In the glory days of Paradise Valley and Black Bottom, the area brimmed over with Black residents, as whites opposed Black expansion to the north or the east. But by the mid-1940s, middle class Blacks were leaving Black Bottom to buy homes and settle in new neighborhoods to the north and west, and Paradise Valley as a Black business and entertainment center began to lose its footing. In a 1946 Michigan Chronicle piece, the changes in Paradise Valley were harshly noted by Larry Chism: “No longer is the valley the gay charming, and alluring young lady she once was, instead she is a withered, ugly old hag whom no one loves and whom everyone is beginning to forsake for a younger more beautiful companion.” During the 1950s, Black Bottom became a seriously blighted neighborhood. Grand visions of a renewed Detroit destroyed virtually every vestige of Paradise Valley and Black Bottom as Interstate 75 plowed through the area in the 1960s. As the oldest established Black enclave in Detroit, Black Bottom and Paradise Valley were not merely points on the map, but rather the heart of Detroit’s Black community – they are now buried under the concrete and asphalt of I-75. Chances are, John Lee Hooker would have a heartbreaking ballad or two to sing about that. archive.freep/article/20131215/OPINION05/312150060/Black-Bottom-Detroit-I-375-I-75-paradise-valley-removal
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 22:07:40 +0000
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