Historic Black Business Districts Series 2020
August marked National Black Business Month in the US. During August we launched a series highlighting some of our most renowned and historically important Black Business Districts. These highlights include the Sweet Auburn neighborhood in Atlanta — home of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and currently experiencing a resurgence of investment and popularity as a retail destination. We also include Seneca Village in New York City — now the site of Central Park.
We believe that it is important to take note of the impact that these business districts have had on the makeup of their respective cities and to emphasize the influence that Black businesses have on the overall landscape of retail in the United States.
While some of the neighborhoods and districts that we will highlight remain active and vibrant in the present, many of them have fallen victim to decades of disinvestment — some of it deliberate. Many others have experienced outright destruction that threatens to erase the history of the profound impact that these once-thriving districts had on the lives of their inhabitants.
Below are links to the &Access Instagram page and the stories of some of the most important retail corridors of the 19th and 20th Centuries in the USA!
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