GLFCAM — The Tale of Hillman Estates
The green and white, two-story ranch house on Dandridge Road in the Hillman Estates neighborhood of Birmingham, AL was built by Herman (Steeplejack) A. Taylor Sr. and Earnestine C. Taylor in 1968. Steeplejack, a brick mason’s helper and the first black officer in the steel workers’ union for the US Steel plant in the Ensley district, and Earnestine, an art teacher in the suburban school district of Bessemer, AL, were the picture of the typical middle-class Black family – a two-income unit with a high school-aged son ascending the ladder of the American dream. The house they lived in prior to Dandridge Road was a mile away on what was then known as Avenue K. Herman Junior remembers that first house fondly, especially the Woods.
For this story to be told appropriately, it’s important to hear about the Avenue K house and then circle back to Dandridge Road. The Taylors lived on that street, also known as the Jefferson Highway, for most of Junior’s childhood. He remembers going into the Woods with the neighborhood kids to play, hunt, catch crayfish for pets at the Ditch, whatever else kids of the 50s and 60s would do. Rumor had it that the city would be building a playground there. Imagine the kids’ excitement when they started hearing trees being cleared and the land being leveled. The playground they found was filled with huge piles of concrete slabs, stacked somewhat haphazardly. What perfect structures to climb and roughhouse on. Then the flood lights were erected. Great for target practice for bats. Childhood resilience is truly remarkable.
The construction continued, the result being an industrial complex, serviced by the nearby railroad tracks, with a huge parking lot. New rumors began to circulate; the worst one being that there was an order to shoot-to-kill anyone who is shooting at the bats swarming the floodlights. Meanwhile, the very same floodlights pointed directly into the bedrooms of the families living along Avenue K.
Their homes now destroyed, and food sources eradicated, the rodents and other creatures in the Woods began invading the homes along Avenue K. Junior remembers that his father would set gopher traps for the huge rats that would forage in the house. He was especially impressed by the sound of the murderous snap of the trap and then the ominous scraping that told him that the rat was still alive and dragging the trap.
Clearly, the Taylors needed to find a new place to live. As the story goes, Steeplejack was on the train back from a meeting out of town, reading a newspaper. In the paper, there was a picture of a house. When he got home, he showed the paper to Earnestine and announced, “This is our house!” Steeplejack didn’t want to move too far away; some of the houses along Avenue K were occupied by friends of his from the steel mill, and he generally liked the area. Hillman Estates was nearby and offered many things, the biggest being a quiet street and little chance for industrial construction in their backyard. The plot he found was flat with three- to four-foot-tall fire anthills, “looked like [the termite mounds of] the Serengeti,” Junior recalls. The Taylor building project was soon followed by other new homes in Hillman Estates, and a vital bedroom community was established. The quiet streets of this neighborhood would eventually become the haven for Junior’s son. . . me.
My earliest memory is December 1982, my second birthday, which we celebrated at the Dandridge Road home. My grandmother, the art teacher, had made a banner and gotten a delicious cake. My father was there, too, on holiday from his work as a general practitioner in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami, FL. The small gathering is the warm core of my happy memories of my childhood. A child of divorce, I often stayed with Grandmamá and Granddad. Eventually, I became friends with other kids in the neighborhood, who would always come by to check to see if I was in. The barbecues, summer fun, and Christmas were all quite idyllic for me. Hillman Estates was a come-home-before-the-street-lights-come-on type of neighborhood.
It was also a convenient neighborhood. There was a butcher shop and great grocery store within 3 miles of the house, and the swanky Western Hills Mall another half-mile beyond that. It featured Sears, JC Penny, and Parisians (a Macy’s-style Birmingham-based clothing store that eventually merged with Saks 5th Ave.) Grandmamá could do her holiday shopping, pick up meals for the week, and catch a movie within a 5-mile radius. Within the community, the neighbors spoke across their lawns as they watered their plants, and invited each other over to grill or watch a game. My grandparents’ house became a hub of activity, especially when my grandfather started helping his steel worker pals with their asbestos class action settlements.
As the years passed, the residents got older and the kids went off to college or elsewhere. I still loved going there, it was where I felt safest, but troubling things started happening. By the time I was in college, the butcher shop had closed, meaning the local Piggly Wiggly had to pick up the slack. The meat and fish was often rancid by the time my grandmother was finally able to cook them. Western Hills Mall started losing business and slowly died. There would be fits and starts of development, but never anything that was sustainable. Soon, the only viable food options were fast food restaurants; the only stores were pawn shops, and the only entertainment was what we could see on cable.
What I describe here is not all that surprising. I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that this is the common life cycle of communities of color: built during a time of prosperity, eventually it is depleted of tax dollars and services and stores run away. What interests me about this are the subtle impacts on the climate this process represents.
That area of Birmingham is under a regime of apartheid – food, employment, and services. It is primed to become the next area involved in regentrification. But for the residents that are still there let’s consider what this all means. What used to be a 3-mile drive, is now an 8 to 10-mile drive that involves driving on the interstate, just to get good groceries. The same increase in mileage applies for anyone that worked in white collar jobs near the mall. Clothes/gift shopping, and entertainment are now 10-15 miles away. All of this adds up to more gas consumed. Gas prices fall, encouraging more gas consumption. Residents in this area, through no fault of their own, have now seen their collective carbon footprint increase significantly. Of course, this process isn’t just happening in Hillman Estates and surrounding areas, it occurs throughout the Birmingham metropolitan area, mostly in Black neighborhoods. And in each of these neighborhoods, the process is a feedback loop, until property values are rock-bottom and new development is encouraged, often by the city.
To me, this story of the house on Dandridge leads to a question: how do we ask communities to change their behaviors to be more environmentally conscious when doing so requires a complete reordering of protocols families implement to survive, let alone thrive? As I see it, this is a particularly U.S. American issue, and one that is often met with condescension, microaggressions, and gaslighting. In this scenario, the people most effected by the cycle I describe have had their agency stolen from them. How can they prevent the trickle of businesses leaving the area? What is an achievable and sustainable model for encouraging local business to provide viable alternatives to national brands? Where can these people turn for answers?
My posts always seem to raise more questions than answers. What I hope is that I am able to provide another perspective, somewhat outside the mainstream. The coalition we have to build has to be able to answer questions like what I ask for the residents of Hillman Estates, before it’s too late.