Asheville's Southside

Asheville's Southside. 1920s-1960s. Jim Crow laws legalized racial segregation throughout the South from the 1870s through the 1970s. For example, Black people were only allowed to use entrances and bathrooms marked "Colored" in White-majority areas. Blacks in Asheville invested in the Black-majority Southside neighborhood. They created a destination for Black people to live and visit., It's estimated that up to 20,000 Black people, locals and tourists alike, gathered in Southside on weekends in the 1920s to the 1960s. Black business owners operated hundreds of hotels, restaurants, beauty and barber shops, professional offices, grocery stores, and entertainment venues., Asheville's integration and urban renewal efforts of the 1960s to the 1980s resulted in the demolition of more than 1,000 Black-owned homes and businesses in Southside. The city's East Riverside Urban Renewal Project evicted more than half of Asheville's Black residents. It was the largest urban renewal project in the Southeast., (cpations) , Top: A group of teenaged musicians who attended Stevens-Lee High School formed the band The Untils. They performed at the James-Key Hotel, Southland Drive-In, and Owl's Lounge. Pictured back row from left to right, Ernest Fair, Jr. Stanley Baird, Clifford Cotton II, Bruce Friday and Marshall McCallum. Front row from left to right, Bynum "Jimbo" Griffin and the Cornell Proctor (1959-1960). Buncombe County Special Collections, pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, North Carolina, (Captions) , 1968 This picture shows a painted billboard on the brickwork of the original Booker T. Washington Hotel in Southside. (ca. 1960.) The hotel was listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book. The Green Book, as it is known, offered Black people options for safer travel and entertainment in the American South from 1936 through its final publication in 1967.Buncombe County Special Collections, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, North Carolina, 1960s Asheville native Shirley Hemphill attended comedy shows in Southside. Her father, George Hemphill, owned Owl's Lounge. She attended Stephens-Lee High School before becoming a famous comedian and starring in television shows in the 1970s,'80s, and '90s. Miss Hemphill was awarded the superlative for most congenial along with Mr. Alvin Byrd in their senior year book. Photo courtesy of Alberta Williams, 1970s in the 1970s, A series of R&B and soul clubs occupied the building at 101 Biltmore Ave. The Orange Peel, pictured here, was a nightclub where Black teenagers socialized. It closed in the 1980s but was reborn in 2002 when a venue by the same named open in its place. Buncombe County Special Collections, Park Memorial Public Library, Asheville, North Carolina, 1990s Fred Simpson, whose nickname was Rabbit, opened Rabbit's Motel in 1947. It was Black-owned and was one of the few motels in Asheville that welcomed Black travelers. Rabbit's included a bar and a restaurant, Rabbit's Cafe, which served soul food until it closed in 2004. Pictured here is Rabbit's Motel (late 1990s).Buncombe County Special Collections, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, North Carolina