Project will tell the story of how I-496 construction impacted Lansing's black community

LANSING —  More than 840 homes and businesses in the heart of the black community were demolished in the mid-1960s to make way for Interstate 496.

More than 600 black families were forced to relocate. 

Now, the city of Lansing and the Historical Society of Greater Lansing are joining forces to tell the story.

The National Park Service has awarded the city a $39,400 grant for a "Paving the Way" research and documentation project, which will tell of the impact I-496 construction had on the city's African-American community in the 1960s.

"This is a really important subject, culturally, historically, a very important subject,” said Lansing mayor Andy Schor.

"This uprooting, of course it adversely affected black owned businesses, community cohesiveness and it was a big deal. It also led to a lot of issues and ill will for many in the African American community who thought that the displacement was racially motivated."

That community was centered on Main Street and St. Joseph Street between Washington Avenue and Clare Street. The highway went right through the middle of it.  

When highways were built through the middle of cities, often they ran right through black neighborhoods. The justification was that highway construction could redeem "blighted" urban areas, but, in practice, highways often followed the paths of least resistance, going where residents didn't have the power to stop them. 

I-496 was to become the business route connector between I-96 west of Lansing in Delta Township and I-96 south of Michigan State University.  

Construction of the connector near Frandor began in 1963. The first portion, Waverly to Clare Street, opened in 1968. The project was completed in 1970.

"This is something the historical society has been working on quietly for several years," said Bill Castanier, president of the Historical Society of Greater Lansing.

"We think it’s an important part of history, and it's been almost lost in time. It significantly changed the city in a lot of ways, some good, some bad."

The society plans to work with the African-American community on "Paving the Way." The city also has created an advisory board of local people for the project.

Castanier said the project is expected to take about 18 months and will examine the impact of the dislocation and the transformation through the collection of oral histories and photographs.

The historical society plans to create an interactive online map that they'll be able to continue to update. It should launch in about six months. 

"You'll be able to take a look at an address, see the house that was there, see the people that lived there at the time of the construction," Castanier said. "And then you will be able to see, hopefully, where most of them moved. I don’t think we’ll be able to track everyone, we don’t know.

"There will also be some oral histories attached to certain addresses and photographs attached to certain address. But certainly not all 600-something. That's going to be unlikely."

Part of the grant proposal was a promise to put together what the historical society is calling a scrapbook of the entire building of I-496, Castanier said. 

On Friday, the day after Schor's office held a press conference announcing the project, a scrapbook walked in the door, courtesy of Dick Letts' wife, Olivia Letts. Dick Letts died in 1997. A family friend who had been keeping the book, delivered it.

"Dick was head of human relations back then for city of Lansing," Castanier said. "He must have kept a scrapbook of everything. There are LSJ clippings, photographs, copies of letters, things like that. That gives us a big leap forward.

Castanier says the scrapbook is "just an incredible, pleasant surprise." 

"These are the kind of things we are looking to uncover. We just didn’t expect it on day one," he said.

The historical society is very interested in the black business district that was there but has little information about it, Castanier said.

"It was pretty vibrant," Castanier said. "There were a lot of stores and restaurants and specialty stores, like Johnny's Records, things like that.

"We cannot find anything from Johnny’s Records, except an ad in the State Journal. Another place we're looking for is information and photos on a place called the Tropicana."

Castanier says they'd also like to do some on-site scanning of photos, maybe have a day when people could bring in old photos and they'd be scanned right there.

The "Paving the Way" project will allow the city to preserve an important piece of its past, Schor said.

"The 496 displacement was all happening during the height of the civil rights movement," he said. "It actually inspired the emergence of a new generation of African American leadership and activism that ultimately changed Lansing for the better."

More:From 2009: Interstate 496 construction left a complicated legacy

Searching for old photos, information

If you have photos of and information on the homes and businesses that were in that area, please contact Bill Castanier, president of the Historical Society of Greater Lansing, at (517) 449-8771.

Contact Vickki Dozier at (517) 267-1342 or vdozier@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @vickkiD.