![]() Photo credit: Mariama Jallow Understanding food apartheids Others are being used to create flourishing tracts, such as the plot on which community organizers have created a budding hydroponic garden that provides fresh fruit and vegetables to all Boston-Thurmond residents.Ĭommunity garden in the Boson-Thurmond neighborhood. Some used to be gas stations which contaminated the soil and made them difficult to build new structures on. The yard of the month project organized by Boston-Thurmond United, a neighborhood improvement group, highlights the contrasts, showing the beautifully kept yards in the neighborhood while also exposing some of the challenges that such a community faces. Children ride their bikes along neighborhood streets, vigilantly steering clear of University Parkway, their voices lifting optimism and hope for a neighborhood at a crossroads. Driving down one street you may see a shotgun-style house that hasn’t been worked on since the 1960s or a newly renovated two-story home with a garden filled with flowers representing every shade of the rainbow. Part of any such effort, advocates say, should include attempts to alleviate intergenerational poverty through a multi-pronged approach that also focuses on community health.īoston-Thurmond continues to be a melting pot. Over time, the neighborhood became more cut off from the city center and its amenities, making it a pocket of poverty now subject to revitalization efforts. “We had a lot of Black ownership of these stores, there were white people who owned stores as well but now we have none,” West said. ![]() Supermarkets did not rise up in the neighborhood in their absence. The corner stores that had been so essential started disappearing in the 1960s and ’70s. In the 1960s, University Parkway, a multi-lane expressway connecting the downtown to the northern reaches of the city, was built right through the neighborhood. Boston-Thurmond flourished for many years before falling into disrepair. “That’s how our neighborhoods were made up, not just in Boston-Thurmond but in other predominantly African American communities back in the day,” West added.īoston-Thurmond, one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, is located just north of the recently revitalized downtown, sandwiched between Wake Forest University and Innovation Quarter, a research park that could one day include housing and retail.Ī century ago, the neighborhood was a draw for workers from Winston-Salem’s tobacco and textile factories. Now, I can’t even go to a store within a quarter mile of my house.” They were practically at each corner of the neighborhood. “I mean, fresh food, fresh meats, fresh produce, canned goods, juices, things of that nature. “I grew up during segregation and food accessibility was great because we had corner stores,” West said. Now, advocates such as West and other neighborhood groups are working to improve access to food and create healthier communities. Some argue food deserts are formed under established systems of food apartheid that mainly affect communities of color. Today, few residents there know their neighbors, according to West.įrom that discussion about bygone days emerges a more universal story about how housing policies and urban planning can create “food deserts,” areas without easy access to fresh, healthy foods. There were fresh food markets at most every corner and everyone seemed to know everyone in the community, according to West, a 68-year-old neighborhood advocate who willingly offers a quick history lesson. Until the early 1990s, it was a vibrant neighborhood filled with Black Americans in a variety of tax brackets. could learn from them.ĭavid West, a retired juvenile court counselor for the state of North Carolina, grew up in the Boston-Thurmond neighborhood in Winston-Salem, a predominantly Black community that has seen many changes over the past century.
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