Black Life On Wilmington's East Side
The United States has many small communities that are little-known and that bear celebrating. Among these communities is the East Side of Wilmington, Delaware. Wilmington's East Side is an old residential community which has gone through many changes over the years. Early in the 20th Century, the East Side became African American in demographics with the migration of many people from Southern States, including rural Maryland's Eastern Shore. Hara Wright-Smith tells the story of the East Side's African American community in this book, "African Americans of Wilmington's East Side" (2022), a photographic history published by Images of America. A native of Newcastle County, Delaware, Wright-Smith received her PhD in city and regional planning from the University of Pennsylvania and wrote her dissertation on Wilmington's East Side.
This book is an inspiration as it captures a slice of American life. Wright-Smith aims to capture the spirit of a community through the 1960s as it struggled with Jim Crow and racial segregation. The residents of the East Side, about 1,000 -- 1,200 people -- held their heads high, kept family, communal, economic, and religious ties, and moved forward. The book's primary intended audience is the community itself and its surroundings as Wright-Smith says her book "attempts to capture the importance of positive self-image among residents who shared in a struggle for equality, dignity and a common reverence for a place that faced an unforgiving degree of overt racism and discrimination that plagued all of Black America during this period."
The book is a hymn to ordinary life, with its difficulties and stresses. It emphasizes family, particularly in its opening chapter. It shows long-term residents who came from the South and stayed to build their lives. Some of the people shown became well-known as community activitists and as professionals in medicine, law, or education. The images and stories of these people are juxtaposed with stories of people who were blue collar workers and with those who had to struggle for a living. The people in the photographs, (which come from historical society files or from the collections of indviduals) are invariably well-dressed and face the camera with a sense of pride and purpose. I was moved to see the passion that has gone into this book and the spirit of community in its people.
This spirit continues through the study with photographs and discussions of many Black owned businesses and places where residents of the East Side worked. The book has a heavy emphasis on religion and education, with a chapter devoted to the many churches in the area, many of which have a long history, and the schools. In particular, Howard High School was for many years the only high school open to African American students in the Wilmington area, and it was a party to the desegregation litigation in "Brown v. Board of Education." The book offers many photos of the teachers and students at Howard High School and their stories. The book also explores the cultural life of the East Side and closes by touching upon the urban renewal projects that radically changed the character of the area.
The book moved me to explore a little further, and I found reviews of the book and interviews with the author in some Delaware publications, including a review and interview with the author by Sydney Livingston in "Delaware Today" of May 6, 2022. With the publication of this book, Hara-Smith also worked for about two years as the director of economic activity and inclusion for the Wilmington Alliance to provide support for entrepreneurs and small businesses in Wilmington, including the East Side. I learned as well that the East Side fell upon hard times following the period discussed in Wright-Smith's book. Many of the old homes are boarded up, businesses have closed, and the area suffers from crime and blight. The city of Wilmington spent, as of 2024, over $18 million to revitalize the East Side. My understanding is that it is still a work in progress.
I had no knowledge of Wilmington's East Side other than this book and my slight follow-up reading. It was good to learn about this community and about the character of its residents and to see the author's love and enthusiasm for her subject. It is valuable to keep the spirit of America's local communities alive.
