What we know as the Harriet Tubman Homes public housing development came into existence at the tail end of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The housing units were to be purchased in response to the Great Depression and to the end of World War II. The homes were originally named Boone-Hysinger Homes. From its construction in 1952 through the late 1950s, Boone-Hysinger was 100 percent comprised of white working- and middle-class residents. In the 1960s, black families started moving in. Soon the 500-unit neighborhood became nearly 100 percent black.

Racial Tension

Boone-Hysinger was caught in the thick of racial tensions in the mid 1960s. The Chattanooga headquarters of the Klu Klux Klan was located at the intersection of Dodson and Glass Streets (at the location of what is now the abandoned Alabama Furniture Store). In August 1965, black residents were heckling, jeering, and throwing rocks at participants of a Klu Klux Klan rally taking place outside Boone-Hysinger. A group of young white males then loaded tear-gas pens into .22 caliber firearms and fired on the black residents. In September 1965, there were multiple bomb threats on Hardy Junior High School, located just around the corner on Roanoke Avenue.

High Crime

By 1985, Boone-Hysinger (referred to as Boone Heights by the residents) had the highest crime rate in the entire city of Chattanooga. One resident remembers, “Man, it was bad. There were gunshots every day; murders every Friday ... Really.” That is when a group of 10 women who lived in Boone-Hysinger decided to start a Resident Neighborhood Association Council. The former president of that Neighborhood Council said, “We were tired. We decided to take the neighborhood back.” Chattanooga Venture supported the 10 women, sending them all across the country to be trained by other female community developers.

New Name

When the women returned, it marked the “golden age” of the housing development. The Harriet Tubman Coalition was formed. It was comprised of a partnership of agencies, churches, community leaders and the Resident Neighborhood Association. The Resident Neighborhood Association also petitioned to change the name from Boone-Hysinger, which carried an awful stigma throughout the area, to Harriet Tubman Homes, after the celebrated Underground Railroad organizer. Over 90 percent of the residents signed the petition, which the Chattanooga Housing Authority at first denied but ultimately approved.

Vice Presidential Visit

The former president of the Resident Neighborhood Association told of a time during the 1990s when Vice President Al Gore and Senator Billy Cooper were given a walking tour down Southern Street, one of the worst drug corridors in the city both then and now. Vice President Gore asked them what they needed. They asked for fences placed around each yard. Harriet Tubman’s bylaws stated that each resident was responsible for adequately maintaining his or her own yard. Failure to do so was grounds for eviction. Fences provided residents a divider between their lawn and everyone else’s. This brought a sense of pride, ownership, and responsibility. Also, this kept the authorities from driving up on their lawns, which happened every time there was a raid.

New Life

The street directions were rerouted, some converted into one-way streets, making traffic more uniform, bringing more order and keeping vehicles from zigzagging and racing carelessly through the neighborhood. The residents pushed to change the zoning of Harriet Tubman in order to bring agencies into the community. A police precinct, Boy’s and Girls Club Inc., Chattanooga State Technical Community College, Southeast Tennessee Private Industry Council, Hamilton County One-Room Drop-In School, Neighborhood Youth Center, Harriet Tubman Express, Council for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services, Jobs Plus training initiative, and LINKS all moved into the neighborhood on North Hawthorne Street, which became known as “service row” or “service strip”. A recording studio and dance studio also were brought in. One former resident remarked, “It was a radical change. No other project has ever had anything like it.”

Eventual Decline

Eventually, the Harriet Tubman Resident Neighborhood Association council members moved out or passed away, the association disbanded, and the Harriet Tubman Coalition slowly died. All but four agencies moved out of the public housing development. The neighborhood began to take a turn for the worse. Drugs and gangs filled the void that the Harriet Tubman Coalition and Neighborhood Association left. One man explained, “In Harriet Tubman there has always been a connection between the community organizers and the drugs. When one goes up, the other goes down. One of them will always rule this community. With 19 murders in a year in Harriet Tubman, who you think is winning right now?”

Renewed Hope

In 2009 residents of Harriet Tubman decided to revive their Neighborhood Association Council, with help from Hope for the Inner City. The Neighborhood Association Council offers residents a regular forum to be heard and take charge of the problems in their community.

— Researched and compiled by Aaron Cook
July 2009