Nation-Building in an Inner-City Neighborhood: The Importance of Knowing Your History

Drivers see only pavement when they cruise past the junction of Olson Memorial Highway and Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis today. I knew that spot when it was the wild corner of Sixth and Lyndale Avenues North. It was the one place in otherwise quiet Minneapolis where people could come to gamble, get drunk, and do other things that were outlawed during the 1920s. Some people called it the Hellhole. I called it home. W. Harry Davis Minneapolis civil right leader, business executive, North Minneapolis native Introduction In Savannah, Georgia, Marlborough Packard and his students from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) work alongside city residents to preserve and renovate historic buildings, including low-income housing units. Designers from SCAD consult with residents to determine the features that residents would like to see incorporated into their homes. These residents might be temporarily relocated while their homes are being gentrified, but when the work is complete, they move back into their low-income homes. Savannah is a place where people and value their city's history. They that James Oglethorpe designed the city around squares that give it a distinctive look and feel. They that as an early port town, Savannah was hub of commerce and banking. They can see their city's history in its design; the preservation of this design and the culture embodied in the built environment involves residents from all walks of life. Currently, faculty and students from Savannah College of Art and Design work with the support of the City of Savannah and its residents to gentrify low-income housing without displacing low-income residents. The civic structure is in place, in large part, because all parties value the city's heritage and its historical significance. The foundation has already been laid on which to build this re-gentrification project, which will bring widespread benefits to Savannah's residents without displacing them. Contrast Savannah's experience with that in North Minneapolis, Minnesota, where residents' histories have been largely lost. For most people living in North Minneapolis, theirs is a history of immigration--of slaves being brought to America, of Jewish refugees fleeing pogroms in Russia or Romania, of Hmong families released from decades of life in refugee camps after supporting the U.S. during the Vietnam War. Most of the people living in North Minneapolis would have a difficult time recreating their family trees. Their histories are largely left behind in a homeland far away. What people know about North Minneapolis is that it is a stopping-off place on the way to better things. Or it is the end-of-the-line for people who have been displaced by personal misfortune or by being born the wrong color. What people know about North Minneapolis is that you'd live somewhere else if you could. But what people know about North Minneapolis is often mistaken and certainly does not build a strong foundation for civic pride and preservation. Gentrification hasn't come to North Minneapolis--yet. But when it does, chances are that the people who are there now will not be consulted and will be displaced. These two examples begin to form a context for understanding the impact of a community knowing and valuing its history. When this sense of history is in place, it provides a foundation for community building. A community without a sense of its history, however, will have a more difficult time (re)building when they do not have this historical foundation. People without a history have difficulty cohering as a community; they more readily break into divisive groups, leaving the community susceptible to a divide and rule approach from funding agencies, city officials, criminals, unscrupulous community leaders, and others with some kind of official or legitimated power. (See Hinds, 2000.) People living in North Minneapolis today have lost a history of themselves and their forebears in that city. …