In her authorized biography of Little Willie John, Susan Whiteall presents a harrowing picture of the rampant crime, blight and disfunction in Black Bottom as described by little Willie himself in his interviews You should read it. So there may have been other reasons than mere "racism" to clear it.


Right, we all know how well those urban renewal projects worked out. Demolishing bad neighborhoods accomplishes nothing if you don't also fix the social ills that caused the neighborhoods to go bad in the first place. With the social ills still firmly entrenched, all such urban renewal does is make disenfranchised poor people feel more disenfranchised by destroying their neighborhoods.