Buses weren’t the only civil rights battleground in Montgomery – the city’s parks still reflect a history of segregation

Oak Park, Montgomery’s first park, was white-only until the mid-1960s. Binita Mahato, CC BY-ND by Binita Mahato, Auburn University Montgomery, Alabama, touts itself as the birthplace of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. But although Montgomery now embraces its history of bus boycotts and protest marches, it remains one of the most segregated U.S. cities, and still struggles with racial inequality. Today, Montgomery’s population is almost 60% Black. The poverty rate among Black residents is 30.8%, compared to 10.6% among White residents. The city’s infrastructure is deteriorating, and its tax base is shrinking. Cities with histories of segregation tend to suffer more from systemic racism that remains in the veins of their planning laws and policies. As a scholar of urban design and planning, I wanted to know more about how Montgomery’s history affected access to parks and public spaces there. My research explains how the city’s history still influences modern planning and creates unequal access to parks. Racial inequality is deeply embedded in Montgomery’s history. Today the city is working to revitalize itself without obscuring its past. Separate and unequal parks In the Jim Crow era, from the 1870s through the mid-20th century, Southern cities enforced segregation in schools, transportation,...