Tour Phoenix's African American Heritage

Above: Booker T. Washington School play, ca. 1949. Courtesy of the Carver Museum and Cultural Center.

Click and scroll your way through this ArcGIS Story Map as an interactive virtual tour of the unique African American heritage present in Phoenix! Map points are clickable and provide a short summary of each site presented. Zoom in and out to explore the maps, then click the home button to return the map to its original extent. Map legends are accessible by hovering your mouse over the white circle in the bottom left corner. Most photos and maps can be expanded to full screen by clicking the arrows in the top right corner of the image. This will also hide any overlapping text boxes. Simply click the arrow button again to snap back to the Story Map. Some portions move laterally - click the arrows on the sides to go between slides. The City of Phoenix Historic Preservation Office will be updating content periodically, so be sure to check back!

While they remained only a small percentage of Phoenix’s population, growing from three percent of the total population in 1900 to five percent in 1970, African Americans made important contributions to the development of the city. They established long-standing neighborhoods and institutions and, after much struggle, were instrumental in affecting social and political change in the city.

African American settlers came to the Phoenix area beginning in 1868. During the next thirty years, a small community was formed. Many of these early newcomers came from Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and other Southern states. They flocked to Phoenix in search of economic opportunity, for health reasons, or to escape the racial hardships of the post-Reconstruction South.

African Americans arriving before 1920 primarily came from urban centers. As agricultural production grew in the Phoenix region, farming associations such as the Cotton Growers or Farm Bureau often recruited and transported African Americans to the area. After 1920, newcomers were from a mix of urban and rural places; they generally came to Arizona to pick cotton and other crops, or to care for livestock. During this period many African Americans left the South to find better employment and living conditions in the Midwest and West.

By the 1920s, Phoenix’s Black community had developed fledgling communities in three areas of the city:

East – the area south of Van Buren Street to the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks, east of Central Avenue to 24th Street

West – the area south of Grant Street to the Salt River, west of 7th Avenue to 19th Avenue

South – the area south of the Salt River to Southern Avenue, east of 16th Street to 28th Street

In each of the areas where communities formed, African Americans founded churches, social organizations, small businesses, newspapers, and even a hospital. Their children also attended separate schools from children of other races, since both de jure (legal) and de facto (socially accepted) segregation existed in the state. These communities were often interspersed with Mexican American families, Chinese American entrepreneurs who owned small corner markets, and a few White families, although social interactions may have been limited.

As in many other parts of the country, segregation pushed African Americans into certain neighborhoods, schools, and public facilities and they were barred from others. In this hostile environment, African Americans developed their own communal life, one that nurtured and protected them in the face of segregation and discrimination.

African American schools, established by local school districts, played a significant role in the education and socialization of children in the community. In March of 1909, the Territorial Legislature passed a proposal to segregate schools when school districts deemed it "necessary.” Governor Joseph H. Kibbey vetoed the law but within days the legislature overrode his veto. Governor Kibbey stated that he felt it was unfair to give African American students an education that was “less effective, less complete, less convenient or less pleasant…than those accorded to pupils of the white race in the same district.”

They were highly regarded members of the community advocating for civil rights and assisting their students outside of school. The schools were typically placed within neighborhoods, solidifying the inextricable link between school and community life. 

Although the numbers of African Americans increased in the 1930s, the community experienced further marginalization due to economic hardships of the Great Depression and an influx of newcomers escaping impoverished conditions in other areas. During the 1930s, African Americans from Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma came to Arizona to pick cotton. Although the Great Depression slowed the pace of economic progress, the city continued to grow. During the 1930s, the population of Phoenix increased by 36 percent, from 48,118 to 65,414. New Deal banking policies and construction programs helped to sustain expansion. By 1940 residential and business construction was moving forward at the fastest pace ever, exceeding even the boom days prior to 1930. World War II as a significant catalyst of growth and expansion in Phoenix during the 1940s. Military training bases and defense industry manufacturers created new jobs, and federal investment opened new housing and opportunities for advancement. For the African American community this was a time of influx and ferment as the population grew, businesses prospered, and cultural life gained momentum.

Most of these housing developments sought to provide low-income minorities with affordable homes. Home ownership became more attainable for African Americans during the postwar era.

Phoenix’s African American neighborhoods were centers of social community that fostered development of strong leaders. Community areas also extended to public recreational spaces, such as parks, in addition to the schools. There were also spaces for social engagement, such as fraternal organizations and churches. Finally, there were spaces that served the minority community of African Americans who did not have access to the same healthcare as others. 

Social venues on the west side offered a variety of entertainment for local residents during the 1930s and 1940s. One such space was the William H. Patterson Elks Lodge #477, named for a Buffalo soldier from Pennsylvania. 

Through the church, community organizations formed; people met for fellowship and relied on its familial structure for support. Residents listened to lectures and speeches, enjoyed plays, and celebrated special events. Besides providing spiritual services, African American churches also educated children and provided food to the poor. During the first decades of the 20th century, African American churches helped to orient new arrivals to Phoenix. Ministers and parishioners from the middle and working classes welcomed new arrivals to the area and helped people locate jobs and housing. Historic churches that remain in the older areas of the city currently draw their congregations from all parts of the city and valley as family ties and tradition remain strong, regardless of where members live.

The earliest businesses opened primarily in the downtown area and along Jefferson Street; by the 1930s commerce had expanded along Buckeye Road in west Phoenix. As long as segregation endured in Phoenix, African American businesses mainly served the Black community. This limited the growth of businesses because the community was small; nevertheless, businesses provided a living to their owners and valuable services to the community.

African American businesses expanded in terms of geographical location as the population moved into new areas. The 1915 Phoenix Colored Directory listed a shoemaker, printer, blacksmith, embalmer, barbers, beauticians, a hospital, and two hotels. As time went on, both professional and service-oriented businesses grew.

By 1970, the number of African Americans in Phoenix reached just under 30,000, or five percent of the city’s population. Communities in the three regions of the city had changed over time. They generally flourished until the 1950s and 1960s when neighborhoods deteriorated and disappeared due to age, crime, poverty, and urban redevelopment projects. Many older, long-time residents eventually passed away and their homes were sold. As neighborhoods changed in the 1970s, business development began to taper off in these areas. By the late 1960s and into the 1970s, civil rights legislation barring discrimination in home buying gave impetus for more Black residents to move into areas that were closed to them before. As segregation broke down and economic opportunities expanded, middle-class Black families moved farther west and east in Phoenix. Some residents began to integrate into neighborhoods north of Van Buren or into affordable neighborhoods in Maryvale or into the western portion of South Phoenix where more subdivisions were developing.

The Civil Rights Movement had made a great impact on the city of Phoenix and the state through the efforts of many individuals and organizations. Schools had changed by 1970. Initially, desegregation of once all-Black schools did not result in full integration, since Black families continued to live in the same neighborhoods where these schools were built. Over time, however, more Latino families entered these communities and began to change the demographics of the schools. Integration also brought about expanded access to health care, recreation, and leisure activities. Buoyed by the gains of local African Americans in civil rights and politics after the 1950s, the decades of the 1970s and beyond would see the continued rise of the Black community.

Phoenix’s African American history should be celebrated along with the many other stories from Arizona’s history. Many of the important places have disappeared, but the history of its people, its events, and its places remains. The story of the African American community in Phoenix is rich in detail and filled with stories of achievement and persistence. African Americans have “come up together, through all the hardships.” Children of working-class families went on to find success; Black residents successfully pushed against segregation and enacted social change. Each of the three regions where the African American community flourished has continued to change over time. Although significant historic structures and sites have vanished, a handful of buildings, homes, and neighborhoods yet remain and need to be remembered, interpreted, and preserved.

This ArcGIS Story Map was adapted from the City of Phoenix African American Historic Property Survey (2004).

Dean, Ph.D., David R. and Jean A. Reynolds, M.A. 2004. African American Historic Property Survey. Athenaeum Public History Group.

Images sourced from The Arizona Republic © Part of the USA TODAY NETWORK.

Articles sources from The Arizona Republic © Gannett-Community Publishing. All rights reserved. Used under license.  https://www.azcentral.com/ .

For more information on these historic properties, please contact the City of Phoenix Historic Preservation Office or visit the webpage at  https://www.phoenix.gov/pdd/historic-preservation .