- Highway
- Segregation
- proposed 1952; built 1960s
- City of Atlanta
- Location approximate
I-20 west as a 'racial wall'
West of downtown, I-20 follows the line that Mayor Hartsfield offered in the early 1950s as a color line: Westview Drive. Atlantans interviewed by historian Ronald Bayor said the interstate was meant as a racial dividing line.
The record
During the Mozley Park crisis Mayor William B. Hartsfield asked Black real-estate brokers to accept Westview Drive as a color line, with Black families to the north and white families to the south. In 1952 he proposed a six-lane highway along Westview Drive. Financing stalled, and the route was built years later as part of I-20 (Wikipedia, drawing on Kruse). In interviews cited by Bayor (1989), planner Leon Eplan said 'the interstate highway system was ... used to form a racial wall'. L. D. Milton said I-20 'was supposed to be the racial dividing line', and John H. Calhoun also described it as a racial divider. Bayor's article also cites city planning documents from 1952–54 that set aside 'Negro expansion areas'.
Today: I-20 runs just north of Westview Dr SW between Mozley Park and Westview Cemetery. The neighborhoods on both sides have long been majority Black.
Where on the map: Line: I-20 west of the Connector through Mozley Park and West End, alongside Westview Dr SW.