Reprinted from Live 5 News
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Nonprofit organizations in North Charleston are working to prevent marginalized residents from being pushed out of the communities they call home.
Henrietta Woodward grew up in Union Heights, one of the earliest predominantly African American communities established in 1910 and annexed into the City of North Charleston in 1997.
“We had laundromats, there was a theater, a drugstore. We had mom-and-pop stores, kindergartens,” Woodward says. “Economic development was real. For our communities, it was vibrant, and it really felt we didn’t have to go out of our communities if we had a need.”
Years later, community members feel a disconnect from its roots because of the development built around them.
“Growing up, we could just walk right through the community, but this caused a real split in our communities being disconnected,” Woodward says. “People need housing desperately. And what we can provide is housing to those individuals that are low income.”
“We used to have a parade around here. A lot of people around here owned houses, owned stores, so many churches around here,” Neighbor Richard Logan says.
The change is what pushes Woodward and others who grew up in these neighborhoods to restitch its social and physical fabric.
“What I see sometimes is a community of empathy where services are not there for them, not the services, a lot of times, they need. We need to empower the people that live and have been living in those communities,” Woodward says.