Buses weren’t the one battlefield of the civil rights movement in Montgomery – the town's parks still reflect a history of racial segregation

Montgomery, Alabama, describes itself as Birthplace of the US civil rights movementBut although Montgomery now accepts its history of bus boycotts and protest marches, it stays certainly one of the most segregated cities within the USAand still struggles with racial inequality.

Today, the population of Montgomery is almost 60% black. The Poverty rate The proportion of black residents is 30.8%, and of white residents 10.6%. The city's infrastructure is deteriorating and tax revenues are shrinking.

Cities with a history of segregation suffer more incessantly from systemic racism that is still within the veins of their planning laws and policies. As Scientist for urban development and concrete planningI desired to learn more about how Montgomery's history affected access to parks and public spaces there. My research explains how the town's history continues to influence modern planning and creates unequal access to parks.

Separate and unequal parks

In the Jim Crow eraFrom the 1870s to the mid-Twentieth century, cities within the South enforced racial segregation in schools, transportation, recreational facilities, and parks to forestall racial mixing. Civil Rights Act of 1964 Although such practices were banned, their effects were long-lasting.

In 1957, Montgomery passed an ordinance making it a misdemeanor to make use of public parks or other places except those assigned to their race. Four of the town's 14 parks were designated as black-only and ten as white-only, although the population almost 44% black.

Parks for black residents were in much worse conditions than for white residentsSome all-white parks, reminiscent of Oak Park, were situated in black neighborhoods, but black residents faced arrest in the event that they entered these parks.

Tacit maintenance of separation

In 1958, black residents of Montgomery filed a category motion lawsuit against the segregation policy within the parks. Montgomery authorities responded with Closure of all city parksalthough they continued to take care of them.

According to a federal court in Alabama ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in 1959The city reopened some parks but gave private, racially segregated schools exclusive use of certain areas. It also renamed the Parks and Recreation Department the Recreation Department, allowing it to direct funds to recreational facilities reminiscent of swimming pools, access to which was restricted by paid memberships.

The plaintiffs reopened the desegregation case in 1970, and it reached the Supreme Court in 1974. There, Justice Harry Blackmun described the town’s response to the 1959 ruling as “an elaborate excuse to to anticipate and circumvent the court order.”

In the years that followed, desegregation laws spurred white flight to the suburbs. As Montgomery lost white residents and their taxes, it annexed the encompassing areas, leaving the downtown area and its existing parks primarily for black residents, while whites moved to suburbs with latest parks.

During urban renewal within the Nineteen Fifties and Nineteen Sixties, a few of Montgomery's high-quality parks were demolished, privatized, or repurposed. For example, Interstate Highway 85 was routed through Oak Park, a black middle-class neighborhood. Urban planning scholars Rebecca Retzlaff describes this as a deliberate attempt displace civil rights leaders and black middle-class householdsThe construction of highways through black neighborhoods in Montgomery and elsewhere also exposed those areas to increased noise and air pollution.

Montgomery's parks today

Today, black Montgomery residents have unrestricted access to the town’s 65 parks. However, in a 2019 report, Montgomery’s Recreation Department found that while “obvious and systematic regulatory structures based on race or ethnicity have been eliminated, the legacy of that framework can still be seen in many ways.”

To examine current park resources in Montgomery, I examined 63 city parks with five criteria to measure access, quality and parking conditions.

– Accessibility: the variety of residents living inside a half-mile walking distance of a park

– Recreational facilities: facilities reminiscent of sports fields, playgrounds and swimming pools

– Other amenities: non-sporting facilities reminiscent of picnic tables and toilets

– Natural elements: green spaces, flowerbeds and ponds

– Rudeness: the presence of garbage, graffiti, noise or signs of drug or alcohol consumption, reminiscent of empty liquor bottles and used syringes

I discovered that 36 of the parks I reviewed inside half a mile of predominantly black neighborhoodsThis improved access partly reflects the expansion of the town's black population as white residents moved to the suburbs.

However, my assessment found that 83% of parks for black residents were of poor quality, only 8% were of fair quality, and 9% were of excellent quality. For parks for white residents, the figures were 50% of poor quality, 31% were of fair quality, and 19% were of excellent quality. The primary factor behind this discrepancy was maintenance, as measured by the quantity of trash, noise, vandalism, and evidence of criminality.

The size of the park also matters. Most black residents of Montgomery live near small neighborhood parks, which my survey found to be within the worst condition. Larger community parks Make a profit of community and sporting events, so the town government tends to take a position extra money in these locations.

Park access and environmental justice

Research shows that access to nature is essential for people’s lives Physical and mental healthThis makes public parks vital resources, especially in urban areas. Poor people and folks of color often have less access to parks, which are frequently situated in areas with high real estate prices.

My research shows how systematic disinvestment Maintain unequal access to parks in cities with a history of segregation. With limited resources, cities like Washington, DCAnd Philadelphia have tended to take a position in large community parks. Many small neighborhood parks, that are critical for equal access, need improvement.

Montgomery’s comprehensive plan, Imagine Montgomery 2040calls for the modernization and simpler maintenance of parks and recreational facilities. Involving residents in setting priorities for park projects could help make these investments more equitable – especially in the event that they goal small parks in troubled neighborhoods where the legacy of segregation still lingers.