Describe the characteristics of the Indiana Ave in this artwork's History.
The downtown Indiana Ave. location selected for the street mural is symbolic of both Indianapolis's Black history and its legacy of White supremacy. The street, which runs in a northwest diagonal outward from the city center, began to be populated by Blacks as early as the 1860s. by the early 20th century, it was the clear center of Black culture in the city, with Black-owned business and Black churches dotting the area. Then, beginning in the 1950s, the city of Indianapolis undertook a campaign of uprooting Indiana Ave's Black populace in a forced redevelopment plan that Wildstyle Paschall of New America describes as "ethnic cleansing". Utilizing legal tactics, such as declaring areas blighted and invoking eminent domain, Indianapolis's White leadership took over and demolished swaths of the area in order to make way for the construction of the Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis campus, an Indiana University Health medical campus, the downtown section of Interstate 65, and increased parking. This history made the mural's placement a reference to the city's history of racial injustice.
Indianapolis White supremacy eminent domain New America Indiana University Health Interstate 65 Indiana Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis