Inside Homewood’s Economic Development: 1950s - 1990s pt. 2

Early Efforts for Community Improvement

Ever since the first Great Migration of blacks to Pittsburgh, from 1916-1922, the Hill District had been the core African American neighborhood and cultural center in Pittsburgh. At that time the Hill was racially integrated and a diverse cultural mix of many working class ethnic groups, including Jews, Poles, and Syrians. By the 1940s the Hill was primarily African American. The destruction of houses and business in an area, during “urban renewal” in the 1950s, displaced approximately one-third of the total community. Urban renewal scattered Black residents and businesses from the Hill District throughout the city, many relocating in the East End, including Lincoln, Lemington, Larimer, and Homewood. The mix of new and old residents created tension in the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, Homewood had been a racially mixed community. Black residents lived on a few blocks in southern Homewood. They mostly worked in the mansions of affluent whites in Point Breeze and were regarded in the Black community as being middle-class. They were socialized and acculturated in upper-class ways and far removed from the scraping and desperation of the recent migrants from the south who lived in the Hill District.

Many of Homewood’s blacks lived in Pittsburgh for several generations. They had seen the days when black people worked in the service industry as barbers and tailors, with white clients. Although African Americans clustered in blocks within predominantly white neighborhoods there was little segregation until the southern migrants arrived during the first migration (1916-1922). Northern blacks became concerned that Southern migrants would “bring Jim Crow with them” to Pittsburgh and tried to socialize and “acculturate” the new residents by establishing organizations such as the Urban League.

When blacks from the Hill District moved into Homewood, by the late 1950s, they faced derision from the more established black families who were already there. HBCIA had positioned itself to reflect the interests of the older and more bourgeois black residents. Moreover, the 1950s was a conservative time for community organizing and social services. The conservative atmosphere was a reaction against the social activism of the 1920s and 30s. It also reflected intimidation and suspicion of such activism which the Army-McCarthy senate hearings embodied. The only “safe” form of community organizing during the 1950s encouraged conformity and reflected the values of private property-owners.