The “Injustices” series, published by the USA TODAY Network in collaboration with the Equal Justice Initiative, seeks to confront the realities of racial injustice, reckon with their enduring effects, and preserve these narratives as part of America’s collective history.
Drawn by its booming steel mills and factories, Black Americans were moving to industrial Pittsburgh in record numbers at the start of the 20th century. The men, women and children who arrived on northbound trains were fleeing the racial terror lynchings, convict leasing, Black Codes and other horrors of the Jim Crow South.
Pittsburgh held out the hope of jobs. There was also a vibrant Black community, with deep religious, cultural, and anti-slavery roots dating back to the days of the Underground Railroad. The heart of that community was a working-class district known as “the Hill.”…