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South of Main

Editors: Beatrice Hill, Brenda Lee

Softcover (ISBN: 1-891885-45-6 )
$19.95

Between 1970 and 1978 urban renewal razed 40 blocks of their neighborhood, scattered 90 businesses and displaced an estimated 2,000 people. Through oral histories, photographs, and maps, their memories survive in this rich collection of stories called South of Main.

Publication Date: Nov 2005
Dimensions: 9 x 9 in.
200 pages

More than 1,400 neighborhoods in the United States, most of them African-American, were leveled in the name of urban renewal during the mid-twentieth century. South of Main recreates the culture and history of just one of those, the Southside of Spartanburg, South Carolina, founded in the 1860s by a group of ex-slaves who lived together at the end of a dusty road called Liberty Street.

This poignant and painful history examines the experiences of the people who called the Southside home and whose lives were affected by the bulldozers of urban renewal. Their story is an American story, a complex chronicle of a people powerless against the whims of progress. This book received an IPPY award in 2006 from Independent Publisher magazine as the best multicultural nonfiction title by an independent press in North America.

Beatrice Hill

Beatrice Hill

Born in Tobe Hartwell Apartments, Bea Hill has had a lifelong interest in the history of her neighborhood. She attended school at Carrier Street Elementary, Highland Elementary, and Mary H. Wright, and graduated from Carver High School. In 1979 she coordinated the first Tobe Hartwell neighborhood reunion, which drew 300 people to her backyard.

Brenda Lee

Brenda Lee

Born on South Liberty Street, Brenda Lee Pryce served as a member of the S.C. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2005 and currently is a member of the regulatory staff and outreach manager of the S.C. Lifeline and Link-up Programs. She is a 1966 graduate of Carver High School and attended the University of South Carolina. She was the 1998 recipient of the E. Lewis Miller Award for leadership in Spartanburg.