The American Tobacco Trail

Durham's American Tobacco Trail is a site of deep history that informs how people experience the city today. Once a railroad line that divided white neighborhoods from African American neighborhoods, the trail now opens a door between these communities. In the fall of 2015, I created an exhibit about the American Tobacco Trail for SpiritHouse's 2015 community book study of Dr. Mindy Fullilove's Urban Alchemy: Restoring Joy in America's Sorted-Out Cities. The interactive exhibit paired Durham's redlining maps with maps showing who lives on either side of the trail today.

An excerpt from an interactive map shows the location of formal and informal access points on the American Tobacco Trail. Participants used sticky notes to place stories of their experience on the trail as well as where they access the trail. Below, a series of four maps reveals divisions along socioeconomic lines on either side of the trail.

An excerpt from a dot density map shows racial segregation and the American Tobacco Trail. Blue dots represent white people, green dots represent Black/African American, tan is Latino/Hispanic, red is Asian/Pacific Islander, yellow is American Indian/Alaskan Native, brown is other and purple is two or more races. Participants debriefed in small groups, bringing their impressions to the larger study group at the end of the facilitation.