The Evansville African American Museum is partnering with the city's Department of Metropolitan Development to create a walking tour of the surrounding neighborhood, affectionately called, "Baptisttown," by the people who lived there during its heyday. The area surrounding Lincoln and Governor Streets was historically an all-black neighborhood, before the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
On this episode of The Trend, we'll take a look at Baptisttown, then and now. We'll talk with the museum officials, the director of the DMD and a resident of Lincoln Gardens, formerly a public housing project, who remembers the Baptisttown district as a tight-knit "village" where neighbors looked out for one another.
The community was once a thriving economic hub of downtown Evansville, and its original residents fear that its rich African-American history is at risk of being forgotten. We'll hear how the Heritage Trail aims to preserve that history and create new opportunities for development and commerce in the neighborhood.
