LSUS student, faculty team up on historic Cedar Grove project

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LSUS student, faculty team up on historic Cedar Grove project

SHREVEPORT - When Abigail Boykin was a student at Eden Gardens Elementary and Caddo Middle Magnet, she'd always wonder about the adjacent Cedar Grove neighborhood on the other side of Line Ave.

What is its history, its story?

Fast forward to her graduate student days in LSU Shreveport's Master of Liberal Arts program, and Boykin was asked to participate in a deep dive on a Shreveport neighborhood as part of the Caddo Parish Civil Rights Heritage Trail project.

"You hear a lot of things about Cedar Grove that aren't as flattering as other areas, but that contrasted heavily with the people I've met from there," said Boykin, who added she didn't hesitate to pick Cedar Grove as her neighborhood. "I wanted to explore what the real Cedar Grove was.

"What started as part of the Civil Rights Trail turned into this much larger, much more involved project on this historic neighborhood. Cedar Grove has an incredibly rich history, and there's not enough attention paid to this historic neighborhood."

Boykin teamed up with LSUS history professor Dr. Gary Joiner, the architect of the Civil Rights Heritage Trail and one of the most authoritative voices on the history of Shreveport.

Research involving faculty and students is a key facet of the MLA program, establishing mentor relationships and training the next generation of researchers in multi-disciplinary fields.

"Abigail has been doing remarkable work on this project, and she is truly a research partner and not just a graduate assistant," Joiner said. "This is the first time Cedar Grove has been examined in this kind of depth, and we wanted to go back and see what happened, how it happened, why it happened - and then identify remedies that have worked and areas that are still problems.

"We're actively sharing this information with entities like the Shreveport City Council and the Shreveport Metro Planning Commission."

Boykin and Joiner spent 18 months on the project, which involved interviews with residents and analysis of historical documents like the decennial census and housing maps from the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation.

A THRIVING VILLAGE

Black farmers moved to what is now Cedar Grove following the Civil War, living and farming before the population incorporated itself as a village in 1904.

Cedar Grove was an engine of industrialization in the early 20^th century, drawing a variety of industries to the area, including the manufacturing plant of the Louisiana Motor Car Company.

"Cedar Grove was a success story, a crowning jewel," said Joiner, who added that Cedar Grove was largely inhabited by workers while managers stayed in nearby South Highlands. "At one point Cedar Grove had 30 factories and zero unemployment."

The village even had its own suburbs, places like Werner Park and Sunset Acres before being incorporated into Shreveport proper, which both Shreveport and Cedar Grove supported in 1927.

Boykin and Joiner analyzed housing maps from HOLC and the Sanborn Fire Insurance Mao Company's index pages among a litany of other documents as part of the study.

EFFECTS OF REDLINING

When Boykin explains the Cedar Grove project, she casts it as "a case study in redlining."

Redlining is a housing practice by which the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, a federal government entity created in 1933 by The New Deal, classified streets and neighborhoods as good, suspect, or hazardous.

Non-local valuators came to Shreveport in 1940 and painted the Cedar Grove neighborhood maps with yellows and reds, with the racial makeup of residents on each particular street being the defining factor.

A red, or hazardous, designation meant that these homes were ineligible for mortgage insurance and were otherwise restricted in their access to credit.

"Cedar Grove functions as a clear example of what redlining and lack of other investment can do to a neighborhood," Boykin said. "That's from an economic development standpoint and not from the personal and cultural character of this neighborhood, which is really strong.

"Despite this history, the people of Cedar Grove have a very strong sense of community and identity. They support each other, look out for each other. Even among people who grew up there but don't live there anymore, there is a close-knit community that's family oriented."

Joiner said Shreveport and New Orleans were the only cities big enough in Louisiana to warrant federal attention.

"In the South, the basic rule was if black people were living on a street, that street received a red (hazardous) designation," said Joiner, who added that while individual Cedar Grove streets were segregated, the neighborhood as a whole was very much integrated well before most other parts of the country. "In San Francisco, it was the Chinese. In Chicago, the Polish and the Slavs. In New York - Puerto Ricans.

"Cedar Grove is a classic example of a successful neighborhood that in effect was murdered by the federal government."

With investment harder or nearly impossible to come by for decades at a time, businesses like grocery stores and banks are sparse or non-existent.

"Redlining led to economic decline as it makes it more difficult for people to own homes or purchase new homes," Boykin said. "These ramifications led to many of the economic and social issues there today."

Boykin said while redlining is the underlying cause of the neighborhood's decline, there's a "tangled web of reasons" that contribute.

The decline of manufacturing and the introduction of Interstate 49 through the neighborhood also weighed heavily.

THE FUTURE

Joiner and Boykin are providing this more complete history of Cedar Grove to neighborhood and city leaders with the idea of sparking a narrative or changing the existing narrative.

Joiner employs Geographic Information System software to map current houses and businesses, comparing those to historical maps to generate trends.

"We want to assist however we can to see more development and investment in Cedar Grove," said Joiner, who retired as a professor after the spring semester but plans to continue this research and is open to student mentorship in his next chapter.

Joiner and LSUS students studied other neighborhoods like Allendale, Agers, and Stoner Hill with more neighborhoods on the way.

Queensborough could make a great candidate as a neighborhood negatively impacted by Interstate 20 slicing through but also having a big positive in Willis Knighton North's healthcare facilities as an anchor.

Joiner is planning a book on Shreveport's different neighborhoods and their roles throughout the city's history.

For Boykin, her time on the Cedar Grove project is coming to a close with her graduating and starting a job in Natchitoches as the executive director of the Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches.

Boykin, who earned her LSUS undergraduate degree in history before deciding to stay on campus for the Master of Liberal Arts, said her connection with history faculty made pursuing her graduate degree at LSUS the right choice.

"The quality of our history department is unmatched throughout the region," Boykin said. "And then other professors who are part of the MLA like Dr. Matthew Pollock and his expertise in linguistics matched my interests in field history and historical linguistics.

"For those considering the MLA, this degree not only builds upon what you've learned but gives you the tools to complete more in-depth projects faster. My time here at LSUS and in the MLA has been defined by the wonderful professors and faculty we have."

The MLA provides opportunity to develop advanced skills in research, critical thinking, and creative problem solving while diving into topics that deeply interest students.

The program also hosts frequent lectures for the community, usually at locations of the Shreve Memorial Library.

For more information on LSUS's MLA degree, visit the program website.