During the separate-and-unequal era of Jim Crow segregation, African American neighborhoods all over all country faced racially targeted land use decisions. These policies pushed communities into areas with fewer resources that were often at greater risk from environmental exposures.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, African Americans were intentionally concentrated on the west side of town, close to a major railroad line and one of the city's main industrial areas. From the 1960s through the 1980s, as the nation's growing web of interstate highways reached Charlotte, three major roads (I-85, I-77 and NC-16) were routed through the west side. In the decades that followed, public and private investment built up suburban neighborhoods for well-off residents at the edges of town.
Racial segregation was no longer legal, but the persisting effects of discrimination meant that African Americans were left concentrated in a crescent of older neighborhoods around the center city that had worse air.
Now, a group of citizens and scientists have banded together to try and improve their air quality. As part of Clean Air Carolina's AirKeepers program, citizen scientists and community leaders Mattie Marshall, William Hughes and Ron Ross have spent the past four years monitoring air pollution in Charlotte’s Historic West End. Their hope is to create a Historic West End Green District in the area by working to mobilize residents, businesses, churches, nonprofits and government agencies to reduce the air pollution.
