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Prior to 1900 a “Black business district” did not exist in the city of Birmingham.
In a pattern characteristic of Southern cities founded during Reconstruction, Black businesses developed alongside those of Whites in many sections of the downtown area.
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After the turn of the century, Jim Crow laws authorizing the distinct
separation of “the races” and subsequent restrictions placed on Black firms forced the growing Black business
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community into an area along Third, Fourth and Fifth Avenues North from 15th to 18th Streets. Segregation and discrimination created a small world in which Black enterprise was accepted and to which Blacks had open access.
Find more interesting historical facts at AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY 365.
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