Urban Renewal, or "Negro Removal?"

In effect, the new housing built for new black homeowners continued the pattern of segregation. By 1950, Miami was the second-most segregated city in the United States, according to a study of 185 cities by sociologist Donald O. Cowgill.  By 1956, the most segregated city.  Beginning in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, the federal interstate highway program provided a new opportunity to complete “negro resettlement.”  Interstate 95 ripped through the heart of Overtown, razing black businesses and the cultural heart of black Miami.  Before I-95 was constructed, 40,000 called Overtown home.  After, only 10,000 remained.  

In June 1966, the Miami City Commission approved $7.2 million to claim buildings in Miami’s “white slums” (Wynwood, Edison Park, Buena Vista).  Each area fell completely on the East side of I-95, which historian Nathan Connolly argues is the largest “race wall” ever built.  Unlike Colored Town, blocks of buildings were not cleared.  Instead, water-processing plants, parks, libraries, and other amenities were built to make the “white slums” more appealing.  During the same time period, the city decided to create public housing projects west of I-95, which included Opa-Locka. Opa-Locka residents who wanted to live the suburban dream were now being walled in by massive concrete apartments.