Where Miller Park now sits in downtown Chattanooga once sat a Black-owned hotel with a dance hall, restaurants, saloons and a casino.
Where Erlanger’s downtown hospital is once was the Black neighborhood of Lincoln Park. Its pool and park drew Black visitors from as far as Birmingham and Huntsville, Brother Kevin Muhammad said at a Thursday night event.
Where thousands of Black residents settled on Cameron Hill now stands the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee campus. When dirt was removed from the hill to construct highways through Chattanooga in the mid-1900s, it displaced around 1,100 families, Muhammad said.
“There’s a rich, rich history in Chattanooga when it comes to Black neighborhoods,” Muhammad said at Bushtown’s Community Haven on Thursday.