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Photo courtesy of Pop and Marie Sadler. A new project led by Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU) historians will allow Charlotte, N.C., residents to experience a digital replication of razed Black neighborhoods.
Other cities have offered versions of augmented reality tours, but JCSU’s approach will involve a VR component.
JCSU partnered with Duke University early on and later connected with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) to bring together technical expertise to achieve the vision. Led by JCSU Electronic Resources Librarian Tekla Ali Johnson and JCSU Archivist and Digital Manager Brandon Lunsford, the project will create a digital replication of Charlotte neighborhoods that were razed in urban renewal efforts in the 60s and 70s.
JCSU virtual-reality project to showcase Black neighborhoods torn apart by urban renewal
Using grants totaling $307,000, researchers at the school will use computer technology to reconstruct the former Brooklyn and Greenville neighborhoods.
With aid from computers and historic documents, JCSU researchers will use historic photos such as this to stitch together two Charlotte communities long vanished. (Photo: Courtesy of JCSU)
April 5, 2021
Seventy-three-year-old Arthur Griffin Jr. remembers growing up in the Brooklyn community long before urban renewal razed the historic Black area in uptown Charlotte.
“We felt safe,” Griffin said. “We felt like we belonged.”
Now thanks to work underway at Johnson C. Smith University, Griffin soon may get to revisit the lost neighborhood of his youth, but only in a virtual reality.