Savannah Alderwoman Bernetta Lanier used to love her late mother’s stories about West Broad Street, now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Her mother would recall the excitement for Friday night to roll around, going to see men in their zoot suits and watching them twirl their big chains around in circles. Lanier, recalling memories of hearing those stories, remarked on how West Broad Street is “very dear to a lot of Savannahians.”
The corridor was once a nexus for Black Savannahians, the central corridor for Black business in the city home to banks, movie theaters and markets among others. But opening the Interstate 16 flyover above the street in the late 1960s changed the fabric of the once thriving district, leading to demolition of Savannah’s union station and historically Black neighborhoods like Frogtown, and contributing to the decline of local business there…