This zoning ordinance for the city of Dallas was issued in 1916 and defined the separation of neighborhoods by race. It was signed by the Mayor, the City Attorney and the Board of Commissioners. One year late, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the practice of racial zoning. The city developed new strategies to maintain the same residential segregation into the 1950s.
Dallas Municipal Archives
TRADING CENTER / 1873–1918
THE BURDEN OF RACISM AND SEGREGATION
Segregation was the official, formal mechanism of racism. Its limitations were a fact of life in Dallas County for nearly a century following the end of the Civil War, as in the rest of the South. The black population in Dallas grew rapidly, from 2,307 in 1870 to 8,061 in 1890, as the formerly enslaved left rural areas to seek better economic opportunities in the city. Excluded at first by custom and then by law from living in white neighborhood, African Americans developed their own distinct communities, often with schools, fraternal and religious institutions, and businesses owned by community members. These communities could offer a haven from the constant experience of racism, and the chance to build skills, business acumen and leadership abilities. Along with the large North Dallas Freeman’s Town were smaller communities such as Stringtown, Joppa, Elm thicket, White Rock and Egypt.