first lady eleanor roosevelt pushed especially hard for projects for african-american convinced that segregated neighborhoods that era needed to be replaced. she even came to detroit to cut the ribbon on the first public housing project named frederick douglass. she was viewed as progressive because she willing to include blacks in this alleged in the first place. but housing progressives utterly misjudged what they were replacing. although we are often told that black neighborhoods were substandard areas owned white slumlords. census data tells a different story. in detroit, a neighborhood known as black bottom that was for its original soil, not a racial comment. it was home to no less than this got cleared away. 300 black owned businesses, a percentage, a significant percentage, one, two and three. family, homeowners thriving branch of the urban league and self-help groups and many churches including the bethel amy led by c.l. franklin, whose had a famous daughter daughter all the that built black bottom aimed toward the of struggling toward self-improvement. but by 1950 all that