#83. Magnificent Train Stations

Integration. Could this four syllable word be the driving force behind the ruination of the U.S. major city and worse, the degradation of the environment and the harbinger of man-made global warming?

Pre-Obama America was a veritable Whitopia, with more than 90 percent of the population white people (Black and white people might find it hard to believe now-a-days, but those who are deemed Hispanic in today's racial spoils system were less than one percent of the population of the entire county in 1964. Now, they represent a superior numerical number than Black people).

However, major cities that once were humming with innovation and commerce, soon found a growing problem within their city limits after full equality was bestowed upon Black people by the SCOTUS; massive white flight:

It was one of the most significant demographic trends of the latter half of the 20th century. It has also been one of the more controversial issues demographers and sociologists have struggled to interpret. The subject of white residents fleeing to the suburbs from cities, so-called "white flight," is not, however, past history.

Census 2000 reveals that a second wave of white migration is occurring today, the causes of which are both complex and disputable. American Demographics asked two leading demographers to offer their interpretations of this recent population shift.

De Jure and De Facto segregation represent modern Scylla and Charybdis to Black peoples full entry into the daily life of American society:

"de jure segregation is segregation imposed by law (de jure is latin for lawful)

de facto segregation is segregation by fact or circumstance. Very often this is not a conscious choice. A good example is found in neighborhoods, frequently there is a white neighborhood or a black neighborhood, this concentration can lead to schools that are predominately one race. (de facto is latin for by fact)"

With full on equality kicking in the 1960s and white people fleeing integration with the speed of endangered citizens fleeing the alien invasion in War of the Worlds, major cities were left to be run in the capable of Black people.

These fine Black people found the Halls of Power that were once denied to them, completely and unequivocally open, without an inhibitors (such as white voting solidarity keeping Black people out of the City Hall).

Thus, white people fled to formerly pristine land outside major cities, that was untouched by developers, but would soon be developed into vibrant cities where upper and middle-class white people sought refuge from the growing radicalization of Black people in the 1960s.

Beautiful land was turned into a haven for people to economically escape (for a little while, see the Reality of Clayton County) the truculent nature of major cities and create suburban paradise out of the vast wilderness.

These beautiful ecosystems were turned into vast graveyards where white people busied themselves with life away from abandoned major cities that were now firmly in the control of Black power spewing politicians.

Graveyards, you might ask? Yes. White people found life idyllic in suburbia, but this short-lived fantasy of escaping the darkening reality of America would ensnare people in a continuous cycle of abandoning one suburb for the next whitopia. You see, when one suburb had an economic boom, Black people would follow and find haven there in the form of Section 8 housing.

Sadly, the developers found building these refugee camps for white people off of the Eisenhower Highway System, an easy quick money scheme. Short term profits were viewed with the long term problems of congestion, urban sprawl and infrastructure considerations but a problem for future generations to deal with in the end.

These new suburban abodes were virtually inaccessible by any form of transportation - save for a car - and this meant that the exodus of white people from major cities crippled one of the ultimate forms of Manifest Destiny: the railroad system:

"Despite the difficulties, U.S. railroads carried 427 billion ton-miles of cargo annually in 1930. This increased to 750 billion ton-miles by 1975 and doubled to 1.5 trillion ton-miles in 2005.In the 1950s, the U.S. and Europe moved roughly the same percentage of freight by rail; but, by 2000, the share of U.S. rail freight was 38% while in Europe only 8% of freight traveled by rail. In 1997, while U.S. trains moved 2,165 billion ton-kilometers of freight, the 15-nation European Union moved only 238 billion ton-kilometers of freight.

Railroad companies in the United States are generally separated into three categories based on their annual revenues: Class I for freight railroads with annual operating revenues above $346.8 million (2006 dollars), Class II for freight railroads with revenues between $27.8 million and $346.7 million in 2006 dollars, and Class III for all other freight railroads. These classifications are set by the Surface Transportation Board.

In 1939 there were 132 Class I railroads. Today, as the result of mergers, bankruptcies, and major changes in the regulatory definition of "Class I," there are only seven railroads operating in the United States that meet the criteria for Class I. As of 2006, U.S. freight railroads operated 140,490 route-miles (226,097 km) of standard gauge in the United States."

The importance of railroads in transporting tangible goods, freight, animals and people over long distances in shortened amounts of time lead to a vast opening of the United States and enabled people to conduct business in new ways that revolutionized commerce and trade.

Now, some people believe in conspiracy theories and many attribute the decline of the rail system to General Motors putting out rumors about how unsafe trolleys and the rail system would be, as opposed to cars.

This is wrong. Passenger railroad decline is directly correlated with white flight and integration, for white people abandoning major cities to control of Black people meant a complete repudiation of everything that they had built, including grand rail stations, which Black people correctly saw as a symbol of white oppression, since many Blacks were denied entry into this grand of white transportation by Jim Crow laws or other forms of segregation.

Now, many would consider the only contribution Black people have ever given to the idea of the railroad system to be firmly in the Underground variety, but Black people were instrumental in dissembling glorious train stations that once stood at the center of nearly every major American city:

"In 1963, America learned a painful lesson when Pennsylvania Station, an architectural treasure that Senator Daniel Moynihan described as “the best thing in our city,” was torn down and replaced with a dreary complex that includes an office building and Madison Square Garden. The rail station, to this day the nation’s busiest, was moved underground into a claustrophobic warren of artificially lit passageways and bleak waiting rooms.

While there has been an active campaign since the 1990’s to rectify the mistake by creating a new and worthy station a block away, the $1 billion-plus project remains stuck in political gridlock."

Remember, Plessy v. Ferguson was a huge SCOTUS decision that revolved around Black people and the denial of access to trains:

"On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy boarded a car of the East Louisiana Railroad that was designated for use by white patrons only. Although Plessy was born a free person and was one-eighth black and seven-eighths white, under a Louisiana law enacted in 1890, he was classified as Black, and thus required to sit in the "colored" car. When, in an act of planned disobedience, Plessy refused to leave the white car and move to the colored car, he was arrested and jailed."

Thus, in every major American city once Black people took power, these train stations were seen as beacons of white supremacy and would have to be torn down brick by brick:

" MEMPHIS - Union Station

When this city’s Union Station opened in 1912, it was the largest stone structure in town. But when the U.S. Postal Service announced that it needed new land in the city in the late 1960s, the magnificent building was chosen for demolition because it no longer attracted the crowds that it had once brought into the city. Any interest in saving the structure itself was ignored."

There was no interest in saving these stations because they were rife with the putrid stench of white supremacy and they were eye-sores to Black people who were once incapable of walking into them without being arrested.

Philadelphia, Portland, New York, Memphis, Birmingham and Atlanta all once had glamorous buildings that acted as transportation hubs for the rail system, but were razed by Black people whom found these buildings an unpleasant reminder of a sordid past of hate and bigotry.

Detroit has the Michigan Central Station, but has been left in disrepair and will be torn down in the coming years as that city is walled off from humanity.

Birmingham, Alabama - a city on the verge of collapsing - was once home to the Birmingham Terminal Station:

"As automobile ownership increased and air travel gained popularity, rail travel suffered. By 1960 only 26 trains per day went through Terminal Station. At the beginning of 1969 it was down to seven trains. During the 1960s the station served as the site of numerous small episodes of the Civil Rights Movement. Local Civil Rights leaders like Fred Shuttlesworth challenged the racially-segregated accommodations of the station and crowds of belligerent whites gathered, sometimes leading to violence.

In 1969 the U.S. Social Security Administration announced plans to build a consolidated service center in downtown Birmingham. A local developer quietly put together a plan for a $10 million redevelopment for the site of the deteriorating station. The redevelopment, which the developer pitched to the Southern Railway, then sole-operator of the station, would include a smaller, more modern train terminal along with a new Social Security building, two smaller office buildings and a large hotel.

Permission to proceed with demolition was granted on June 30, 1969 by the Alabama Public Service Commission. They set aside the arguments of a handful of preservationists in attendance saying that they could only consider "the necessity and convenience of the traveling public." In its run-down state, the Terminal Station was judged to no longer meet those needs. Within a few months, the building was demolished and the site cleared."

A full list of demolished rail stations can be found here and a beautifully done website can be found here.

The full costs of racial integration can never fully be calculated, for white people had (and continue to have) no desire to live near Black people at all.

They will build suburbs and commute endless hours to avoid being near Black people, only adding to the further denigration of the environment:

"Lost time and endless aggravation are two of the biggest drawbacks of a grueling commute by car. But gridlock on the way to work also harms the environment by pumping extra pollution into the air and wasting precious fuel.

Overall, traffic congestion costs the U.S. economy $78 billion a year, wasting 2.9 billion gallons of fuel and robbing commuters of 4.2 billion hours, the study found."

Stuff Black People Don't Like would like to quantify the costs of racial integration in the United States, but that task is nearly impossible. It is in this entry that we believe in the reality of integration can be firmly established, for the take-over of major American cities by Black people prompted white people to move out and ended all hope of the rail system becoming a staple in post- World War II American life.

Thus Stuff Black People Don't Like includes magnificent train stations, for these icons of Pre-Obama America were the first landmarks that were toppled when integration happened, for Black people were reminded of the nefarious ways of white people by looking at these colossal achievements.