Look at the street art painted on the walls here in Pensacola’s Belmont-DeVilliers district, sometimes called “the Blocks.” Just look at what it says. It tells you so many stories about this city’s African-American “downtown” from the days of segregation.
In my childhood years here in Pensacola, in the early 1960s, nearly every type of business had alternate versions for whites and blacks as the city enforced its Jim Crow ordinances. Men and women could go for years without seeing members of the other race inside most of the stores they shopped at or the professional offices they went to.
When desegregation finally came in the late 1960s, neighborhoods like this one began to fade. It is great to see an effort here in Pensacola to revive their cultural achievements.
After all, they were important stops in cities around the nation — sometimes called the Chittlin’ Circuit — in the development of America’s most distinctive forms of music, from the Blues to Jazz to Motown.
Robert Craig Waters 