Into the Archive with Collin Yarbrough - Paved A Way: Infrastructure, Policy and Racism in an American City

Journey into the archive with Lake Highlands native Collin Yarbrough, author of Paved A Way: Infrastructure, Policy and Racism in an American City, as he addresses a systemic racial and economic oppression that has impacted a number Dallas neighborhoods over the decades. He will discuss some examples of these communities and the history of how redlining and various improvement projects for the city have often taken a toll on these neighborhoods.

“Acknowledgement is the first step in the journey of unpacking the ways our cities are built with systems of power and erasure. True reconciliation requires acknowledgement and acceptance of past injustice. In that journey, we are only at the beginning.”

Paved A Way tells the stories of five neighborhoods in Dallas and how they were shaped by racism and economic oppression. The communities of North Dallas, Deep Ellum, Little Mexico, Tenth Street, and Fair Park look nothing like what they did during their prime, and author Collin Yarbrough argues that their respective declines were intentional—that their foundations were chipped away over time.

Systemic oppression is not contained within Dallas—it can be found throughout the United States. As Collin Yarbrough writes in his introduction, “Dallas is its own city, and Dallas is every city.” 

From a D Magazine interview with author Colin Yarbrough:

Paved A Way shares some DNA with books like The Accommodation and White Metropolis, which similarly cover how a history of racism and inequality shaped the Dallas of today. Yarbrough’s book is also a call to action.

“These communities are still fighting,” he says. “Little Mexico may be gone, but West Dallas is having to face concrete batch plants coming in and trying to grapple with Trinity Groves. It’s the same thing, just in a different location with different names and different actors. An engaged coalition of community members is, by and large, one of the most powerful things that I’ve seen in Dallas and in other cities that can really make an impact on keeping this kind of injustice from repeating.”

Read the full article at How Dallas Paved Its Way to Inequality.