Rooting a Black Diaspora in Downtown Chattanooga

Chapter 2 explores the rooting of Chattanooga’s Black communities through the late nineteenth century. Black labor and placemaking have been central to urbanization and economic expansion in Chattanooga since before the modern arrival of white settlers. Despite these substantial contributions, Black city-building has never been treated with the same level of admiration as exhibited toward the Cherokee. Nor have the centuries-long legacies of exploitation, violence, and marginalization been treated with the same levels of remorse or repentance. The chapter traces popular discourses of urban progress to illustrate how Black urban placemaking and community development were portrayed historically as antithetical to progressive urban cosmopolitanism.