Construction
of what was then the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike (today’s I-95) so thoroughly
obliterated the neighborhood of Navy Hill that the very topography on which it once
stood is gone. The City of Richmond
turned Fulton, an area that was once populated as densely as the Fan, into a
vacant urban prairie with a grid of abandoned city streets. As bad and malicious as these two instances
were, neither was as fueled by the degree of overt racism that faced the
residents of a small neighborhood on Patterson Avenue called Westwood. Their triumph and persistence in the face of
overwhelming odds is a chapter in the struggle for Civil Rights that should be
told.
A
1935 map of “Negro Settlements” in and around Richmond,
showing “Westwood /
Westhampton” straddling Patterson Avenue.
Established
by newly-freed blacks after the Civil War, Westwood developed around its little
church in a classic village pattern. Westwood
had its own store and school and, while older residents recalled going “into
town” on special occasions, the community was, for the most part,
self-sufficient. The village had its own
school, stores, and church. Baptisms
were performed in in Jordan’s Branch, a stream whose name echoes that that of
the biblical Jordan River. Westwood
residents often had a hard time convincing anybody, black or white, that there
were African Americans living out in Henrico County on Patterson Avenue, but
their unique self-sufficiency came to an end when the neighborhood was annexed
into the City in 1942.
Jordan’s
Branch, a major stream which once formed the eastern boundary of Westwood, is
today in a giant culvert under the median of Willow Lawn Drive.
Beside
the village church, the now-demolished Westwood School at 5407 Leonard Street
was another center of the community. In
its final year the little school had 41 students before being closed by the
City in 1948. Instead of going to
Westhampton School (literally a block away), the black students of Westwood were
bused to Carver School, six miles away.
This fact of life in segregated Richmond only added another layer of
repression and resentment which lay heavily on the citizens of Westwood, and
particularly those ex-GIs who had served in World War II.
The
wells in the area that served Westwood since its inception were all condemned. By 1945, the entire population of 200 people
all had to draw their water from a single “hydrant,” which consisted of a simple
faucet mounted on a short pole at the corner of Patterson and Willow Lawn Drive.
There was no plan to run water or sewer lines to Westwood despite the increase
in taxes that came with being incorporated into the city – the same taxes that
provided a full range of City services to everyone else. Simultaneously, the increasing number of
wealthy white subdivisions along nearby Cary Street and Grove Avenue were
putting political pressure to “do something” about the African American island
in their midst.
It
all began when the City claimed the Westwood could be a health menace. Typhoid could spread because of the lack of
modern facilities in Westwood was the claim, and at the same time the Board of
Aldermen refused to fund water and sewer in the neighborhood. They feared providing proper City services
would only encourage more houses and that the population would become even
larger. This bureaucratic circular logic must have been maddening to the
besieged residents of the tiny community, but an even greater threat was
emerging against them of an even more nakedly racist attack.
Although
the Richmond Master Plan did not identify a need for such a facility in that
area, in 1945 it was proposed that the homes of Westwood would be demolished,
and the area turned into a City park. There was a provision that Westwood residents would be given the
opportunity to “live their lives out, but their children would have to move
after their parents died.” Organized by
the minister of Westwood Baptist Church at the time, Reverend Waller, residents
turned out in droves to appear at City Hall and let their outrage be known.
An example of
one of the older homes in Westwood.
The white subdivisions in the area such as the Colonial Place Association, the Monument Avenue Crest Association, and Hampton Gardens Civic Association all sent representatives who spoke in favor of razing Westwood, saying getting the blacks out would result in “the greatest good for the greatest numbers.” An especially condescending and cruel twist in the plan assured Westwood Baptist Church would stand as long as it was used by its parishioners, and then demolished.
If the plan to destroy Westwood took place, “Richmond would be denounced from coast to coast as a place which does not know the meaning of justice,” wrote the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Because of the organized reaction of Westwood residents, aided by a small number of fair-minded whites, and the surprising support of Richmond editorial pages, the park idea was rejected every time it came up although by 1947, the issue of sewer and water for Westwood had still not been resolved.
Remarkably, the conscious of the Richmond Times-Dispatch was again stirred by the attacks on this African American enclave. The newspaper recognized that the conspiracy to demolish Westwood as well as deny services was backed by one of modern Richmond’s most vicious and transparent demonstrations of racism:
The issue in the Westwood matter remains just what it was before some 200 citizens met in Westhampton High School on Friday night to discuss its pros and cons. That issue is whether Richmond’s people, and their representatives in Council, are going to provide water and sewerage for 65 hard-working, law-abiding families who pay city taxes and are entitled to these facilities, or whether those citizens are to be denied such facilities because they are colored…Everybody knows, of course, that the “park” which is being advocated for the area has been held by the City Planning Commission to be unnecessary and undesirable.
The City of Richmond relents and installs water and sewer in Westwood,
September 1947.
The City of Richmond finally announced that water and sewer lines would be extended into Westwood. Alderman Frank S. Richeson, sponsor of the legislation that would have destroyed Westwood, sneered the residents “would feel they had been imposed upon when they learned the cost of connecting with the utilities,” and that he had talked to a plumbing contractor who told him it would cost up to $500 for each house. In contrast, Westwood Baptist’s Reverend Waller announced that the church itself would finance any resident’s connection fees, which he said would be around $100.
One of the older houses in Westwood
at the corner of Parish and Marian (now demolished).
Less dramatic than the defense of
the neighborhood but equally important is the loss of a large amount of the
housing stock of Westwood in recent years.
Small bungalows along Patterson Avenue have been mostly replaced by an
office complex, and the U.S. Post Office’s Westhampton Station claimed a large
part of Westwood. Most disturbing of
all, the church itself has converted some former residential lots to surface
parking to accommodate parishioners who no longer live in the community. In a pattern often seen in urban churches, Westwood
Baptist Church is ironically destroying the buildings that were the homes of
the church’s first faithful and is sacrificing the very fabric of the community
to automobile culture.
A parking lot created from former
residential lots in Westwood.
“The city had plans to convert the Westwood Community into a park. As a result of Rev. Waller’s untiring efforts, the community still stands.”
In contrast to this tepid retelling
of that period, Westwood should celebrate their resistance and survival. Instead of a featureless city intersection,
there should be a Historical Marker where that faucet on a post once stood at
Willow Lawn Drive and Patterson Avenue to forever mark where citizens drew
together and fought a malevolent city bureaucracy – and won. We need to remember this was no easy task in
the bitterly segregated world of Richmond in the 1940s and 1950s. We need to recall that the little crooked
streets and tidy bungalows of Westwood truly represent a forgotten battleground
in the story of the struggle for Civil Rights in America.
- Selden Richardson.
