- Barrier
- Segregation
- 1910s–1950s
- City of Atlanta
- Location approximate
Simpson Road, Ashby Street and Westview Drive: unwritten color lines
On the west side, ordinary streets served as agreed or enforced racial boundaries, with white residents on one side and Black residents on the other. Black families crossed them one block at a time.
The record
When English Avenue was laid out in 1891 as a white working-class neighborhood, Simpson Road marked a racial barrier, with white residents north and Black residents south. After the 1917 fire increased Black housing needs, Black families began moving north across Simpson Road in the 1920s–1940s despite violence and bombings (Wikipedia). Ashby Street served as a color line until Heman Perry's Washington Park development opened land west of it. In the 1940s Westview Drive was treated as the boundary south of Mozley Park. Anyone building homes for Black families within 100 yards of it was threatened, and streets in Black subdivisions north of Westview were left unpaved for their last 100 yards.
Today: Simpson Road is now Joseph E. Boone Boulevard and Ashby Street is Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard. Westview Drive runs beside I-20.
Where on the map: Lines: Joseph E. Boone Blvd (Simpson Rd); Joseph E. Lowery Blvd (Ashby St); Westview Dr SW.