Page 8 - Microsoft PowerPoint - Hidden History - DFW v2.pptx

The Bottoms and the Blues
Next came North Oak Cliff, just south of downtown on the southern banks of the Trinity River known
as the “Bottoms.” Before dirt levees were built in the 1920s, the Trinity River often flooded the
slouching shotgun shacks occupied by former slaves.

In the 1800s, Oak Cliff was its own city, and most of the wealthy white families lived there with their
slaves. Some of the first white settlers of Oak Cliff are interred at the top of the hill with their black
servants buried at their feet.

As we drove into this historically black neighborhood, the Pinkards played a song by a former resident
of the Bottoms, T‐Bone Walker. In “Trinity River Blues,” Walker wails, “That dirty Trinity River sure
have done me wrong. It came in my windows and doors, now all my things are gone.”

While most of the original residents have moved, the land is being primed for gentrification.
Construction near Interstate 35 forced us to detour. The Texas Department of Transportation is
decking the freeway to establish a park on top, similar to Klyde Warren. The community is bracing for

another eminent domain takeover. The city, meanwhile, maintains it now has processes in place to
freeze property taxes for longtime residents, which it hopes will prevent the displacement that
occurred in West Dallas after the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge went up near the majority Latino
neighborhood of La Bajada.

It’s a common pattern in Dallas. Blacks are relegated to parts of the city that white people aren’t
interested in. Then, as the city expands, whites displace blacks from these neighborhoods and claim
the area for themselves. Due to this constant encroachment on historically black neighborhoods,
many black families have moved out of the city and into the surrounding suburbs of DeSoto,
Duncanville, Lancaster and Cedar Hill.

Fire Bombings in South Dallas

On the last leg of the tour, we headed back into South Dallas to an area that experienced unusual
racial violence. This was a part of town occupied by the Jewish and Christian community, including
Stanley Marcus and his family.

When black people began to move into the neighborhood in the early 1950s, groups of white people
drove around and stuck dynamite under the front porches of black‐owned homes. There were even
reports of sticks of dynamite being hurled out of passing cars as black people were commuting to
work. 8