of oppression, all these
systems of inequality. They feed each other, they drive each other,
and so we have to really work on attacking all
at the same time. Often transportation is forgotten about in
(34:39):
that conversation. We talk about criminal legal system, reform, housing, voting,
economic opportunity. We forget about transportation. But transportation is far
more than a means of just moving people back and forth.
Transportation systems shape who gets to feel like like the
belong who gets to enjoy access to opportunity, who gets
to live with safety and dignity. Transportation infrastructure is the
(35:03):
infrastructure of equitable education, of good health, of economic opportunity,
and really of a vibrant democracy. We're talking about fixing
our democratic process and challenging the ways that we are
making it harder for black people and other people of
color to vote. One example that we've seen is the
closing of polling places. So a black community used to
(35:27):
have twelve polling places, and now legislation passes and there's
one polling place there. One of the reasons why that's
a challenge is because of transportation, people have no way
to get to that one polling place. So it's all interconnected,
and I'm glad that transportation and infrastructure is really now
a part of the conversation about civil rights and racial equality.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
On the other side of the coin, though, is there
or was there a degree or freedom that black people
felt from having the Interstates and going fine, you don't
the buses tripping were cool. I was finally able to
afford a car. Now I can drive and get to
everywhere I want to go.
Speaker 6 (36:08):
Absolutely, it certainly offered some measure of freedom where black
people didn't have to deal with segregate the back of
the bus and segregated buses. They didn't have to wait
and segregated waiting rooms. But black car ownership and driving
on the interstate opened up a whole new body of
discrimination targeting black people. I mentioned driving while black and
(36:31):
the need for the green Book because black people often
did not arrive at their destination safely because they didn't
know what communities were safe to stop and where they
could stop to get gas, where it was going to
be safe to stop at a hotel, and so there
were dangers that opened up with the freeway. And so, yeah,
it certainly had so many positives, absolutely, but a lot
(36:54):
of challenges.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
So we got to attack this issue and all these
problems at the same time concurrently, like independent today random
you can't just take Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
I never even thought of that, Like that is one
of my favorite things about riding somewhere at the bus
is like, look, I can't get pulled over right now,
I say that, but I actually have been on a
bus that's been pulled over. So now that I've kind
of taken I don't know how they do it. These
are some of the most inventive police officers of all time.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
After the break, we're going to talk about some people
that are trying to attack this issue and be a
part of the solution. We need to break down old
Joe Beezy's Build Back Better Bill, and also some opponents
of everything that we've talked about today. You know, not
everybody's going to agree with this. This is a very
interesting topic. We'll bring it home after the break. This
is beyond the scenes we're learning here. According to Professor Archer,
(37:51):
the only way to change transportation is to also change
housing inequity, and also change educational inequity, and also change
employment inquity. And we have to attack it all at
the same time. The way Will Smith and Jeff Goldbloom
was installing the virus on the alien mothership while down
on Earth the President and a drunk Randy Quaid were
(38:12):
getting ready to shoot missiles at the Alien mothership at
the exact same time. We have to coordinate an attack
just like that. That was what you were saying, Professor Archer, right,
you said, it is just like Independence Day, just like it,
just like it exactly. So if we compare it to
Independence Day, then Joe Biden's first missile at this monstrosity
(38:34):
of transportation in equity is his Build Back Better Bill.
Where do you see that infrastructure bill in terms of
the efficacy of it to be able to affect some
degree of racial equality.
Speaker 6 (38:49):
I think it's not only the Infrastructure Bill, but also
his broader commitment to racial equity and racial justice and
transportation that we hear from President and also members of
his administration. And I think the Infrastructure Plan holds tremendous promise.
It could be truly transformative because it represents a historic
(39:11):
investment in urban communities and communities of color. But that
alone does not mean it's going to advance racial equity.
The bill includes billions of dollars to reconnect neighborhoods that
were cut off by highways and to ensure new projects
increase opportunity and advance racial equity, environmental justice, promote affordable access.
(39:34):
Members of the administration have used the phrase restore and reconnect,
but there's still a lot of open questions about how
that's actually going to work because it takes far more
than just a stated commitment to racial equality. It's going
to take more than a one time infusion of capital
and investment in these communities before we really see a
(39:54):
fundamental change.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
And Randall, that's the part of it where I feel
like we don't always get to live within the show,
this idea that here's how the problem started. Here's what's
happening today. Damn, we're out of time. Hope you laughed.
I would just wish there was a way to really
get into like how we think the country would look
in five to ten years on the other side of Biden,
(40:19):
Like I know, like there's a legitimate analysis aspect of it,
Professor Archer, but also like what if there was just
a bus riding through a white neighborhood at ten thirty
at night. Do you understand how hilarious of a sketch
it for me? Like that just makes me laugh. Like
in the studies that you've done on the Bill Randall,
(40:39):
how do you think things will be different in the
next five to ten years.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Honestly, I don't know. If I'm being fully honest, I
really don't know it. Could you know, like the professor said,
bring together all these communities provide more, you know, just
opportunity for the groups involved. Or I feel like what
(41:03):
a lot of things that happen is there could be
massive pushback, so you know, in the same way there's
pushback in the past that divided all these neighborhoods, it
could be pushed back. It's like, all right, black people
are easy to transport. Now wheels are bands all right,
and now white people may flying cars. Niggas have to walk,
all right. So it's hard for me to know because
(41:25):
I feel like pushback could be so strong against any
type of advancements. It feels like there's just this huge
spectrum of what can happen. It could be this utopian
project or it could just be like another transformation of
how people push back against equity.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
To that to that point about the city bikes earlier, Randall,
I feel that way about electric cars, like there ain't
no way to charge them in the hood right now,
and even if you want it to be efficient in
go green, as a black person in a certain part
of town, you're not gonna have a lot of places
where you park, you know, Family Dollar and Auto Zone
and got the charge in port parking space.
Speaker 6 (42:08):
Yet I agree that there's unlikely to see that much
change in five or ten years. Maybe in ten years
we'll see a physical difference with this, with this funding,
highways being replaced with recess highways or a place with
street grids, highways capped with a pedestrian bridge to reconnect
(42:29):
these communities. But it's going to take efforts sustain efforts
unlike we've seen before to restore economic empowerment that does
not also become a tool for displacement. It's not going
to be easy, and as the nursery rhyme says, it's
hard to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Weaving cities
back together, rebuilding them is going to be really challenging.
(42:51):
And as Randall said, there's as much risk as there
is potential right now because the same people who suffered
during the original build communities of color, their homes are
still in the way of the bulldozers. As we try
to reimagine and rebuild. The possibility of short term and
(43:11):
long term displacement is there again, the possibility of losing
their homes, it's there again. Racism and classism are still
woven deeply into the fabric of American society, and those
forces are going to drive even this new change. I
see it in South Carolina where we're working with a
community in Conway, South Carolina that's trying to fight back
(43:33):
against a new road that's being built with new funds
but targeting a black community doing what you described, hitting
all the black houses but miraculously avoiding a white storage facility,
a white owned storage facility. So there are a lot
of challenges moving forward. The moment has promise, but the
(43:54):
moment has risks as well.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Okay, So then to the point about Conway, South Carolina.
So Pete Boudage said that racism is physically built into
some of our highways. If that is true, how do
we rebuild new highways without repeating some of the same
mistakes of the past and make sure that those things
are that what you're talking about is taking into consideration.
(44:17):
Like you're talking about recess highways, you sit them low,
you build a bridge over them. Boston did the whole
big dig where they literally put the freeway under the city.
I know every city is not going to have the
type of terrain that lends itself to that type of engineering,
But how do we get the engineers on board? How
do we get the construction companies on board? How do
(44:37):
you get the zoning and they planning people on board
with understanding as we rebuild and repair new highways, how
do we get these groups to take it with the
same level of gravity as you and as President Biden
and as Buddhajic.
Speaker 6 (44:54):
You have to get all those people on board and
you have to get white communities on board because they're
going to have to host more of the unwanted aspects
than they have in the past. I think broadly, racial
equity has to be central in both the process and
the outcome. We have to know that it's not just
(45:15):
about the absence of a physical divider of a highway,
but creation of conditions for the community to flourish. We
need to embrace this infrastructure change as a catalyst for rebuilding.
We need to explore the dynamics and models of community
control and really deepen ways of democratic decision making in
(45:36):
these communities, allowing communities to participate, but also allowing them
to exercise some power in deciding what happens to their community.
And so it's complicated in so many ways. We need
to address all of the compounded harm and the multiple
layers of harm. We need to help the folks who
(45:57):
have been displaced be able to return to their communities,
sometimes getting something that may look akin to reparations, but
support for returning, and dealing with the fact that these
communities are in many ways considered to be, as I said,
sacrifice zones. So you move the highway, but black and
Latino people are still going to live with pollution because
(46:17):
we've put so many other things in those communities. All
of that has to change.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
Are there any places in America or many or cities
in the world where like this is kind of like
a north star for how we want to build or rebuild?
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Yeah, who's got it right?
Speaker 6 (46:33):
Yeah? I don't know anyone has it right as in
terms of here that it's all done and they got
it right. There are lots of people who are doing
it better. And I think hold Promise. Indianapolis, I think
is an example of this incredibly diverse community effort that's
centering the voices and perspective of those who were most
(46:55):
deeply impacted by the highway that continue to be most
deeply impacted by the highway. They're providing tools, educational tools
so that community members can knowledgeably and really participate, meaningfully
participate in the process. And they're doing it over the
long term. They're starting the process now even though that
highway is ultimately not going to be replaced for another
(47:19):
five or ten years, and so that's one example of
doing it better. They're thinking about how to bring in
all aspects of their community. So they're thinking about long
term sustained support for small businesses. They're thinking about affordable
housing and how to build affordable housing, sustain and protect
(47:41):
home ownership by people of color in the community. They're
thinking about all those pieces that we talked about needing
to be needing to be considered. So that's one example
I think of people who are thinking about how to
do it better.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Okay, now you talk about reparations, and we know reparations
ain't going to come strictly in the form of money,
as we talk about ways to prevent this from happening
again in communities like Indianapolis who are doing things to
make sure that in the future things are better. Is
there a way to repair what has been done up
(48:15):
until now to these black communities that were displaced and
that lost generational wealth, and that lost opportunities, and that
are dealing with chronic health issues. I'm sure if we
pulled health statistics of whatever cancer per capita near the
pollution versus further away from the pollution, we will probably
(48:35):
be shocked by those numbers. Is there a way to
fix what has been done so far?
Speaker 4 (48:40):
Though?
Speaker 6 (48:40):
I don't know that we would ever be able to
undo all the harm and meaning that these communities will
catch up and be where they should have been. But
that's what build back better has to mean. It has
to mean that we have a commitment to try to
trying to rebuild the economic core of these communities, trying
to rebuild the wealth in these communities, trying to create
(49:05):
access to opportunity, to choice, fill lives, to joy, fill lives.
And so if we're not considering how we do that
at the same time that we are thinking about re
envisioning and reimagining these highways, then we're not doing it
the right way. I call it reparations. It has to
be a part of the conversation to rebuild those communities,
(49:27):
but also those individuals and those families, people who lost
so much as we built the interstate highway system.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
How do we get somebody like tech and Carlson on board.
Speaker 4 (49:39):
We've got to build a highway through his living room.
Speaker 6 (49:45):
Yeah, I heard those comments. And actually, a reaction I
often get from people when I talk about the highway
is that it's just a road. They'll say, it's just
a road, and it's just a road unless it was
your community that was targeted, Your homes and community institutions
and businesses that were destroyed, robbing people and the community
(50:07):
of their wealth and economic foundation. And it's just a
road unless it was your community that was cording off
by what amounted to state impose racial segregation. And it's
just a road unless it's your community that is still
looking at that highway as a monument to white supremacy,
to segregation, and to racial inequality.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Well, this has been a wonderful, wonderful discussion. Professor Archer
randall Otis. I wish that we have more time, but
we do not. Thank you all both so much for
going beyond the scenes with me.
Speaker 6 (50:40):
Thank you, thank you so much for having
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Me listen to the Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on
Apple podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast
that goes a little deeper into segments and topics that
originally aired on the show. This is what this podcast
is like. This podcast is like you know when you
get an unexpected first class upgrade. You know, you thought
you was gonna be in coach with a middle set
with a kid with the cheeto dust and he's trying
to touch your hair and you're fighting somebody for an armrest,
(00:28):
and then that flight attendant emerges like a goddess and
there's clouds around here, and she floats down to your
row and she looks at you and she goes, are
you mister Wood And I go yes, and she goes,
welcome the first class. And now you're sipping champagne. You
got extra leg room. There's a DJ cutting it, scratching
your live flat seats. That's what this podcast is. We
(00:50):
are the first class upgrade that you didn't know you
needed and that you didn't see coming. I'm Roy Wick Jr.
And today we're talking about the building of America's highways,
the lasting impact these highways had on black communities, and
the opportunity to rebuild new highway infrastructures and heal these
(01:11):
historic wounds.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Roll the clip highways.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
They're the vital archeries that crisscross America, helping the country's
truckers transport goods, its workers commute to and from the office,
and its ojs flee the LAPD. What you may not
know is that when America first started building its highway
system back in the nineteen fifties, people were often forced
to leave their homes to make room for all these
(01:37):
fancy new roads. And guess which people were moved the most. Yes.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
The Federal Aid Highway Act of nineteen fifty six was
one of the largest public works projects in American history.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
It added forty one thousand miles to our interstate system.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
It became a pattern in cities across the country. Poor
and minority residents were displaced to make way for highways,
and white residents use those highways to commute into the
city for jobs and commute back home at night.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
Planners had an uncanny ability to pick out the black neighborhoods, and.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
The fact that they destroyed black neighborhoods wasn't the only
racist thing about how highways were designed. You see, around
the time the highways were being built. Segregation laws were
being struck down in America. But lucky for the racists,
they didn't need the laws to enforce segregation, because now
the highways did it for them.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Joining me today is Daily Show writer Randall. Otis Randall.
Great to have you back on again.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Good to see you again, my friend.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I'm sorry to always bring you on when we're talking racism, Randall,
but it is what it is. You're a black man
from Florida. You are a specialist.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
You know, you gotta do what you're good at.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
We're also joined by author of the Vanderbilt Law Review
article entitled White Men's Roads through Black Men's Homes. She's
an NYU law professor and president of the ACLU. Sessa
Deborah Archer, Professor Archer. Welcome aboard beyond the scenes, Maydame.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Well, thank you, and thank you for them the wonderful
book arrangement in the background as well. Those books are wonderful.
And I can tell you read them books because they're
all a little uneven. She keep going back and checking.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
Them, every last one of them.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
See this is how you know she read them books, Randall.
They're not color coordinating.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
That is true.
Speaker 6 (03:26):
It's the standard law professor background.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, I don't trust anybody with color coordinated books. You
just went to Barns and how you know them books?
You probably printed up some sleeves at FedEx office. Anyway,
let's talk racism, Randall. I'll start with you this segment
on the show. Can you walk us through how this
idea came about and how it was conceived.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yeah. So it was around the time where the Build
Back Better bill was being discussed, and I remember seeing
a segment on Tucker Carlson Show where he was talking
about it and kind of belittling who Pete Boudagez saying
that there's racism in the roads of America.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Roads can't be racist. You can't build racism into a road.
Roads are made of sand and gravel and asphalt. Ask
any roadbuilder. Roads cannot be racist anymore than toasters or
sectional couches can be racist. They are inanimate objects. They're
not alive.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
A pretty easy way to come up with ideas is like,
find whatever Tucker Carlson saying and be like, that's probably wrong.
And so then I did a little bit more research
into it, looked up some architects. Robert Moses was one
of them I looked into and that's kind of what
jumpstarted the idea of seeing how racism or prejudice can
(04:40):
work its way into the infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
So, then, Professor Archie, because what's really interesting when we
do these deep dives on the show, it's always the
first thing is how far back do we want to
go to show the impetus for this particular form of
discrimination and racis And Professor Archer, I guess the first
thing we need to do is break down how the
(05:04):
interstate system was created and designed in the fifties and sixties,
and how did that starting point create a lot of
the class inequalities that we see today.
Speaker 6 (05:14):
And you were talking about how far back do we go?
And I think we can go even further back, just
to set a context, Black people have always had a
fraud relationship with transportation, and transportation has always been both
a reflection and a driver of inequality. You can think
back to Plus versus Ferguson and Jim Crow separate, but
(05:36):
think back to the Green Book driving while black, and
our interstate highway system is part of that tradition. It
really did shape where black people lived what was taken
from them, how they were valued, the places they had
access to, the wealth they could accumulate in the opportunities
that they had access to. So, as you mentioned, the
(05:58):
officials who built the interstate highway system in the nineteen
fifties and nineteen sixties were often motivated explicitly by racism,
and they placed little value on black communities, and federal
and state highway builders purposefully targeted black communities to make
way for these really massive highway projects, and so in
(06:19):
states around the country, highways disproportionately displaced or destroyed black households.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
But even if that wasn't the most efficient way for
the freeway to go this way, like it might have
been more efficient for the freeway to cut through the
rich side of town to form the interchange with the
other freeway, they would still just no run it on
around the corner bout of darkies.
Speaker 6 (06:40):
One hundred percent. They were targeting black communities, avoiding white communities.
Black communities were the path of least resistance, the least
political power. They placed little value on black homes. White
communities resistant, but we also know that white communities requested it.
Some of the highways were placed at the explicit request
of white community to form a barrier between black and
(07:03):
white communities for white communities that fared black migration.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
There was a statistic that you know, I think Randall
and our team that the United States Department of Transportation
estimated that almost a half a million households and more
than a million people would displaced nationwide as a result
of this highway building. Now, when these people were displaced,
were they given adequate compensation to at least go find
(07:27):
a new crib somewhere?
Speaker 6 (07:28):
No, they weren't, absolutely not. Many people were not given
any compensation, And in black communities, they just valued those
homes less, valued the communities less. So people were not
given sufficient compensation, compensation the real value of their home.
They were not given up compensation to go find a
new house right in a similar community, a similar house,
(07:51):
And so that contributed to kind of the economic and
segregative impact of the highways.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
It's interesting because you know, when I think of this
in terms of, you know, white communities have all this
power to stop rows being built in their area. I
never thought of it in terms of like requesting it,
like making a proactive to make it go through certain
or other communities.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
It's kind of.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Like like a very new specific evil X man power.
You're not like magnet okin control metal and shoot it everywhere.
It's like I got concrete, I'm gonna just blow it
through your neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
My job is to make you feel sad and depress
dealing with the droned out noise of the freeway in
your neighborhood, hour.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
After hour after infrastructure man coming this summer.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Now Randall, Professor Archer has given us a very depressing
backstory on all of this. How to hell did y'all
try to figure out a way to make this funny?
Because you know, we can go backstory on this is
how it was created. But then what we also do
in these deep dives on the show is that you
have to show what were the long lasting impacts on
black communities. How did you all go through the process
(08:57):
of sparsing out so many insidious like because I'll be honest,
this is well hidden racism. This was one like we
didn't learn about this one in black history growing up
in Alabama. They didn't teach us the freeway racism. So
as you're learning these new things and seeing just how
deeply embedded discrimination has been built into how our nation
(09:18):
was put together. How are y'all sparsing out the facts
versus the sadness versus the punchlines. How are you all
trying to set up the proper ratio for a story
like this.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
I feel like the sadness and kind of the novelty
of it, and also just the general energy that people
feel towards infrastructure actually makes it easier to do. You know,
like if I got to really drive when I'm in
New York, but I used to drive all the time
when I was in Florida, and driving just pisses you
(09:50):
off constantly. It is one of the most annoying things.
I cannot stand it. You constantly have road rage, and
I feel like, wherever you have all that energy, that
energy can be redirected towards humor. And so yeah, I
feel like you got to throw the broccoli in there,
like let people know, like the history and the background
of what's going on. But since it's such a common experience,
(10:11):
you know, driving through these roads, having annoying highways that
are like blaring loud if you live anywhere close to
them or even just walking by, I feel like that
relatability and that energy makes the issue, even though it's new,
much more easy for people to grasp once you break
down the basic building blocks of what the issue.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Is, Professor Archie, did the government know how insidious this
was and the long term implifications that would happen if
we're talking about health from the state of pollution constantly
passing through, if we're talking about generational wealth and property
value going down. If white folks didn't want it, how
(10:52):
did they sell Black people on it? Because, hey, let's
be honest, black folks in the sixties, we was out
there in them streets. So how did they sell black
people on Hey, we're going to down a bunch of
houses and not give you no money for it. But
it's it's gonna be convenient though.
Speaker 6 (11:07):
Yeah, they didn't really need to sell black people on it.
They didn't feel they needed to. There was full awareness
of the impact that this was going to have. You
mentioned Robert Moses earlier. Robert Moses at this time, after
the Interstate Highway Act was passed in nineteen fifty six,
he said that the new highway program was going to
affect our entire economy and also our economic and social structure,
(11:28):
and leave a permanent imprint on our communities and our people,
and it was going to be the framework. And he
knew that, and he was right. And so the interstate
highway system connected white communities but destroyed black communities and
really changed the physical, social, and economic characteristics of our communities.
Black communities fought back. That's where the phrase white men's
(11:52):
roads through Black men's homes came from. That was the
slogan that people in Washington, d c. Had used to
resist the highway. They were successful, people in New Orleans
were successful. But most communities, despite incredible efforts, despite litigation,
were not successful in fighting back.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
And we're talking thriving communities that already had some sense
of economic empowerment and infrastructure already in place. Yes we are.
Speaker 6 (12:19):
You know. They did this under often under the title
of slum removal or blight removal, but it really was
vibrant communities that were being targeted for displacement.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And then in a way that almost sets up white
flight because it's like a white people, we get a
quick ass way for you get out of here and
get over there to them suburbs real fast, and showing
your commute to the job at the factory you want
to you'll keep with this plan. Hell yeah, green lighted.
Speaker 6 (12:45):
That's absolutely right. The highway connected white people who were
moving to the suburbs with opportunities in the city. The
black people were prevented by discrimination from moving to the
suburbs as well, and we're trapped in the city as
e nomic opportunity was leaving.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
This has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
We moved to Birmingham in the early eighties, you know,
as crack was coming in and white flight was happening.
There were nothing funnier and sadder than that one white
resident in the hood who couldn't afford to flight. I
don't know where you grew up in Florida, Randa, but
let me tell you something. That one white person that's
still left in the hood. Oh man, that was some
(13:25):
comedy because you can, like, I know, you broke, you
couldn't even afford to get to pack up your bags
and across town.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
You know, you're talking about Birmingham, And that's one of
the examples of really where they were incredibly explicit about
the goal of using the highway to lock in segregation.
And so in Birmingham, city and state officials used I
fifty nine and I sixty five to help maintain residential segregation.
In the nineteen twenties, Birmingham, like most other cities in
(13:55):
the South, had adopted a racial zoning ordinance that divided
city into racial districts and required the legal separation of
black and white neighborhoods, and there was just one black
neighborhood for single family housing. The Supreme Court had already
struck down racial zoning in nineteen seventeen, but Birmingham didn't care,
(14:15):
and it wasn't until nineteen fifty that a different federal
court struck it down. And so Birmingham officials, led by
notorious segregationist Bull Connor, who was Birmingham's Public Safety commissioner,
used the construction of Interstate fifty nine at Intertate sixty
five to advance their segregationist agenda. And so those highways
(14:37):
are ultimately built along a route that almost precisely mirrors
the racial zoning boundaries that were included in that old
racial zoning ordinance.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Man, I'm hoping the lawmakers don't remember how effective this is.
I feel like if I was Trump, I'd be like, look,
I'm not building a wall. I'm just going to make
a big ass highway across the southern border. It's going
to be really loud, it's going to be a lot
of pollution, and it's not It's a highway.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
So you say New Orleans fought back, Are there any
because it seems like when we talk about this and
the racism attached to the design of a lot of
these freeways, that it seemed to be extremely heinous in
the South. For there any other cities in the South
specifically where they lost this battle.
Speaker 6 (15:17):
I think basically every state in the South has an
example where they lost this battle. Randall you were talking
about being from Florida, and I think about the destruction
of a black community to make way for I ninety
five in the Overtown section of Miami as an example
of where they use the highway to remove a black community.
(15:40):
And so I ninety five tore through the center of Overtime,
which was this really economically vibrant, self sufficient black community
that was considered to be the center of economic and
cultural life for black people living in Miami. And the
destruction of Overtown by the highway was the realization of
a decades long campaign by white business leaders who wanted
(16:03):
to remove black residents and to claim that land to
expand Miami's Central business district, and they had tried many
other tactics to limit it success, and the highway gave
them the tool that they needed. So by the late
nineteen sixties, despite efforts by overtime to fight back, overtime
was dominated by the highway. There was no corner of
(16:24):
it that was saved. They demolished homes and churches, apartment buildings,
they removed many, many businesses. About forty thousand people black
people lived in Overtown before the highway expansion and only
about eight thousand remained in this hollowed out community afterwards,
and really tried to make a go of it living
(16:45):
underneath the highway with the pollution, with the noise, cut
off physically from opportunity. But you can see if you
visit Overtown today that they still have the scars of
that destruction.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
I'm curious about that, the sense of like, because you
said these business these white business owners have been trying
for years to attack or take over this area. Like,
what is it about the highway that was that made
it easier as an easier avenue of attack as opposed
to their other other methods, like was it easier to
(17:20):
sell was it either to package as something that is.
Speaker 6 (17:22):
Not both of those? It was easier to sell the
removal and destruction of this community because it was going,
you know, it's part of this big nationwide effort to
connect us and to improve it provided money to facilitate
the building of the highways. And then once you were
going to build the highway, the state and the local
(17:45):
government had the tool of eminent domain to just take
your house from you. You didn't have to consent, you
didn't have to volunteer to move, you didn't have to agree.
They took your house and they gave you what they
thought you deserved and forced you to move.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I love the imminent domain sounds more professional than debo
or strong armed, like you just snatched it, snatched it theft,
you know. And then you think about what happened in Montgomery, Alabama,
where I believe you correct me if from wrong, professor,
where like they could have either built the freeway on
an open piece of land where wasn't nobody, so they
(18:20):
could have ran it straight through some black folks' homes,
and they chose deliberately to go through the black people's homes.
Speaker 6 (18:27):
That's right, they did, and so it shows to me
that they really weren't ashamed. It didn't really try to
even hide the intent behind this.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
This is maybe a very dumb point, but I don't
know if you've seen that movie up where Pixar movie
with the guys.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
The balloon House.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Yes, the balloon balloon started.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
The house is floating, yeah, I remember.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
That, and the whole movie starts because of an eminent
domain like there's like, look, we want your house because
we want to build stuff right here, and the whole
Then the guy just like, no, I'm taking balloons up
to escape this, all right, So people should have sympathy
for the situation. It'd be sad for this old crossty
old man getting his house taken. Just imagine that times.
I don't even know thousands. I wish that like the movie,
(19:11):
but none of the black people had balloons that could
carry their homes away.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I'm sure back in those days, black people weren't even
allowed to buy balloons. I'm sure there were some anti
happiness clause render What did you learn doing this piece? Well,
in two parts, what did you learn and how do
you think black people's lives would have looked differently if
these interstates had not been put where where they were put.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
I guess learning is just how difficult it is to
kind of like respond to a project like this after
it's already been put in place, like I because you know,
a bridge is something that's very difficult to remove. It's
not just like legislation where you can have someone sign
(19:53):
it away and now the law school is shifted. It's
like this is people build their whole lives around where
they we're hot, where ports of travel are. I mean,
if you've lived in New York, there's a whole l
trank orfuffle years ago, and like tons of people move
just because you know this line might be shut down
for a little bit. So it's kind of just seeing
(20:13):
like how effective this is putting in infrastructure when used
in a malicious manner to reverse, and then how it
can affect black people. I mean, I feel like it
would affect black people in the same way that like
a lot of discrimination does, which is it has this
immediate effect that this significantly harms a group of people.
(20:35):
But then what's potentially even more detrimental than that is
the downstream effect is like all right, you lose a
ton of capital, you lose a ton of land, and
so over the years, that's a ton of wealth and
money that can't grow from itself. So you lose a
ton of potential wealth for a massive group of people.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
And Professor, how do you think black people's lives you know,
would have been I know for sure we would have
been healthier. That would have stopped a lot of the
cancer rates. But yeah, what do you think if we
could have reversed this, how would this have benefited black people?
Speaker 6 (21:13):
So I think that fundamentally, we know that where you
live matters, and so we created communities where we have
to put a block along racial lines. We have created
communities where we have limited access to jobs and opportunity.
We are forcing communities of color to bear a disproportionate
(21:36):
share of environmental harms. Building the highways in the community
kind of labeled black communities to sacrifice zones that then
allowed government to put in as it is waste. We
put in major roads, we put in put train tracks
through everything became housed in black communities. We also blocked
(21:56):
off access, isolated those communities. We stigmatize those communities. So
the layers and layers and layers of inequality and the
layers of harm to those communities. They could have looked
like other communities, like every other community. We like to
have this division of good community versus bad community, but
(22:18):
faith we created those communities. Our policies and our actions
created those communities. We talk about the wealth gap between
white people and black people. A lot of our wealth
in this country comes through home ownership, comes through the
own ownership of land, and we took that from black people.
We took their homes, and we took their land across
the country, and we're still living with those consequences today.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Now, do you have any personal relationships with anyone that's
been affected by this issue, Professor?
Speaker 6 (22:47):
In the course of my research, I have spoken to
a lot of people who have their families, their lives,
their childhood has been impacted by the highway. They often
talk about sitting there and witnessing the pain that their
parents were going through, that they had spent decades saving
up and making payments to own this home and it
(23:09):
was going to be taken away from them. I've talked
to some people who talk about the pain of watching
their neighborhood be torn apart, brick by brick and building
by building. Someone who told me that their neighborhood that
used to be beautiful and a joy where they would
play in the park and they would play jump rope
(23:30):
in the street became overrun by rats because the rats
were displaced too, and they were in their homes and
they were forced to move out. It's hard for folks
who lost their homes. I spoke to some people in
Indianapolis and they talk about their home is under the highway,
and they mean that decades ago the highway that ran
(23:50):
through Indianapolis took their home from them and it is
now under the highway and they still feel pain by that.
I spoke to a woman in Syracuse whose family still
will not drive over I eighty one because of the
pain that they have experienced of having their home taken
to build IEITI one.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Well after the break, I want to dig in a
little bit more on the public transportation, transportation as a
whole and the inequities that exist within it. I need
to tell you all the story about riding the bus
in Birmingham and how the public bus system. We'll talk
about it in a second. This is beyond the scenes.
(24:28):
We'll be right back home. Let's talk a little bit
more about just transportation as a whole. Let's just not
go Okay, we understand the freeways, but that's one facet
of the Department of Transportation. What are some of the
other ways that transportation policy and infrastructures have impacted Black communities?
Speaker 6 (24:48):
Professor Yeah, transportation has always been both a reflection and
a driver of inequality. Communities of color often forced to
kind of host all the burdens of our transportation system
and get to enjoy a few of the benefits. The
inequality that we see in the highway, it's in our
roads and our street grids. There's an important civil rights
(25:09):
case called Memphis versus Green. In nineteen seventy four, at
the request of white residents, the city of Memphis closed
off a street that connected an all white neighborhood to
a predominantly black one. And in this important case, Memphis
versus Green, the United States Supreme Court rejected a challenge
by members of the black community who challenged this, stating
(25:29):
that the road closure was just an inconvenient The court
called it a routine burden of citizenship, but Justice Thurgood Marshall, dissenting,
noted that it was really a powerful symbolic message and
that it was a way for white people to keep
black people off their streets. And so that's just one
way that we see it, but it's in communities around
(25:51):
the country. They use street grid layouts, dead ended roads
to make it difficult to get from black communities to
white communities. One way streets to influence racial demographics through
exclusion and isolation. Atlanta is an incredible example of using
the streets in that way and the community around the country,
street safety is often dictated by race and class. Black
(26:15):
people bear the brunt of roadway injuries, in part because
predominantly black neighborhoods are less likely to have crosswalks, warning signs,
and other pedestrian safety measures.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Like just a regular sidewalk, just a regular and a light.
Can I get a street light so people could see me?
Speaker 6 (26:35):
Exactly? Many black communities don't have that sidewalk, they don't
have street lights. Yet we have high speed roadways that
are akin to many highways coursing through.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Them there And this is all and you're talking present
day stuff because we're not talking back of the bus,
colored bathrooms in the train station, segregated water fountain, like
we're at least pass that, but it seems like it
just has been remixed into something new.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
It's been layered, right, So it's the highways on top
of then the roads on top of the sidewalks on
top of lack of other infrastructure for pedestrian infrastructure. It
is really layered, and it is current. Lots of studies
going on today about the impact that it's having in communities.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
I mean, this may be acdonal, but I like ride
my bike in the city a lot, and two things
stick out to me. At One, because I'll use those
city bikes, and when I go to black areas, I'm like, damn,
there is one of these for maybe like five miles.
And two, I don't see any bike lanes. I'm like,
I'll be going on a white area. I'm like, all right,
I'm on this nice safe bike lane that eventually I'm like,
(27:46):
I am dodging traffic like I'm in fast and furious
ay right now, Yeah, give me some bike lanes.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Yeah, there's definitely hurdles as well with just the bus
system now in the present day. So so growing up,
I remember I had a car in high school, but
it was a very shoddy car and you know every
month it was down for two months type of car.
(28:13):
And so something as simple as going to the mall,
which on Birmingham the mall is a sojourn from the
west side all the way like it's two buses and
a connection, and the bus on the weekend, the last
bus from the White Mall from the Galleria was at
six thirty. The mall don't close till nine. So even
(28:33):
trying to get a job when I had a car,
I had to think about the bus route and the
time it would take and can I get the last
But but for whatever reason, on the Black side of
town you could get a bus's late as seven or eight,
which was for Birmingham terms, that was a very very
late bus. But like just the way the buses were scheduled,
they were scheduled in such a way that if you're
(28:55):
gonna come our hand shop, you're gonna come during the day,
you're gonna come crack a dawna you're gonna take your
butt home. But you can forget a about working out
there because you can't even get to like and even
when you live in like say in Hoover, it's a
forty five minute walk to the bus. The bus ain't
going all through the white neighborhood, is going to the
edge of the white neighborhood, and you meet me back
here if you want to go back to the black
(29:16):
side of town. So, how do you when we talk
about the legislation of this, how do you prove that
because this is the type of this is that shifty,
gelatinous type of racism. This isn't as concrete. This is
one that people could go Will you know, funding we
can take the bus out that way? How do we
(29:38):
create better legislation to undo all of this? Professor? Can
that even be done?
Speaker 6 (29:44):
I would like to speak to that situation that you describe,
because that's exactly the situation we see around the country
where we have, particularly around buses which are disproportionately used
by people of color, Buses that only get you to
the edge of the white community but won't take you
far into the white community. Buses that stop running at
(30:04):
a certain hour. White communities around the country have resisted
having bus stops in their communities because they don't they'll say,
we don't want crime. Well, we all know what they mean.
When they say we don't want crime. They stop buses early,
and as we see more jobs move from inner cities
and cities into the suburban rings, it makes it difficult
(30:26):
for people to access economic opportunity, to be able to
get to work. I spoke with someone who lives in
Michigan and takes a bus to their job at the mall,
but the bus only gets them far enough where after
that they have to get off and walk two miles
to get to their job at the mall. There's a
story of a woman in upstate New York. The bus
(30:49):
could not go into the parking lot of the mall.
It couldn't get you all the way to the mall.
The bus could only drop you off on the black
side of the highway, and then she had to try
to traverse the highway to get to work, and she
was hit by a car and she died. And so
we have to push back against the way that white
communities are denying access based on public transportation when we
(31:11):
know what that is about. The challenge with our laws
is that they don't get at that kind of amorphous
discrimination that you talked about. They don't get at impact.
We have a legal system that is firmly grounded in
challenging instances where there are this proof, hard proof. Someone
calls you the N word, someone says we don't want
black people, and that just doesn't work with the kind
(31:34):
of racism that we are challenging and experiencing today. It
doesn't help us get at these deeply entrenched inequality that's
in our system, that can be invisible to people if
you take a quick look and is.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Wild to go from you're sitting the back of the
bus to all right, we're just gonna get rid.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Of the buss pretty much, pretty much, Oh tell you
like that. That has always been one of the biggest
issues that I've had, you know, and I love you know,
I love Birmingham, it's home. But mass transportation has always
been a hurdle. It is and it remains a hurdle
(32:14):
to this day, Randall, when you all are assembling these stories,
who decides when it's time to put the pencil down,
Because this is a deep rabbit hole, Because like, honestly,
you can get into transportation, but then we'll get to
United and second on this professor, you can get into
how transportation intersects with housing inequity and education inequity and
(32:35):
all of those policies all working in concert to create
the racism gumbo that I like to call or you
know it to fee whatever you prefer. Randall, when do
you all make the decision to finally put the pencils
down and go, okay, this is all we can cover
on this topic.
Speaker 4 (32:53):
I mean, it is difficult because there is a bunch
of stuff in the gumbo, as you say, but you
know saying with gumbo, you can only eat so much
before you're about to just pass out and get the items,
so you kind of it's kind of like a feeling,
and it's also mixed with Luckily, time itself is a
little bit of a limited because the segment has to
come out eventually, and since we wanted to tie it
(33:16):
to the infrastructure bill, it's like, all right, well this
segment has to get out before that bill either passes
or fails. So it's a mix of just intuition, but
also the context around whatever the segment.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Is professor to that point of so many different things
working in concert. You know, when we talk about you know,
these different factors from housing to education policy in addition
to transportation impacting black communities access to opportunity, Like how
do you decide which part of the problem to attack first,
(33:54):
because you know, we're talking federal housing mandates, local housing policies.
You've got public education systems, employment discrimination, you've got crooked
banks not loaning your money to get the house to
help rebuild the hood, and you have the highway system.
Are these issues that can be tackled one by one
or do they all have to be taken down at
(34:16):
the same time.
Speaker 6 (34:17):
Definitely, not one by one, all at the same time.
We have to have a conservative effort to tear apart
all these systems, all these systems of oppression, all these
systems of inequality. They feed each other, they drive each other,
and so we have to really work on attacking all
at the same time. Often transportation is forgotten about in
(34:39):
that conversation. We talk about criminal legal system, reform, housing, voting,
economic opportunity. We forget about transportation. But transportation is far
more than a means of just moving people back and forth.
Transportation systems shape who gets to feel like like the
belong who gets to enjoy access to opportunity, who gets
to live with safety and dignity. Transportation infrastructure is the
(35:03):
infrastructure of equitable education, of good health, of economic opportunity,
and really of a vibrant democracy. We're talking about fixing
our democratic process and challenging the ways that we are
making it harder for black people and other people of
color to vote. One example that we've seen is the
closing of polling places. So a black community used to
(35:27):
have twelve polling places, and now legislation passes and there's
one polling place there. One of the reasons why that's
a challenge is because of transportation, people have no way
to get to that one polling place. So it's all interconnected,
and I'm glad that transportation and infrastructure is really now
a part of the conversation about civil rights and racial equality.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
On the other side of the coin, though, is there
or was there a degree or freedom that black people
felt from having the Interstates and going fine, you don't
the buses tripping were cool. I was finally able to
afford a car. Now I can drive and get to
everywhere I want to go.
Speaker 6 (36:08):
Absolutely, it certainly offered some measure of freedom where black
people didn't have to deal with segregate the back of
the bus and segregated buses. They didn't have to wait
and segregated waiting rooms. But black car ownership and driving
on the interstate opened up a whole new body of
discrimination targeting black people. I mentioned driving while black and
(36:31):
the need for the green Book because black people often
did not arrive at their destination safely because they didn't
know what communities were safe to stop and where they
could stop to get gas, where it was going to
be safe to stop at a hotel, and so there
were dangers that opened up with the freeway. And so, yeah,
it certainly had so many positives, absolutely, but a lot
(36:54):
of challenges.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
So we got to attack this issue and all these
problems at the same time concurrently, like independent today random
you can't just take Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
I never even thought of that, Like that is one
of my favorite things about riding somewhere at the bus
is like, look, I can't get pulled over right now,
I say that, but I actually have been on a
bus that's been pulled over. So now that I've kind
of taken I don't know how they do it. These
are some of the most inventive police officers of all time.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
After the break, we're going to talk about some people
that are trying to attack this issue and be a
part of the solution. We need to break down old
Joe Beezy's Build Back Better Bill, and also some opponents
of everything that we've talked about today. You know, not
everybody's going to agree with this. This is a very
interesting topic. We'll bring it home after the break. This
is beyond the scenes we're learning here. According to Professor Archer,
(37:51):
the only way to change transportation is to also change
housing inequity, and also change educational inequity, and also change
employment inquity. And we have to attack it all at
the same time. The way Will Smith and Jeff Goldbloom
was installing the virus on the alien mothership while down
on Earth the President and a drunk Randy Quaid were
(38:12):
getting ready to shoot missiles at the Alien mothership at
the exact same time. We have to coordinate an attack
just like that. That was what you were saying, Professor Archer, right,
you said, it is just like Independence Day, just like it,
just like it exactly. So if we compare it to
Independence Day, then Joe Biden's first missile at this monstrosity
(38:34):
of transportation in equity is his Build Back Better Bill.
Where do you see that infrastructure bill in terms of
the efficacy of it to be able to affect some
degree of racial equality.
Speaker 6 (38:49):
I think it's not only the Infrastructure Bill, but also
his broader commitment to racial equity and racial justice and
transportation that we hear from President and also members of
his administration. And I think the Infrastructure Plan holds tremendous promise.
It could be truly transformative because it represents a historic
(39:11):
investment in urban communities and communities of color. But that
alone does not mean it's going to advance racial equity.
The bill includes billions of dollars to reconnect neighborhoods that
were cut off by highways and to ensure new projects
increase opportunity and advance racial equity, environmental justice, promote affordable access.
(39:34):
Members of the administration have used the phrase restore and reconnect,
but there's still a lot of open questions about how
that's actually going to work because it takes far more
than just a stated commitment to racial equality. It's going
to take more than a one time infusion of capital
and investment in these communities before we really see a
(39:54):
fundamental change.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
And Randall, that's the part of it where I feel
like we don't always get to live within the show,
this idea that here's how the problem started. Here's what's
happening today. Damn, we're out of time. Hope you laughed.
I would just wish there was a way to really
get into like how we think the country would look
in five to ten years on the other side of Biden,
(40:19):
Like I know, like there's a legitimate analysis aspect of it,
Professor Archer, but also like what if there was just
a bus riding through a white neighborhood at ten thirty
at night. Do you understand how hilarious of a sketch
it for me? Like that just makes me laugh. Like
in the studies that you've done on the Bill Randall,
(40:39):
how do you think things will be different in the
next five to ten years.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Honestly, I don't know. If I'm being fully honest, I
really don't know it. Could you know, like the professor said,
bring together all these communities provide more, you know, just
opportunity for the groups involved. Or I feel like what
(41:03):
a lot of things that happen is there could be
massive pushback, so you know, in the same way there's
pushback in the past that divided all these neighborhoods, it
could be pushed back. It's like, all right, black people
are easy to transport. Now wheels are bands all right,
and now white people may flying cars. Niggas have to walk,
all right. So it's hard for me to know because
(41:25):
I feel like pushback could be so strong against any
type of advancements. It feels like there's just this huge
spectrum of what can happen. It could be this utopian
project or it could just be like another transformation of
how people push back against equity.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
To that to that point about the city bikes earlier, Randall,
I feel that way about electric cars, like there ain't
no way to charge them in the hood right now,
and even if you want it to be efficient in
go green, as a black person in a certain part
of town, you're not gonna have a lot of places
where you park, you know, Family Dollar and Auto Zone
and got the charge in port parking space.
Speaker 6 (42:08):
Yet I agree that there's unlikely to see that much
change in five or ten years. Maybe in ten years
we'll see a physical difference with this, with this funding,
highways being replaced with recess highways or a place with
street grids, highways capped with a pedestrian bridge to reconnect
(42:29):
these communities. But it's going to take efforts sustain efforts
unlike we've seen before to restore economic empowerment that does
not also become a tool for displacement. It's not going
to be easy, and as the nursery rhyme says, it's
hard to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Weaving cities
back together, rebuilding them is going to be really challenging.
(42:51):
And as Randall said, there's as much risk as there
is potential right now because the same people who suffered
during the original build communities of color, their homes are
still in the way of the bulldozers. As we try
to reimagine and rebuild. The possibility of short term and
(43:11):
long term displacement is there again, the possibility of losing
their homes, it's there again. Racism and classism are still
woven deeply into the fabric of American society, and those
forces are going to drive even this new change. I
see it in South Carolina where we're working with a
community in Conway, South Carolina that's trying to fight back
(43:33):
against a new road that's being built with new funds
but targeting a black community doing what you described, hitting
all the black houses but miraculously avoiding a white storage facility,
a white owned storage facility. So there are a lot
of challenges moving forward. The moment has promise, but the
(43:54):
moment has risks as well.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Okay, So then to the point about Conway, South Carolina.
So Pete Boudage said that racism is physically built into
some of our highways. If that is true, how do
we rebuild new highways without repeating some of the same
mistakes of the past and make sure that those things
are that what you're talking about is taking into consideration.
(44:17):
Like you're talking about recess highways, you sit them low,
you build a bridge over them. Boston did the whole
big dig where they literally put the freeway under the city.
I know every city is not going to have the
type of terrain that lends itself to that type of engineering,
But how do we get the engineers on board? How
do we get the construction companies on board? How do
(44:37):
you get the zoning and they planning people on board
with understanding as we rebuild and repair new highways, how
do we get these groups to take it with the
same level of gravity as you and as President Biden
and as Buddhajic.
Speaker 6 (44:54):
You have to get all those people on board and
you have to get white communities on board because they're
going to have to host more of the unwanted aspects
than they have in the past. I think broadly, racial
equity has to be central in both the process and
the outcome. We have to know that it's not just
(45:15):
about the absence of a physical divider of a highway,
but creation of conditions for the community to flourish. We
need to embrace this infrastructure change as a catalyst for rebuilding.
We need to explore the dynamics and models of community
control and really deepen ways of democratic decision making in
(45:36):
these communities, allowing communities to participate, but also allowing them
to exercise some power in deciding what happens to their community.
And so it's complicated in so many ways. We need
to address all of the compounded harm and the multiple
layers of harm. We need to help the folks who
(45:57):
have been displaced be able to return to their communities,
sometimes getting something that may look akin to reparations, but
support for returning, and dealing with the fact that these
communities are in many ways considered to be, as I said,
sacrifice zones. So you move the highway, but black and
Latino people are still going to live with pollution because
(46:17):
we've put so many other things in those communities. All
of that has to change.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
Are there any places in America or many or cities
in the world where like this is kind of like
a north star for how we want to build or rebuild?
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Yeah, who's got it right?
Speaker 6 (46:33):
Yeah? I don't know anyone has it right as in
terms of here that it's all done and they got
it right. There are lots of people who are doing
it better. And I think hold Promise. Indianapolis, I think
is an example of this incredibly diverse community effort that's
centering the voices and perspective of those who were most
(46:55):
deeply impacted by the highway that continue to be most
deeply impacted by the highway. They're providing tools, educational tools
so that community members can knowledgeably and really participate, meaningfully
participate in the process. And they're doing it over the
long term. They're starting the process now even though that
highway is ultimately not going to be replaced for another
(47:19):
five or ten years, and so that's one example of
doing it better. They're thinking about how to bring in
all aspects of their community. So they're thinking about long
term sustained support for small businesses. They're thinking about affordable
housing and how to build affordable housing, sustain and protect
(47:41):
home ownership by people of color in the community. They're
thinking about all those pieces that we talked about needing
to be needing to be considered. So that's one example
I think of people who are thinking about how to
do it better.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Okay, now you talk about reparations, and we know reparations
ain't going to come strictly in the form of money,
as we talk about ways to prevent this from happening
again in communities like Indianapolis who are doing things to
make sure that in the future things are better. Is
there a way to repair what has been done up
(48:15):
until now to these black communities that were displaced and
that lost generational wealth, and that lost opportunities, and that
are dealing with chronic health issues. I'm sure if we
pulled health statistics of whatever cancer per capita near the
pollution versus further away from the pollution, we will probably
(48:35):
be shocked by those numbers. Is there a way to
fix what has been done so far?
Speaker 4 (48:40):
Though?
Speaker 6 (48:40):
I don't know that we would ever be able to
undo all the harm and meaning that these communities will
catch up and be where they should have been. But
that's what build back better has to mean. It has
to mean that we have a commitment to try to
trying to rebuild the economic core of these communities, trying
to rebuild the wealth in these communities, trying to create
(49:05):
access to opportunity, to choice, fill lives, to joy, fill lives.
And so if we're not considering how we do that
at the same time that we are thinking about re
envisioning and reimagining these highways, then we're not doing it
the right way. I call it reparations. It has to
be a part of the conversation to rebuild those communities,
(49:27):
but also those individuals and those families, people who lost
so much as we built the interstate highway system.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
How do we get somebody like tech and Carlson on board.
Speaker 4 (49:39):
We've got to build a highway through his living room.
Speaker 6 (49:45):
Yeah, I heard those comments. And actually, a reaction I
often get from people when I talk about the highway
is that it's just a road. They'll say, it's just
a road, and it's just a road unless it was
your community that was targeted, Your homes and community institutions
and businesses that were destroyed, robbing people and the community
(50:07):
of their wealth and economic foundation. And it's just a
road unless it was your community that was cording off
by what amounted to state impose racial segregation. And it's
just a road unless it's your community that is still
looking at that highway as a monument to white supremacy,
to segregation, and to racial inequality.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Well, this has been a wonderful, wonderful discussion. Professor Archer
randall Otis. I wish that we have more time, but
we do not. Thank you all both so much for
going beyond the scenes with me.
Speaker 6 (50:40):
Thank you, thank you so much for having
Speaker 1 (50:42):
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