I remember my mom driving with me in our van across the Trinity river into black West Dallas. It was like traveling to a different planet. Every building was old and decrepit. There were dirty housing projects and block after block of shotgun shacks. She always drove to a Goodwill store, where she would hunt for bargain antiques, and she bought for me an old print of Edward Bellamy’s *Looking Backward* on sale for a dollar. Mom once shooed me away from a blacks only water fountain there.
I understand that West Dallas was once the province of poor whites, notably Bonnie and Clyde. The early poor white version of that neighborhood was nicely portrayed in the Netflix movie, *The Highwaymen* though it was filmed in parts of Louisiana that remain primitive. The poor whites were elevated by the New Deal, and postwar prosperity, leaving the neighborhood to African Americans who were poisoned by industrial waste, notable from a lead smelting factory. I do recall that mom was angry about this, despite her acceptance of the Dallas apartheid.
Also, so many of what we believe to be eternally minority slums in Houston were originally poor White. Aldine, Kashmere Gardens, Cloverleaf, South Park, near Northside (part of which used to be thought of as Fifth Ward), much of the East End...Willie Nelson's last Houston steady gig was a residency in a beer joint on Canal Street.
You get a good sense of that in that Prince Albert doc...Also, it was kinda-sorta integrated in those shantytowns. T-Bone Walker used to swim in some quarry with young Clyde.
So, finish the loop here for me...take me past red lining and into CRT. And what about the white trash class that remains? The trailer parks and country slums... the meth labs.
This is a brilliant start on an idea, take me further down the rabbit trail with you.
I remember my mom driving with me in our van across the Trinity river into black West Dallas. It was like traveling to a different planet. Every building was old and decrepit. There were dirty housing projects and block after block of shotgun shacks. She always drove to a Goodwill store, where she would hunt for bargain antiques, and she bought for me an old print of Edward Bellamy’s *Looking Backward* on sale for a dollar. Mom once shooed me away from a blacks only water fountain there.
I understand that West Dallas was once the province of poor whites, notably Bonnie and Clyde. The early poor white version of that neighborhood was nicely portrayed in the Netflix movie, *The Highwaymen* though it was filmed in parts of Louisiana that remain primitive. The poor whites were elevated by the New Deal, and postwar prosperity, leaving the neighborhood to African Americans who were poisoned by industrial waste, notable from a lead smelting factory. I do recall that mom was angry about this, despite her acceptance of the Dallas apartheid.
Also, so many of what we believe to be eternally minority slums in Houston were originally poor White. Aldine, Kashmere Gardens, Cloverleaf, South Park, near Northside (part of which used to be thought of as Fifth Ward), much of the East End...Willie Nelson's last Houston steady gig was a residency in a beer joint on Canal Street.
You get a good sense of that in that Prince Albert doc...Also, it was kinda-sorta integrated in those shantytowns. T-Bone Walker used to swim in some quarry with young Clyde.
Fantastic!
Great piece, Nova.
So, finish the loop here for me...take me past red lining and into CRT. And what about the white trash class that remains? The trailer parks and country slums... the meth labs.
This is a brilliant start on an idea, take me further down the rabbit trail with you.