The City of Tucson is diving into black history with a project aimed at chronicling historically significant structures, buildings, and neighborhoods.
The city’s Department of Historic Preservation received a $20,000 state grant for the first phase of the project.
The first phase will involve identifying architectural and cultural sites within the city limits that are relevant to the African American community. In the second phase, which requires additional funding, we will use the research and databases from the first phase to create historical contextual documents.
Historic preservation expert and WestLand Resources principal investigator Jennifer Levstik tackles this project to delve deep into the history of the Tucson neighborhood.
“We are starting to lose some of these historic buildings,” Revstick said. “It’s important for the city to understand which of these historic properties are related to the African American community that we may not know about.”
She said knowing which buildings have historical significance will allow the city and community to better protect them. This is because it is not always clear which buildings are associated with different groups.
One such building, the Beau Brummel Social Club, an African-American social club and bar, was demolished in 2018.
Levstik said the developer sold the lot and the property was demolished. Once people understood the importance of property, it was too late to save it.
Tucson Historic Preservation Officer Jody Brown said that while other smaller studies have been conducted on the topic, this project will integrate those studies and provide historical information for the African-American community. You’ll find other buildings of importance.
what we already know
Levstik said he has also researched Tucson’s African-American community before and knows many properties to include in the database, including churches and social organizations like the former Black Elks club in Barrio Viejo. I was.
She also said she knows of several schools, including Dunbar School, a segregated middle school, and Marist College, a comprehensive school that provides high school education to African Americans.
“Dunbar, founded around the same time, was only educated through middle school. I noticed a gap.
Levstik says he also wants to find residences associated with prominent community members.
She already knows the residence of Dunbar School’s first principal, Cicero Simmons, just off Fourth Avenue, and the home of Ulysses Kay, a noted jazz musician who lived in Barrio Viejo.
There are also several areas associated with well-known African American communities, one of which is Sugar Hill.
According to the Sugar Hill Neighborhood Association, this historically black neighborhood was one of the only places black people could buy a home from World War II until the 1960s.
Another is Dunbar Springs, just north of downtown. According to the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Association, the neighborhood is named for John Spring, a prominent citizen and one of Tucson’s first teachers, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, an African-American poet. I was.
Another area of interest for this project is A Mountain, west of downtown. Levstik said the area was established and settled by returning veterans.
“There are a lot of interesting places in Tucson. Many of them are kind of hidden,” says Levstik.
Levstik said that while many buildings still stand, few historic black-owned businesses remain, many of them in the downtown Barrio Viejo area, which were demolished during urban renewal in the 1960s. pointed out.
Meanwhile, across the United States, areas deemed plague were devastated and, in many cases, low-income communities of color were displaced.
At the time, according to local experts, the Barrio Viejo was a vibrant multicultural neighborhood of adobe buildings.
The Tucson Relocation Survey, published in collaboration with the City of Tucson by Master of Urban Planning students at the University of Arizona, states that “nearly 1,200 residents have been displaced and demolished minority homes and businesses on more than 80 acres. I was there,” he said.
To find other buildings and areas of historical significance to the African-American community, Levstik and her team searched the city’s phone directory, phone books, the Arizona Historical Society Library’s ephemera files, or documents and memorabilia. Examine you.
They also reached out to community members and academics such as the Dunbar Coalition (now the Dunbar Pavilion: Center for African American Arts and Culture), the organization that revived the Dunbar School, and local African American scholar Bernard Wilson. reach out.
historical background
African-American immigration to Arizona began in the 1800s and early 1900s, with many enlisting in the military, Levstik said. Many went to Fort Huachuca and some worked as cowboys. However, the 1920s and 1930s saw a peak in migration of African Americans to Arizona.
She said many African Americans were recruited to grow staple crops such as cotton in farmlands such as Marana and Pinal counties. They were also recruited to work in northern logging communities.
A move to Arizona also occurred after World War II when returning veterans moved to the state for work.
Brown said the project aligns Tucson with other cities that often document buildings, structures, and neighborhoods that are important to the various ethnic communities and groups that make up the city. .
Brown said Tucson has completed the first phase of its Asian American survey, documenting buildings and neighborhoods of historical significance to the Asian American community.
In the future, I would like to start researching buildings associated with Native American and Latino communities.
Brown noted how conducting these surveys will help us get a more complete picture of Tucson’s overall history.
“Tucson isn’t just one segment, it’s such a broad and colorful and complete history that has many components,” says Brown.
Neighborhood associations ‘disappointed’ with survey outreach process
Sadie Shaw is a board member of the Tucson Unified School District and past president of the Sugar Hill Neighborhood Association. Sugar Hill Oral History Project.
She said the research being conducted in Tucson is necessary and important work.
“We should have done it decades ago,” she said.
However, Shaw also said he was disappointed that the areas included in the study had not been contacted at the start of the study plan.
Shaw found out about the project when the Arizona Republic reached out to her for comment.
“Outreach seems to be the last thing. Neighbors, black neighbors, neighborhoods seem to be notified in the final stages of the process,” Shaw said.
Shaw has started her own oral history project at Sugar Hill. Arizona public media videothe history of the neighborhood, the lives of its residents, and help make the Black Tucson community more visible.
She worries that the work being done by community members will be overshadowed by this research, which is led by an outside organization rather than by the neighborhoods conducting the oral history project themselves.
Her hope is to find support from the city to preserve these oral histories.
“Sugar Hill Community Land Trust and Sugar Hill Oral History Project, we are two organizations in the neighborhood. We are not alone. black-led organizations,” Shaw said.
With the city of Tucson, Brown responded that the survey is city-wide and has elements of the history of buildings, neighborhoods, and notable people, but it’s not as detailed as the nearby Oral History Project. .
“Eventually, research and individual oral history projects will complement each other,” Brown said in an email. Brown said the city reached out to Dunbar School when it was considering applying for the grant.
