Black Worker Housing
Flooding and sewage
Durham’s rolling hills and dense soil resulted in the frequent flooding of low-lying areas. Residents knew these areas as “the Bottoms.”
Many Black families had no choice but to live in these low-elevation areas, creating a pattern of segregation by elevation.
This 1913 map shows a creek flowing through the Bottoms neighborhood, just south of the American Tobacco Company. These creeks were often used as open sewers.
Courtesy University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries
Unequal City Services
Black neighborhoods contained more garbage incinerators and unpaved roads than white neighborhoods, and they received sewer lines later. These discriminatory actions by the city had negative impacts on community health and discouraged investment.
“Landowner Mrs. Lizzie Stuart complains that Sparkman is in deplorable condition and not maintained by city street forces; that the only light does not adequately serve; that lack of sewerage makes the entire area almost unlivable during the summer season.”
-1953 property appraisal, land south of Glenn Street and east of Whitted Street
Courtesy Rencher Nicholas Harris Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University
Shoddy Housing
White tobacco workers made three times the amount of Black workers. Low wages forced many Black households to settle in the cheapest rental housing, which was often in poor condition.
Much of the rental housing in Black Durham neighborhoods was made of salvaged materials from the demolition of older buildings. Because the city did not extend sewer lines, people had to use outhouses, like in this Hayti alley in 1960.
Courtesy Billy E. Barnes Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“I didn’t perceive our house as small back then. The problem, as I remember it, was its deteriorating condition.
Frozen pipes in the winter were common, and plenty of milk jugs and buckets were always on hand for the trip next door to our landlord’s house to collect water for cooking, bathing, and drinking.”
– Kelvin De’Marcus Allen on growing up in Hayti in Looking Back to Move Forward
Two men and a child walk on unpaved roads in a Black Durham neighborhood, 1966
Courtesy Billy E. Barnes Collection,
Louis Round Wilson Special
Collections Library, University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Flooding and sewage
Durham’s rolling hills and dense soil resulted in the frequent flooding of low-lying areas. Residents knew these areas as “the Bottoms.”
Many Black families had no choice but to live in these low-elevation areas, creating a pattern of segregation by elevation.
This 1913 map shows a creek flowing through the Bottoms neighborhood, just south of the American Tobacco Company. These creeks were often used as open sewers.
Courtesy University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries
unequal city services
Black neighborhoods contained more garbage incinerators and unpaved roads than white neighborhoods, and they received sewer lines later. These discriminatory actions by the city had negative impacts on community health and discouraged investment.
“Landowner Mrs. Lizzie Stuart complains that Sparkman is in deplorable condition and not maintained by city street forces; that the only light does not adequately serve; that lack of sewerage makes the entire area almost unlivable during the summer season.”
-1953 property appraisal, land south of Glenn Street and east of Whitted Street
Courtesy Rencher Nicholas Harris Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University
Shoddy Housing
White tobacco workers made three times the amount of Black workers. Low wages forced many Black households to settle in the cheapest rental housing, which was often in poor condition.
Much of the rental housing in Black Durham neighborhoods was made of salvaged materials from the demolition of older buildings. Because the city did not extend sewer lines, people had to use outhouses, like in this Hayti alley in 1960.
Courtesy Billy E. Barnes Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“I didn’t perceive our house as small back then. The problem, as I remember it, was its deteriorating condition.
Frozen pipes in the winter were common, and plenty of milk jugs and buckets were always on hand for the trip next door to our landlord’s house to collect water for cooking, bathing, and drinking.”
– Kelvin De’Marcus Allen on growing up in Hayti in Looking Back to Move Forward
