Lesson Plan – Urban Renewal in Virginia

In the second half of the twentieth century, many U.S. cities undertook a series of “urban redevelopment” projects with federal funds that leaders claimed would modernize and upgrade their cities’ infrastructure. These urban renewal projects often targeted Black neighborhoods and led to the displacement of thousands of citizens.

In 1912 the Virginia General Assembly passed a law allowing towns and cities to physically segregate neighborhoods. City leaders in Richmond and Norfolk quickly designated Black and white sections of their cities. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1917 that such laws were unconstitutional, but the ruling was not always enforced. In 1926 the Supreme Court allowed covenants in property deeds that allowed white homeowners to restrict by race who could occupy or purchase their house. In the 1930s, the Federal Housing Administration's Home Owners' Loan Corporation designated Black neighborhoods as unworthy of prime bank loans, which meant that residents could not get loans on favorable terms—or loans at all. The practice was known as redlining since those neighborhoods were marked on maps with red.

Jim Crow laws and government actions contributed to highly segregated neighborhoods, where Black residents with low and high incomes often lived side by side in disparate housing situations. Redlining meant that many Black people could not afford to buy homes or take out loans to upgrade and modernize their homes. This situation was exacerbated by a housing shortage during World War II, which often meant that absentee landlords refused to fix dilapidated, overcrowded housing. Many of these Black neighborhoods suffered from substandard housing, including public housing that had been erected during the Great Depression and World War II that was often built quickly with questionable construction standards. By the 1950s, these areas were often characterized by a high concentration of tenants at or below the poverty level who lived in unsafe housing rented to them by absentee landlords. 

In Virginia, many city developers looked to these vulnerable neighborhoods when planning new construction projects. From highway construction to the creation of new business districts, areas like Atlantic City and Branch Creek in Norfolk, Vinegar Hill in Charlottesville, Jackson Ward in Richmond, and the Northeast and Gainsboro neighborhoods in Roanoke were cleared for urban redevelopment projects. These areas did experience some depopulation after World War II as Black residents who could afford to moved away, while those who were left generally lacked the political clout to fight so-called urban renewal plans. The poll tax prevented many Black citizens from being able to vote against projects that would displace them. Urban renewal often displaced the most vulnerable residents of a town or city.

Norfolk received some of the first federal funding available for “slum clearance” projects. City planners’ first phase of urban renewal in 1951 targeted dilapidated housing and included housing for some displaced residents. Their second phase was a direct attempt to stave off integration following the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated schools were unconstitutional. The second phase targeted increasingly integrated neighborhoods that included military housing that had been built during World War II with modern heating and plumbing. Another targeted neighborhood, Atlantic City, was majority white and had recently completed a code violations survey following which many owners had repaired and updated their homes. These neighborhoods were in transition as Black residents began to move in due to severe housing shortages. Rather than allow the schools in these areas to be integrated, the city council led by Mayor Fred Duckworth razed neighborhoods to the ground to make way for industrial and business zones while displacing 20,000 city residents.

Other urban renewal projects destroyed Black neighborhoods in favor of white business interests. Roanoke created a housing authority in 1949 to seek federal funding for redevelopment. In 1955 the city council declared the Northeast neighborhood was a slum and began a project that destroyed homes, businesses, and schools in an 83-acre area. Residents were told they would be able to return to new homes in the area, but the project widened one of the main roads into Roanoke and encouraged commercial development instead of homes. In 1954 Charlottesville’s city council created a housing authority that conducted a survey to find “substandard dwellings occupied by Negro families” in order to secure federal funding to redevelop Vinegar Hill, the heart of the city's Black business district. Many of the houses that were deemed to be “blighted” were rented by Black residents from white landowners. In 1960 Charlottesville voters narrowly approved a redevelopment referendum as a result of the disfranchisement of many Black voters by the state's poll tax. The city used eminent domain to seize the businesses and homes of Black residents. By 1964 about 600 residents had been displaced from their homes and 30 Black-owned businesses that had generated about $1.6 million in business had closed. Many residents moved into public housing, but the commercial development project stalled and the land remained vacant for well over a decade.

In the 1950s, city planners in Richmond literally tore apart Jackson Ward. Having already evicted more than 250 families during World War II for a housing project known as Gilpin Court, planners displaced 1,900 families—roughly ten percent of Richmond’s Black population—for four-lane highway through the neighborhood in 1957. The white city council fundamentally changed this neighborhood. Working with the state Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike Authority, planners charted a path that ran through the heart of Jackson Ward, which had been known in the early twentieth century as the “Harlem of the South” because of its strong business community and cultural institutions. Private business development and the convention center construction from the 1970s–2000s threatened the neighborhood so much that the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Jackson Ward one of the most threatened historic districts in the country in 2001.

Black neighborhoods from Roanoke to Alexandria saw the demise of businesses and the decentering of community institutions in the name of slum clearance and urban revitalization. The documents in this lesson plan include Virginia's 1912 act allowing for the creation of segregated housing districts, articles from the Norfolk Journal and Guide, a Black-owned newspaper reporting on the realities of displaced residents in Norfolk and Roanoke, articles from the Charlottesville Daily Progress, a white-owned paper that supported the Vinegar Hill redevelopment, and photographs from the records of the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike Authority with a map from the Library of Virginia's House to Highway exhibition showing the effects the highway construction had on the neighborhood.

Citations: An Act to provide for designation by cities and towns of segregation districts, Acts and Joint Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Virginia...1912 (1912), 330–332; articles from the Charlottesville Daily Progress, June 9, June 13, and June 28, 1960; articles from the Norfolk Journal and Guide, March 5, 1955 and April 2, 1955; Jackson Ward photographs in Records of the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike Authority, 1954–1983, Accession 40941, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia; map overlay created for House to Highway: Reclaiming a Community History exhibition (2025).

USII.5, USII.8, CE.6, CE.9, CE.10, GOVT.2, GOVT.5, GOVT.10, VUS.10, VUS.12

Goals and Guiding Principles: Students will understand how segregation, redlining, and housing pressures due to rapid urbanization and segregation made Black neighborhoods vulnerable to redevelopment plans. They will explore how Black citizens tried to protect their individual liberties in the face of majority rule, despite the roadblocks they faced in trying to secure the vote. Students will recognize how Black citizens peacefully protested by making their voices heard through the press and determine their rates of success.

Timeline (15 minutes)
USII, CE, VUS

Place all of the documents in this lesson plan in chronological order and create a timeline. 

Add into this timeline the following events:

• The creation of Virginia’s 1902 Constitution that included a poll tax that required eligible voters to pay before registering to vote
• The redlining of neighborhoods across the country by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation from 1935–1940
• World War II, 1941–1945
• Federal and state poll taxes outlawed by 24th Amendment (1964) and U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1966

Consider the following questions: how do you think state and federal legislation affected where urban renewal efforts took place, and why? Why do you think World War II was a contributing factor in the development of “blighted” neighborhoods, and how was that tied to government policies and legislation? How do you think this story would have been different if redlining and poll taxes were not present, or do you think it would have changed at all?

Philosophical Chairs (15-30 minutes)
USII, CE, VUS, GOVT

The prompt: People should not live in dilapidated housing. Urban redevelopment ends blight.

The Setup: Students move to opposite ends of the room representing agree or disagree.

The debate: Read through the newspaper articles about redevelopment and split into two groups, one for and one against redevelopment. Craft arguments for and against the efforts, based on the information in the articles. Have the students look at the images in the Encyclopedia Virginia story map of Urban Renewal (https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/3eec8dec8c334953a11466a0d99b5cb3). Consider the realities of some of these neighborhoods. Have them also consider the issue of what was being built in place of the dilapidated housing, and who was making the decisions about what would be built and where.

Shifting positions: if students are persuaded, they can move to different sides of the room.

Reflections: Can the students find a way to compromise between large-scale displacement of residents and the need for safe housing for all citizens? What did students learn about the complicated issues here?

Decision Making (15-20 minutes)
USII, CE, VUS, GOVT

The historical problem to address is one of housing shortages and inadequacies, which continue to be serious issues today. Housing issues can also be exacerbated by Virginia's transportation challenges that include overcrowded roads in some communities while others lack pedestrian, bicycle, and public transportation options. After reading through the documents, have the students consider both what did happen and how it could have occurred differently. Had they been city council members, what alternatives could they have proposed, and why would those have been better?

FOR A DEEPER DIVE: find examples of debates over revitalization happening in areas near you today and look to see what is being done by leadership and by citizens in these examples. What do your students think of what they’re reading about today, and why?

Be the Reporter (20 minutes)
VS, USII, VUS

Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church was slated to be demolished to make way for the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike. Founded just two years after the Civil War, Sixth Mount Zion was led for many years by Reverend John Jasper, a formerly enslaved man who was famous throughout Virginia for his sermons. Members of the church and community rallied to preserve the church building, which had been built in the 1880s. Read more about John Jasper and the church in Virginia Changemakers (https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/changemakers/items/show/12) and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/127-0472/). Look at the photographs in the pdf attached to this lesson plan from March and April 1957, in which Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church is on the left side of the photograph or in the background. Imagine you are a reporter writing an article about the turnpike and its effect on the church and Jackson Ward. How do you think the church building was saved? How would you describe what you see happening around the church in the images. How would you position the images in your article to show the effects of the turnpike.


Exit Ticket (10-15 minutes)
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In three to four sentences, explain what you learned about urban renewal projects in Virginia.

In one sentence, explain what you would like to know more about, and why.

In two sentences, explain how the knowledge you gained could be used to decide upon current issues facing communities today.