slides about Pittsburgh's Hill District as represented in August Wilson's play, Radio Golf

1. August Wilson Country
Pittsburgh’s Hill District
(Above: August Wilson at site of his mother’s last home--inspired the set of his play King Hedley II)

3. Destruction of the Lower Hill in 1956
• “urban renewal” project by URA (Urban Redevelopment
Authority)
– to make a cultural district near downtown Pgh
– Build the Civic Arena
• City govt. took over about half the Hill District
– Razed buildings and neighborhoods
– Lost 400+ businesses
– Forced ~8,000 residents to move
• What was lost?
– Heart of the Hill! Many small locally owned businesses —The
Hill’s profit base connected to Downtown Pittsburgh
– Black culture in early 20th c. Pittsburgh
• Pittsburgh Courier: weekly black newspaper with national
circulation—documented early 20th c. protest movements, national
news relevant to black community
• Jazz musicians’s clubs
• Negro Baseball League
– Interracial Ethnic community of Lower Hill
• Losses continue: old buildings, businesses abandoned,
slated for demolition
• Can the Hill be revitalized? (If so, whose interests would
be served?)

4. Freedom Corner
• Left: "At Freedom Corner," a drawing by Carlos
F. Peterson depicting the gradual collapse of
Pittsburgh's Hill District in the aftermath of
urban renewal. Pittsburgh civil rights marches
began at this corner, hence the drawing's
title. ”Source:
http://www.arch.ksu.edu/seamon/Simms_fullilove.htm
• At St. Benedict the Moor Catholic Church on
Centre Ave. In 1960, across the street from
this historic landmark, Hill District residents
made a billboard reading “No Development
Beyond This Point”

5. Old, New, and Change
Above Left: August Wilson in an old section of
the Hill
Left: Civic Arena under construction, 1960s
Above Right : Crawford Square (“new
urbanist” development on Wylie Ave, 1999)

6. The Hill of Radio Golf in 1997
• Politics as hope?
– Harmond Wilks’ election campaign: mayor of Pgh
Conflicts? (Mame, Roosevelt vs. Harmond’s views)
– Mame—hopes to work as press secretary: PA gov.
• $$: Wealth, Govt. Money, and Quarters in Slot machines
– Roosevelt Hicks’ lifestyle (golf club, Lexus, Tiger Woods poster)
• Desire to have Hill declared “blighted”—why?
• Golf club for the kids
– Elder Joseph Barlow to H. Wilks: America the Slot Machine (21-22)
• Class divisions:
– Entrances of Sterling Johnson and Elder Joseph Barlow (“Old Joe”)
• Sterling’s past in the Hill (14-15), his “resume”: visible on Bedford Ave (16)
• Elder Joseph Barlow– in trouble with law for fraud (20-21)
– “Redevelopment” perspectives:
• BEDFORD HILLS
• Lights for Kennard Field (22-23)—people asking since 1952
• Painting the house on 1839 Wylie Ave

7. Cochise
• Mid-19th-century Apache warrior
• Led successful uprising, 1861 against
white ranchers in Arizona (US army
caught up in Civil War in the east)
• 1862—US army volunteers from CA
suppress Apaches
• Cochise hides and followers hide in the
Dragoon Mts, AZ
• Cochise surrendered, 1871 but resisted
displacement of Apaches to reservation
• Died 1874. Apache cause was then taken
up by Geronimo
• See p. 77: Sterling Johnson’s reference.